Anniversary Gift Game
A gamified gift reveal experience built as a 10th anniversary surprise — loot box animations, powerups, and a greedy algorithm that selects the best gifts within a hidden budget.
The Challenge
Planning a meaningful anniversary gift haul involves real tradeoffs — how do you know which gifts matter most to your partner without just asking them? Buying everything you want risks blowing the budget, but guessing priorities feels like a gamble.
The Solution
A loot-box-style web app where your partner ranks gifts one-by-one as they're revealed, without knowing costs or what comes next. A greedy algorithm then selects the highest-ranked gifts that fit within a hidden point budget — surfacing her true preferences to drive the final decision.
Tech Stack
The Outcome
Made a deeply personal moment feel like an event. The reveal mechanic built genuine suspense, the ranking data removed all budget guesswork, and the whole thing ran off a Google Sheet — no backend needed. A one-off build that felt polished enough to be a real product.