deadScroll

Inspiration

We built DeadScroll out of a very real, universal pain: the helpless moment when you open your laptop with good intentions… and suddenly find yourself doomscrolling through Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube with no memory of how you got there.
Timers didn’t help.
Website blockers didn’t help.
Motivation definitely didn’t help.

We needed something stronger than willpower , something darker, more immersive, and emotionally disruptive.
A tool that doesn’t just block distractions, but buries them in a haunted ritual and forces you to learn something new before you escape.

DeadScroll was born to turn procrastination into progress, built as a horror experience perfect for Kiroween and powered at every step by Kiro’s intelligent development workflow.

What it does

DeadScroll is a horror-themed Chrome extension that turns addictive websites into learning quests. When you bury a website, it is sealed inside a digital coffin in your graveyard. If you try to open it, your browser glitches, a ghost appears, and you must complete a Gemini-powered learning quest before the site unlocks.

Website Burial System: block sites for 1 to 365 days
Horror Block Screen: ghosts and glitch effects intercept your attempts
AI Learning Quest: Gemini generates three learning sections with quizzes
Quiz Combat: correct answers kill ghosts, wrong answers cost hearts
Health System: lose all hearts and the quest restarts
Progress Tracking: track attempts, failures, and completions
Unlock Reward: defeat all ghosts to open the site and remove it from the graveyard

DeadScroll transforms distraction into a structured, educational ritual.

How we built it

DeadScroll was built almost entirely with Kiro, which acted as a creative partner rather than a traditional IDE.

Vibe Coding
We described the feeling of DeadScroll glitching screens, ghost encounters, coffin animations, graveyard UI and Kiro generated React and TypeScript components that matched the intended experience.

Web Coding
Kiro scaffolded the Chrome Extension MV3 structure, background services, content scripts, and routing logic, removing the need for manual boilerplate setup.

Spec-Driven Development
We wrote natural-language specs for the burial logic, ghost combat system, heart-based damage, learning flow, and unlock conditions. Kiro converted these into deterministic, production-ready implementations.

Agentive Quickset
We used Quickset to automatically generate Gemini API wrappers, TypeScript models, storage layers, extension build tasks, and debugging workflows. This saved hours of configuration and allowed rapid iteration.

MCP Integration
Through MCP, we orchestrated Gemini content generation, validated domains, created multi-step learning flows, and stored graveyard data. This made the system modular and responsive.

In two days, Kiro helped us build something we procrastinated for years.

Challenges we ran into

Designing a consistent horror aesthetic that remained functional.
Creating smooth interactions between background scripts, popup UI, and the block screen in an MV3 environment.
Ensuring Gemini-generated content was both educational and compatible with the quiz combat system.
Preventing duplicate site burials and maintaining a clean state.
Managing transitions across the quest UI, block screen, and unlock flow.
Balancing quiz difficulty so users remain challenged but not discouraged.

Kiro helped solve many of these issues by refining patterns, debugging flows, and generating alternative implementations quickly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating a cinematic productivity tool with a fully immersive horror experience.
Inventing a new behavioral pattern where distraction becomes a learning opportunity.
Completing a polished MV3 extension in under 48 hours.
Building smooth, thematic UI with glitch effects, ghost interactions, and coffin animations.
Leveraging Kiro so effectively that entire modules were generated from a single conversation.
Designing a tool that is fun, memorable, and genuinely helpful.

DeadScroll is the first blocker that doesn’t just stop you ,it teaches you.

What we learned

We learned how powerful Kiro is when combining vibe coding, web coding, and spec-driven development.
We discovered how seamlessly AI workflows (Gemini + MCP) can generate personalized educational content.
We realized that horror-themed UX can be an extremely effective behavioral design tool.
We understood the complexities of Chrome MV3 and how Kiro simplifies them.
We learned that meaningful friction can motivate users better than restriction.
We experienced firsthand how building with fear and education creates a compelling progression loop.

What's next for DeadScroll

Support for more AI providers such as OpenAI and Claude.
A detailed statistics dashboard showing learning progress and failed temptations.
An achievement system to gamify behavior change.
Multi-language support.
Configurable quest difficulty levels.
Themed ghost bosses tied to subject areas.
Boss battles requiring multi-step reasoning.
Custom learning topics per blocked website.

DeadScroll has the potential to become a new category of habit-building tools — a place where your distractions die, and your knowledge grows stronger.