Uncover

Inspiration

We wanted to turn everyday walking into a game. Campus and college towns are full of places people never discover because they stick to the same routes. We were inspired by fog-of-war exploration in games and the idea of “uncovering” your city step by step, so we built Uncover to reward curiosity and make exploring your campus town feel like an adventure.

What it does

Uncover is a web app that turns your campus into an explorable map. The world starts covered in fog; as you walk (or use the demo), you reveal the map and earn achievements for discovering areas like Stevens Institute of Technology, Sinatra Park, and the Hoboken waterfront. You can track steps and distance, unlock zone badges, and see your progress on a personal map. It’s built to get people outside and exploring instead of staying on the same paths.

How we built it

We built Uncover as a Next.js web app with Supabase for auth and user data. The map uses Leaflet with a custom fog layer: explored points and paths clear the fog in real time. We used OSRM for foot routing so the demo walk follows real sidewalks. Zone achievements are based on how much of each area you’ve explored, and we added a “Discover Stevens” demo that walks the campus and fills in the map so users can see the full experience quickly.

Challenges we ran into

We originally built the app with Expo for a mobile-first experience, but we ran into scope and deployment constraints. We pivoted to a web app so we could ship faster and reach users on any device without app stores. Other challenges included getting the fog-of-war logic to feel right (reveal radius, zone boundaries, and filling in areas between paths) and fixing middleware and client-side errors in production so the app loads reliably with Supabase auth.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of the fog-of-war mechanic and how it makes exploration tangible, the zone-based achievements that reward real exploration, and the demo walk that showcases the experience in one tap. Shipping a working web app after pivoting from Expo and getting auth and deployment solid on Vercel were big wins for us.

What we learned

We learned how to implement a fog-of-war style map with canvas and how to combine routing (OSRM) with exploration logic. Pivoting from Expo to a web app taught us to choose the platform that fits the timeline and audience. We also got better at debugging production issues like Edge middleware limits and client-side errors when env vars or auth fail.

What's next for Uncover

We want to take Uncover global: support more campuses and cities, let communities define their own zones and achievements, and scale the experience so anyone can uncover their own town. We’re also looking at optional mobile wrappers, so the same web app can feel native on phones.

Built With

• javascript
• leaflet.js
• mapbox-gl
• motion
• next.js
• osrm-api
• postgresql
• react
• supabase
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vercel