Synapse is a word navigation game where players find the shortest path between two words by selecting neighboring words in a semantic network. The game developed from an accidental discovery during website animation planning, originating from the invention of a "word discrimination" task that measures semantic judgment quality and evaluates alignment between human and AI understanding.
Development Pipeline
The project evolved through four distinct phases: initial animation concept led to the AHAB cognitive alignment platform, which explored how well humans can predict AI semantic judgments using "odd-one-out" tasks. The English Word Atlas provided linguistic infrastructure by creating a custom vocabulary with linear frequency distribution rather than natural Zipfian curves. A proof of concept implemented the core mechanics using React, Vite, and D3.js. The production beta represents a complete architectural rebuild.
Technical Implementation
The current system uses React Native/Expo for cross-platform capability, with Supabase PostgreSQL backend replacing local JSON files. Stripe integration handles premium subscriptions and payments. The semantic graph contains 5,000+ words connected via cosine similarity relationships, with Dijkstra's algorithm managing pathfinding through semantic space.
Performance is measured against optimal paths, with the system including 365 curated daily challenges, achievement tracking, and detailed post-game analytics.
Production Features
The application implements user authentication with hCaptcha verification and Supabase integration, anonymous play with local progress saving, and premium subscriptions providing unlimited replays, exclusive content, and cross-device progress syncing. Daily challenges offer free curated games with AI solutions that reset daily, while premium accounts access past dailies and unlimited freeplay with random word pairs. Additional features include deep link player challenges and shared theme challenges.
Technical optimizations include sub-3-second load times and comprehensive security measures including anti-tampering protection and rate limiting.
Beta Evolution
The production beta has continued evolving based on user feedback. Version 1.1.0-beta introduced progressive achievements that can be earned multiple times across games, visual challenge sharing with graph previews, enhanced game reports with prominent move counts, and significant UI improvements including theme consistency fixes.
Recent updates addressed major bugs in report screen display, graph visualization, contact form submission, and daily challenge syncing. The beta period has been extended through July 2025 to develop Lab Mode featuring different k-nearest neighbor configurations and content refinements.
What It Accomplishes
The game demonstrates human alignment with AI through gameplay reward feedback—players learn to predict how the AI model organizes semantic relationships by getting immediate feedback on their choices. Beyond that, semantic association games exercise whatever cognitive benefits come from navigating conceptual relationships and expanding vocabulary.
Most importantly, it's fun! The research-to-product pipeline showed that semantic similarity mechanics create genuinely engaging puzzles.
Play Synapse - The production word navigation game with daily challenges.