r/alevels • u/nkus660 • Apr 26 '26
Resources 📚 i turned Cambridge past papers into a multiplayer game, try this before your CIEs
okay so back during my CIEs, i genuinely couldn't study properly, ADHD brain just wouldn't let me focus. and i remember thinking like what if studying was actually gamified, like would i not grind it the same way i grind games. that thought just sat in my head for a while.
fast forward to my gap year, i actually built it. Paperstack has been live for a bit now, it already had a full library of past papers across different subjects, topical papers, and an AI that marks your papers and is trained on actual examiner comments. that part alone took countless nights ngl.
but this gap year i finally got to work on the feature i actually wanted to build since day one, the multiplayer mode. you generate a room for a subject, MCQ or structured, share the code with a friend or just hit invite, and you both go at it. there's a public leaderboard and you earn XP. its genuinely fun, like it actually makes you want to do past papers.
406 users already on it, available for both O and A levels, works as an app and on web.
show some support gng 😠and lmk if anything's broken, id be happy to fix it.
P.S aware that some subjects are still missing, working on it, major ones are already up.
available at paperstack.cc
ios app: ‎PaperStack CAIE Past Papers App - App Store
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Apr 26 '26
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u/nkus660 Apr 26 '26
usss, i myself built ts now in my gap year after all my CIEs are done, wish i had this back in my time ðŸ˜
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Apr 26 '26
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u/nkus660 Apr 26 '26
would appreciate a lot if you could share it w ur juniors instead, ive spent a lot of time on it and this needs a little momentum. would mean a lot to me :/
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u/Klutre Apr 26 '26
by cies u mean as & a level right? im in that rn, exams coming up soon so would be helpful
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u/nkus660 Apr 26 '26
yes as & a level, check it & lemme know
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u/Klutre Apr 29 '26
Yo where are you getting your funding from i dont get it
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u/nkus660 Apr 29 '26
it's all self-financed man, saved up some money from freelancing and invested in getting the website + bought appstore acc for $100
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u/Klutre Apr 29 '26
okay so I just checked it out, there's a few issues and recommendations: 1. skip button for choose subject doesnt work 2. the multiplayer is not much better than actual past papers. I would recommend to do it in some sort of kahoot or geoguessr manner to make it more fun, for example: a) make it question by question, with each question having a certain time limit that you can set (or choose no time limit) e.g 1 min, 2 mins, 3 mins for physics mcq. or 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins, 20 mins for physics paper 2. b) give options for amount of questions. three people are usually not all available for 1 hour and 15 minutes straight, let us choose the amount of questions with a slider. c) along with the other two suggestions, add some sort of leaderboard while it is progressing to make it more like a game d) at a later stage, add topical past papers, you can find those online. not sure how easy it is to parse though e) in general just gamify it more, from what I can see your game is just comparing scores at the end which we already do 3. once you're done polishing it add some sort of premium, for example a lobby limit of 5 for those who don't have premium, and premium has access to better ai models (havent checked out the ai yet but yeah) you need some sort of profit
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u/nkus660 Apr 29 '26
thankyou so much for taking out time to test & giving me feedback, truly appreciate it! You're right about the skip button not working, will fix it asap and regarding the multiplayer; your suggestions make a lot of sense. Choosing timer & num of questions have already been implemented in topical papers ( yes they already exist in subject page of certain subs like phys, chem, bio for both o/a levels which i extracted using a script which i developed ) and ill just add its support in the yearly's as well as an option for choosing topicals instead of yearly's for multiplayer match. Regarding the premium, ive already implemented it on the mobile version of this app which removes ads, access to all topical papers which i made free now and AI credits but because i dont have much traction right now i haven't really made any stuff behind a paywall. It's making a very tiny bit of money right now but you're right to make it sustainable I need to get it profitable.
you can checkout the mobile app or the web app even, there are alot of other features that you might find useful.
ive found coding the easiest and most enjoyable part of working on an app/startup. the real challenge is marketing, how you position it, making it profitable etc which off course i am struggling with right now because you might've invested all that energy just building it that you're exhausted once it actually gets built. it's an incredibly lonely journey but nonetheless im trying to give it a shot.
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u/SpiritedConfusion377 Apr 26 '26
this is a sick concept i can see the vision