Let's Write an E-Mail - The Game
Productive Procrastination
Created on 29th June 2025
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Let's Write an E-Mail - The Game
Productive Procrastination
The problem Let's Write an E-Mail - The Game solves
Let's Write an Email tackles the universal productivity paradox: we procrastinate on important tasks (like writing emails) by doing less important but more immediately gratifying activities.
Our solution is a benevolent deception mechanism - a retro terminal game that tricks you into being productive while you think you're procrastinating.
Core Problems Addressed:
- Email Procrastination: Studies show SADCOIN Foundation's office workers spend 69% of their workday on email, yet still delay important responses
- Blank Page Paralysis: Starting an email from scratch is cognitively demanding
- Corporate Communication Anxiety: Fear of saying the wrong thing leads to endless drafting
- Productivity Tool Fatigue: Traditional tools feel like work; games feel like play
Our Solution:
- Gamifies email writing through absurd corporate archetypes (Officer, Agent, Monkey, Intern) that actually help you think through your goal
- AI generates email content based on mini-game performance or your conversation with the various agents
- Creates a "productive procrastination loop" where playing games actually writes your email, as sad as it is
- Blockchain integration adds stakes and rewards (SAD/FEELS tokens) for emotional authenticity and slightly frustrating UX, which promotes the core values of SADCOIN.
The result? Users complete emails between .5 and 5x faster while having fun, turning the most dreaded office task into an adventure that can only be described as very sadcoin.
Challenges we ran into
Building a Web3 productivity game with a global team of sad but busy humans required overcoming technical, creative, and coordination challenges:
Smart Contract Integration
- Permission Nightmare: Contract permissions weren't ready for frontend testing, causing a cascade of integration delays
- RPC Endpoint Authentication: Infura's endpoints kept returning 401 errors; had to migrate to public endpoints (sepolia.drpc.org)
- Chainlink VRF Learning Curve: Implementing verifiable randomness for game rewards required understanding subscription models and callback patterns
Frontend State Management Crisis
- Hydration Errors: React SSR and wallet states created mismatches between server/client rendering
- Token Balance Display: Balances showed "undefined" due to improper contract calls and formatting
- Network Switching: Auto-switching to Sepolia caused wallet connection loops
- ❌ AWS: Inference Profiles: Severe throttling with promotional credits
us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-20250514-v1:0
: Consistent ThrottlingExceptionus.meta.llama3-1-70b-instruct-v1:0
: Rate limit exceeded immediately
- GMAIL not liking our [email protected], now it works
Team Coordination Challenges
- Repository Chaos: Three developers working across two repos without clear PR processes initially created a great pool of sadness
- Communication Gaps: Creative director's beautifully sad and impossible to achieve 93-page design doc vs developer's need for technical specs and clear steps
- Role Overlap: "Tippi does whatever it takes" approach led to merge conflicts and required some duplicated work but unblocked the team when people were busy for a few days.
- Time Zone Juggling: Distributed team with busy schedules meant async communication delays
Creative vs Technical Balance
- Scope Creeper: Mini-games kept getting more complex ("intentionally buggy" became a sad feature)
- Humor FTW: Translating absurdist humor into code (how sad should the Monkey's emails be? Answer: use free Gemini, it's banana's)
- UX Paradox: Making something frustrating enough to be funny but functional enough to be useful
Resolution: Daily standups between Wil and Tippi, clear git branching strategy, and embracing the chaos as part of the "sad" brand. Accepting that we couldn't complete the amazing vision in such a short time with part-time volunteers. Hoping for prize and community interest to encourage us to keep going after the deadline.
Tracks Applied (4)
Onchain Finance
Build the Future of Web3 x AI with Amazon Bedrock
AWS
AWS Credits for all Hackathon winners and runner ups
AWS
Avalanche Track
Avalanche
Technologies used