Inspiration
We wanted to create a game that had an educational aspect and was relevant to the theme 'Breaking Boundaries'. We wanted to make the most of our combined range of programming skills and ensure everyone on the team had something useful to work on. We really wanted to work in a six-person team for this project.
What it does
Players navigate through a board full of hexagons, and when they land on each one they have to answer a trivia question. The more questions they answer correctly, the better!
How we built it
We created some static webpages with HTML and CSS which were then served through Flask. The Flask backend was developed to serve JSON objects to client. We also created database models with SQLAlchemy. We launched the Flask app on a AWS EC2 instance using WSGGI and nginx. For the game, we implemented a torus hex grid and game UI as a base to add question popup functionality, and used jQuery & AJAX for client-server communication along with flavour text.
Challenges we ran into
All of AWS! We also struggled with the entire migrations directory as well as setting up a hexagonal grid. We only had two team members who knew JavaScript and the rest of us were physics students with a background in Python, so we had to ensure we could run the game using mainly those two languages. Working virtually was difficult at times, but we made the most of Discord and GitHub so we were all up to date on each other's progress.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are pleased with the style of the static site, all the pages fit well together. We made the most of all our skills, using a JavaScript frontend and a Flask Python API backend. All elements of the project were able to come together before the deadline, which for us was the most important thing! Running the site through AWS was a big challenge for us, and we are proud to have achieved this.
What we learned
More about bootstrap. How to use AWS. Some of us had not used Flask before, and some had barely used GitHub before. We learned how to work well as a team and communicate well with each other about our progress.
What's next for breakingboundr.io
Create more questions, and enable players to compete against each other. Improve look & design of the game itself.
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