CodeQuest

Inspiration

Our team members all recognize how similar all programming courses are and we wanted something new that was more engaging than just following instructions.

What it does

This puzzle platformer game lets you build or practice your programming skills while platforming, fighting enemies, and fighting bosses. There are courses for Python, JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, and dsa.

How we built it

It was mostly built with plain JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through Claude. It also includes custom interpreters for Python, JavaScript, C++, C# and Java so the code the user writes actually runs.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was finding the balance between a game and a course. You'd think people would eagerly choose to do courses that are more like games but if a course is too "gamey", they might use it once or twice but they'd just find it more convenient to use a normal course. We did end up finding a really nice balance of the two to the point where it feels convenient to play, is actually helpful, and is pretty fun.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

When we were brainstorming, we were thinking of making a game that helped you study or learn in some way and we went through multiple versions of programming games, cybersecurity simulators, and medical memorization games but the final idea we landed on ended up working really well.

What we learned

Everyone in our group has worked on projects before but not with 3 members openly contributing ideas. We learned how helpful it was to get other perspectives on an idea because something could always sound great and have some insane drawbacks.

What's next for CodeQuest

This is probably the end of this specific project. It was a cool hackathon project but it's not something we see a ton of potential in for the long term. We're not against growing it or remaking it or anything like that but we don't see the need to at the moment.