Discussion on: What are some project ideas that beginners can work on to show in their portfolio?

[Antonio Radovcic]

Games, games, games. Try to make pong and breakout to get your feet wet, then you could attempt a platformer, cookie-clicker, or a puzzle-game.

Here's why I think games are good for all-around improving as a dev:

• Games can get infinitely complex, but simple games can also be interesting.
• You can build them in any language/tech-stack.
• You learn to fight scope-creep pretty quickly.
• Suddenly you have use-cases for all the algos you usually only need at interviews (according to HN at least). Like for wayfinding, AI etc.
• The audience is much bigger for games than for, let's say, a JS-Library.
• You get to do interface-design, which is useful if you usually only do backend/systems-dev.

I'd suggest starting web-based. Check out lessmilk.com/