Every “build a side project to get hired” guide tells you the same thing: Solve a real problem. Find a pain point. Ship something useful.
The trouble was, I didn’t have a problem to solve. I didn’t have a SaaS idea unique enough to matter, I wasn’t in a position to go market some half-baked product.
But I wanted to build, I had plenty of time and curiosity, and one honest goal: build something that gets a recruiter’s attention.
Games!, these are the lowest-friction way to get users, nobody signs up for a “CRUD app” for ‘fun’, but they’ll click PLAY.
Introducing Zentra(Click to Play)
Go shoot someone, I’ll Wait.
Back? Cool. Here’s what you just played, and how it’s held together.
What It Is
You’re a sphere. Not a character or a soldier - a sphere, rolling around a noisy, uneven terrain, while pixelated rain comes down. You have a gun. So does everyone else. Highest Score Wins.
Wanna hide? Jump on Canopies and ambush anyone running across. Enemy radar gives away your position in space, but that wouldn’t be a problem if you’re quick.
Canopies serve as cover during intense fire fights, and if that’s not enough, you also have an option to activate temporary invincibility mid fights.
Under the Hood
Zentra runs on Websockets for real-time play, with Redis and Postgres behind it and a NestJs backend tying it together. Each peice is doing a specific job, and each one has a story worth it’s own post - So rather than cram it all here,
The above was just the overview. In the posts to come, I’ll go deeper on:
- The Netcode - Real-time position sync, shooting and keeping engagement.
- Tricks on Keeping the FPS High - The tricks that stopped it turning into a slideshow
- Filling empty lobbies - Bots architecture, how they navigate terrain, aim, and feel humanish
More coming as i write them.
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