I had just recently completed a couple of medium-sized projects for Stardance, a global teen hackathon hosted by Hack Club, a global nonprofit organization for teen coders. To continue, I decided to follow a beginner mission that required just 5 hours of coding. I thought this project would be a quick and easy way to get a relatively small amount of digital currency for the Stardance shop, which allows you to purchase both physical and digital items. This digital currency is called Stardust.
I decided to name the project CodeWare; more on that in a minute. I went through the missions tutorial and finished in a decent amount of time. But I kept going back and making sure everything was perfect, squashing bugs before a real user would see them.
But I thought to myself one thing. This one thing completely transformed the rest of the project (did you really think I ended it there?) The one thing I thought to myself was, "Am I really going to just submit a simple project following a beginner tutorial?"
The answer to that question, and quite frankly the reason why I am making this article, is an absolute, firm "no." I was not just going to turn in a simple beginner project following a simple beginner tutorial.
The title screen of the game is the Tyleruploads Mountain Range, which contains many mountains connected via land bridges. The suspension for those bridges is the game's logo turned into a bunch of small links. Metaphysically, the game’s goal is to cross those bridges. Based on the abstract nature of this game, it also has two very abstract endings: one for when you win, and one for when you lose all of your five lives. However, I am not going to explain exactly what happens in these endings, but I will explain their significance.
They highlight the eternity of coding in the realm of bureaucratic and automatic computer-generated code files. When you take a deeper look into this seemingly elementary project, you may see a full world of possible interpretations. In the death scene, the user is said to be between the two sides of eternity, represented by the bicycle-looking infinity loop in the logo of the game.
The game is a collection of fast-paced, action-filled minigames. Each minigame has a timer you can hear ticking throughout the game. If the timer strikes zero, you either lose one of your five lives and redo the minigame, or continue to the next one. The distinction depends on the minigame type. The two types are minigames in which you need to do something within a set time or survive until the time runs out.
To set the record straight, before making this, I had absolutely no experience in any sort of game development. I didn't even have Godot—or any game engine, as a matter of fact—on my computer. I thought that Stardance Mission would be a "gentle introduction to game development and Godot." Originally.
But it was more like "ditch the mission and get actual game development skills." Currently, I have invested 51 hours and 38 minutes of real (slightly underrepresented) coding time, backed by a time tracker also provided by Hack Club. That was at least 5x larger than any project I had ever worked on before.
The reason I was able to get in so many hours is because of an unexpected plot twist. That plot twist, something that may earn me a Bambu Lab A1 Mini 3D Printer (I don't know yet), is a One-Month Extension. I had joined the Stardance hackathon late in the summer, partly due to my one-month-long sleepaway camp that doesn't even allow certain MP3 players or any E-Readers—and definitely not any sort of personal computing device but a calculator. So, I was thinking I will never have enough time to get a nice prize. And while that could still possibly be true, at least now I have a chance to have every single type of printer I could possibly think of in my room.
To be fair, that last sentence is actually very anticlimactic; the two types of printers I can think of are old HP printers with dirt-cheap generic toner cartridges and 3D printers. But what matters much more than what type of printer you have is how you use it.
In the Stardance hackathon, your Stardust payout is determined with a very simple formula: Multiplier * Hours Spent Coding = Stardust. In case you didn't catch it in the first paragraph, Stardust is what you use to buy rewards (like a 3D printer) in the digital shop. The multiplier is a bit harder to explain. It is based on 12 reviews from other teenage coders around the world, and they rate it on the following topics:
- Originality: "How distinct is the project from common projects?"
- Technicality: "How much effort did the creator put into the implementation?"
- Usability: "Did you like using it? Could you use it at all?"
- Storytelling: "How well does the creator document the development journey through devlogs, documentation, commit messages, and READMEs?"
I honestly think my project would get a pretty mediocre rating in terms of originality. It's just a video game. It could be boosted if the reviewers understand the philosophical aspects of the game, but they probably won't.
For technicality, I really think this is where it'll shine. In the 51 hours and 38 minutes I spent working on this project, I really think I made something spectacular. I went over it so many times until I was really sure it was perfect.
As for usability, this has to be great. CodeWare is accessible on its own Itch.io page and GitHub Pages site. It also has Linux, Windows, and even Web downloads available at its GitHub Releases Page.
I also think I did really well in storytelling. I made some very detailed devlogs (updates on what I code).
Feel free to check out my game at the links a bit above here. You can also check out its Stardance project page. Right now, you are essentially stuck in the biggest cliffhanger ever: Will Tyler get a 3D Printer? Well, that is going to take until November of this year to find out.
SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT INFORMATION
It turns out I did not need to wait until November! I did so well on this project that I got an unimaginable payout of 1013 Stardust with a 16.45x out of 20x multiplier, with a 20% bonus for being "Blessed" because of my thoughtful voting. With this unimaginable payout, I did not need to wait any longer to be able to purchase the 3D Printer! For perspective, it costs 802 Stardust. I am so happy with the awesome, thoughtful, and detailed reviews I got on my project! Here are some of them:
Review #1/12:
"This project is so cool. I really like how you used so many different pretty [colors on] the website and how you can watch gameplay videos because it is super confusing, but after I watched the gameplay videos, I [understood] exactly what to do, so I will make sure to tell this project to all of my friends and family so they can play it too!!"Review #4/12:
"I really enjoyed the game. It was really fun [to] play. At first the ticking was annoying, but you get used to it. I liked how simple, yet so [addictive] it was. The levels are creative and match the game really well. No level was way too hard; they were just fine. Maybe [it] could be a bit harder. Very good project!"Review #5/12:
"The game is fun to play and difficult too. I [tried] to beat level 1 but [wasn't] able to. The mix of dodging, typing, and RGB matching gives CodeWare plenty of variety, and your detailed devlogs make the development journey easy to follow. One useful code improvement would be making the orb-expiry timer in minigame 3 pause alongside the countdown by passing false to create_timer(). Well, overall, the project is cool and fun to play."Review #7/12:
"Hi, as an OG WII player, I gotta say that the vibe fits perfectly [with] the meaning of "WarioWare-like game". I bet it was extremely fun to build and it would be crazy good if you could play this with someone. Apart from my crazy and unrealistic ideas, you did an amazing job!"Review: #10/12:
"YOOO THIS PROJECT IS SOOOO GOOOD YOU SHOULD ADD MORE FEATURES LIKE A TUTORIAL."Review: #12/12 (grammatical edits skipped to show full enthusiasm):
"The art is really cool and homemade, all the games are intuitive to me. I know exactly what to do with those really helpful instructions at the bottom. I completed the game on my second try. Really fun.None of the games seemed unfair in my opinion, but maybe make the games run for shorter time.
devlogs, communication is really good, highlights what have done, challenges you faced, future plans and more. NICE! Your README is also very detailed and has lots of info, GOOD JOB
The extras page is really cool! Never seen that before. The gallery walk as well as credits! how unique. tuff
lemme tell you something, lemme tell you something. YOU DO NOT NEED a licence for a simple WarioWare video game. RAAA
Something better, if can like leave the boring writing license stuff outside of the gameplay loop, like in the extras, that would be really appreciated!😁😁😁😁
One thing I experienced while playing is that you can actually pause the timer screen before the game starts, not sure if that's intentional but just FYI. maybe fix.
But overall you have put a lot of effort into this, this game is really fun, best WarioWare type-game i've seen so far."
I also happen to be 4th on the global leaderboard for hours shipped on my team, which consists of approximately half of the Stardancers. But I know there are definitely some super large 200-hour projects from other people waiting to be submitted. I won't stand a chance a couple of days before it ends (actually, this time).
I also got a beautiful certificate because of this project!
What's Next?
Thank you to everyone in the Hack Club community who played, reviewed, and supported CodeWare! I truly learnt so much about game development, Godot, and projects that take over 50 hours!
If you haven't played CodeWare yet, view its Itch.io page, GitHub Pages Site, GitHub Repository, or Stardance Project Page.
Top comments (6)
Good work Tyler :D
Thank you! Now that school is back in season again, I’ll probably be doing some more on here than I did during the summer.
Wouldn't you be more busy since school season, no?
Of course not! I get all my homework done during school. While I definitely have more scheduled, reoccurring events during the school year, I have a lot of completely random excursions during the summer (plus one month away).
huh interesting. Whatever works I guess xd
How do you like the game? Feel free to comment below.