GitMania | Devpost

Inspiration

Two of our members have experience with teaching children coding and simple game creation. We wanted to take a system that was hard to approach for beginners (Git) and provide a more approachable way to understand the concepts. In doing so, we created a gamified, interactive, and memorable way to learn basic Git commands.

The Problem

Git has an initial steep learning curve:

There is a lack of visual learning associated with it (the terminal can look very intimidating)
There are so many unfamilar concepts and new terms that are hard to grasp

What it does

GitMania is a web based platformer game targeted towards beginners to Git. Players are able to enter simple Git commands into a terminal to teleport their character and move platforms to reach a door.

How we built it

For the custom web-based terminal, xterm.js framework was the base, while pixi.js and daisyui frameworks were used to render the graphics. However, majority of the GitMania is pure HTML, CSS, Javascript(JS) and Figma was used to model the menus.

Challenges we ran into

The toughest challenges were coding the physics (platform, player movement), understanding how to use the frameworks (implementing GIFs with pixi), adding cookies and implementing a custom web-based terminal (simulating a terminal, linking the terminal to custom game actions). Regardless, we triumphed over these challenges to create a prototype of our game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite never working together, we shared a vision of wanting to learn new things as a group. and while doing so, teach others about Git through gamification. Additionally, this was some of our members first experience using frameworks in a non-academic setting.

What we learned

communication as a group is challenging, but integral to make a finished cross collaborative project
experimentation leads to new ideas
focusing on the frustrations of the end user will help with design decisions for UI and tutorials

Next steps for GitMania

Fully-developed levels and tutorial screens would be implemented. Additionally, debugging minor issues (physics, ui, terminal) and make the application optimal.
GitMania should simulate the terminal more accurately from being able to backspace to having access to its command history.
AI could be used to implement a custom level builder