Originality: The concept is somewhat simple, but the chances that this has been done before, specifically in a hackathon, are slim to none. We did take inspiration for the application from the UN’s freerice website; however, while that’s based more on finding English synonyms for English words, our hack has more of a focus on translation. So, pretty original, we’d say.
Technology: We had a focus on keeping our tech stack light, as to strengthen our knowledge of the fundamentals. So, we used React, Bootstrap, and toyed a bit with ExpressJS before switching to Firebase for our backend.
Design: A good portion of effort was devoted to making the UI somewhat consistent. One neat theming motif was the use of dashed grey borders to denote cards, which was a nice effect to apply in many different situations.
Since the site utilizes bootstrap components, you’ll find the design to be comfortable, consistent, and beautiful. The site’s minimalistic style allows users to easily traverse the site with ease.
Completion: Our team managed to achieve the main goals (characters, leaderboards, gameplay, points system), but had to scrap some of the extraneous fluff (we considered a fully-themable site at one point, which would’ve bit somewhat of a design headache since our stack was so light). We did make some smart substitutions for some missing facets, using the Account page as a dashboard being one.
Learning: We all stepped a bit out of our comfort zones, that was the goal. Whether it was a new drawing program, JavaScript concept, or Firebase experience, we’ve all gained a bit of new knowledge from this.
Pursuits: In the future, we wish to implement more features, some of which being:
- more characters to choose from
- a rewards system where points can be traded for basic themes
- a collection in Firebase which stores hundreds of more Japanese phrases
- a system which caches when a user leaves from a game and where they left off while playing
- a system where phrases become longer and harder
- tossing out facts about mangakas/animation studios every few rounds
Team:
- sometvguy#9956 - for the incredible concept art and great ideas
- Simun#1550 - for the epic frontend utilities, the game on the website, the account page, suggesting ideas
- sabway#0379 - for setting up firebase, registration, login, the leaderboard, choose-a-character, frontend tweaks and fixes
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