John Tarongoy, MAXX Apprentice, created a game that he would compare to Advance Wars or Fire Emblem, but look closer and you might notice a certain level of fantasy alongside the WW2-esque tanks and trucks. Players take turns, trying to complete objectives or destroy the opposing player’s units first.

A lot of John’s motivation for the artwork of the game comes from a bit of worldbuilding. He wanted fantastical elements, so he added dragons, magical fuel, and witches. His game ponders the idea of dragon knights alongside mass produced warfare, and he considered what these dragon knights might feel when they are “no longer the masters of the sky, instead hunted down by faster and more heavily armed fighter planes, similar to how WW1 shattered the idea of a ‘chivalrous war’ with the reality of industrial warfare.”

John shared the inspiration for this tech passion project. “I always loved video games and specifically tactics games like Advance Wars. I wanted to try my own take on the genre while also learning a new game engine and language.”

The project provided lots of opportunities for learning, and John rose to the occasion each time. He shared how he had a specific vision in mind for the game. While he could have followed the recommendations of the guide he found, John leaned into the option to research more about Godot’s in-built A-star pathing algorithm, and he was able to implement a new system that allowed for weighted pathfinding.

“I did a search on similar problems other developers had and studied solutions that they tried in order to see if I could implement it in my own project.” John shared one of the ways he sought to solve the challenge he faced. “One solution I implemented ended up having a massive performance dip when trying to calculate the potential movement of a unit with high mobility, but I was able to identify the issue and solve for it, which was to make sure the algorithm did not double back on tiles it already determined were passable.”

John found that the experience of planning, coding, and problem-solving his project gave him valuable perspective. Even the simplest tactics game can require a lot of coding. This project pushed him to set his goals and tasks, improving his understanding of time management. He explained about coding, “Learning the way Godot’s scenes and singletons work was an eye opening experience for someone who is more familiar with Java or C object-oriented programming. As the native Godot language, GDscript, is much like Python, it also helped me refresh my understanding of that family of languages.”

 

“Honestly as an artist, making the little unit sprites was the most fun part.” John knows that visual design plays an important role in a tactics game. In a limited pixel palette, every single pixel can completely change how the art looks, so deliberately using pixels can spark a lot of creativity. John emphasizes, “Recognizability is extremely important in a tactics game where you have to give the player all the information they need in order to make the best decisions for their strategy.”

When considering future iterations of this passion project, John pointed out that he’d want to further refine the internal logic of the unit statistics and figure out how to implement the opposing player and unit attacking. Another step might be to add AI for a computer opponent, create unit attack animations, and more. 

While a tutorial can be a starting place for a passion project, it’s important to not stay there. John points out that it’s good to, “…push for learning how the engine works and other key functions so you are able to make your own code instead of purely copying the tutorial verbatim. Little things like making your own game sprites and learning how to adjust properties to fit those are good starts. This helps you earn some independence in coding and learning how to properly search for and absorb knowledge is a valuable skill.”

At MAXX Potential, we are passionate about helping individuals launch or advance their tech career. If you are interested in becoming an Apprentice, please find more information about Career Lab here.