Tambola is a social game. It is also known as Bingo. I am working to develop an online Tambola game to learn different things related to product development. I am trying to share my findings here.
Why Tambola?
I was thinking about developing a product for a long time. After thinking about different ideas like quiz, jigsaw puzzle or something small, every time I was more attracted to Tambola. I think the reasons are:
- Tambola games can be generated each time with code. Other games like quiz requires frequent question set updation.
- More users might be willing to participate Tambola compared to other games.
- The rules and skill set required to play this game are simple.
- More can be learned about real time data updation and concurrent requests.
- It is real fun to play. I have hosted several Tambola games in social gatherings and love it.
First Step
It is always difficult to start. I used to procrastinate for around 6 months. During this time, I tried few Tambola related designs using HTML and CSS.
In around Jan 2022, I made up my mind to complete the screens required for this game. I used Adobe XD to draw the mockup. Even though I am not a UX designer, I managed to come up with a viable design, good enough to start.
The screens are designed for mobiles. I assume the game will be mainly played from mobile devices. I am lazy to draw the designs for desktop.
Apr 16, 2022
Development Environment
I planned to start a React application from scratch. I decided not to go with create-react-app. Here are few steps which I had to take:
- Setup a React project where I could develop all the screens
- Define styles and resusable components on the go
- Version the project using a Github repo.
- Setup a CI/CD to build the code and push it to AWS S3 to see the running app
All these steps are purely for development purpose. Here, I have documented some of my learnings.
Joby Joseph