Virtual Visions.
Video game art, the right way.
The Missing Link
I love video games. I love playing them, talking about them, watching videos about games, I love it all. Eventually, I wanted to start sharing my video game photos and content outside of my friend groups but found it insanely hard to find a platform that allowed sharing specifically video game content, so I decided to make it myself.
While platforms like Reddit and Instagram allow for sharing of video game content, that's not their primary focus. With Reddit, it becomes easy to lose your post in the hundreds or thousands daily on r/gaming, and even if you find a subreddit for your game, it's likely a much smaller set of users actually using that sub. And with Instagram, there's no guarantee their algorithm will even show you video game posts let alone your favourites or the high-quality content people post. That's where Virtual Visions comes in to solve a problem in a landscape where gaming continues to grow.
Putting Content First
One of the major features I used to love about Instagram was their Explore tab. The ability to see content relative to your own posts, what you've viewed, who you follow; it was this immaculate feature that eventually became something completely inferior, tailoring posts based on an algorithm of short-term viewing and unrelated content.
With Virtual Visions Explore feature, I aim to recapture that feeling of relevance in an age of algorithmic determinants that really have no meaning to you as a user at all. Posts you see will be 80% games you follow, 10% related to posts you've liked, and 10% fresh content to get you inspired, making sure you stay engaged in content you care about while still feeling that freshness and exploration we love from video games.
Not a Social Media Platform
Originally modeled after Instagram, there were ideas to add features like direct messages, tagging others in posts, sharing directly to other accounts, etc. However, as the project took shape I just kept asking myself "What comes first?", it's the content. User engagement is completely based on the viewing of high-quality, gorgeous video game content that they can either send to others via a share link, gain inspiration for their posts, or simply have a place to enjoy video game culture.
Instead of focusing on what a user can do with another user, the focus is set on what a user can do with the content. So simplicity reigned, and the functionality we settled on was set. Users can like posts, add comments to posts, follow or unfollow other users, and share a link to the post.
The Tech Stack
Sveltekit | Firebase | Svelecte
This was my first major project using Svelte, and I absolutely loved it. Combining regular JavaScript with an easy to use templating system, powerful technologies from Sveltekit like state management, SEO friendly dynamic routing with SSR and SSG, stupidly fast build times, and my first implementation of an API built right into the site, it was superb.
As mentioned, I leveraged Sveltekits built-in API tooling, creating a RESTful API directly in the site with great security and phenomenal content delivery. Processing major requests on the server allowed for freeing up expensive data on the client, creating a smooth and refined front-end experience.
Firebase, if you've seen my other work, should be nothing surprising for a project of mine. I love how easy it is to quickly prop up a project without having to find a storage host, noSQL relational database, authentication, and so much more. However, just because I've used Firebase before doesn't mean this project didn't come without challenges, because oh boy did it. The biggest hurdle was authentication, making sure accounts worked properly to receive all kinds of user information. From followed users, created posts, to liked content and more, everything needed to be secure, data transfer needed to happen quickly, and content needed to retain its quality and detail. Thankfully I believe all of these important features were successfully implemented.
