React is a very cool javascript framework developed by a team at Facebook. It’s meant to build powerful and robust web apps. A little while after launching React, the team also launched a new product, React Native. An offshoot of the framework that was meant to develop mobile apps for Andriod & iOS.
I decided to create a little game in React Native to get a sense of the technology and its capabilities. As an additional challenge, the game would feature no graphics, just text, and colours. So, naturally, a word game was the best fit.
It was a challenge at first. Without much experience developing mobile apps, or React apps for that matter, there was a lot to get used to. Simple ideas became hours of trial and error and research.
After a few snags, the game started to come together. Along with React Native, the game uses socket.io. This is a technology used by things like chat apps. Sockets allow developers to send data back and forth between users’ devices in real time, kind of like opening a phone line between two people.
This was a fun project to work on and I definitely learned a lot about React Native in the process.