Intro 🐱‍💻

As you all know I've been the gear that's kept Halo South Africa going. Quite some time ago I released the first proper version of HSA and iterated on it till it became what is currently live: https://halosouthafrica.co.za

Though the website did what it needed to at the time I was still a very inexperienced developer and it has a lot of flaws. Not to mention a lot of spaghetti and redundant code.

However with a new Halo game on the horizon, Halo being free to play and the game making a full revival it's definitely time for a new Website!

What's next? 🐱‍🏍

The original website was built using Angular, however I feel like a heavy web framework like Angular is a bit overkill for a project like this. I've also really been wanting to learn Next.js a popular new framework that's come out made by Vercel and which is also used by 343 on the official Halo Waypoint website.

Getting started ✅

This time around I'm making sure I build Halo South Africa with the future in mind, I want it to be easy to iterate and make use of continuos integration with rapid deployment.

That's where Next.js and Vercel come in to play, Next.js is built by Vercel and Vercel makes deploying well optimized websites a breeze.

Tech Stack#

• Figma (for the design)
• Next.js (as the web framework)
• Tailwind CSS
• Node
• Xbox Auth (by Zeny)
• MongoDB or Supabase (for the database)
• Notion (for note keeping/planning and as a kanban board)
• Github (for my source code)

Planned Features#

• Tournaments
  • Create, Manage and Schedule.
  • Integrated directly with the Halo API to track team stats and progress brackets.
• Leaderboards
  • Monthly leaderboards to compare yourself with fellow local players.
  • All time leaderboard to compare all time stats across registered players.
• Stat Tracking
  • View a personal stats overview for yourself and fellow players.
  • Team Stats to track tournament placements.
• Halo Caster Toolkit 2.0
  • The Halo Caster toolkit rebuilt for easier integration.
  • Users will be able to use the new casting overlay in OBS and stats will refresh automatically.
  • Web based unlike V1.
• Teams
  • Create, edit and delete teams.
  • Invite players to your team.
  • Schedule a scrim with a registered team.
• News
  • Find the latest Halo news right on the website.
  • View the message of the day for all Halo titles. (Provide by HaloDotApi)
• Esports
  • View latest tournament settings.
  • View latest Halo competitive news.

More to be announced at a later date.

Current Status?#

I've only recently started planning out the project, I'm currently busy making the designs in Figma and planning out development stories. This whole process is a learning experience for me as I'm working with a framework I have not used before.

However HaloSA-Next will hopefully be live at the same time that Infinite launches.

Conclusion 🏁

I'm excited to start working on the new Halo South Africa. I can't wait to share more with everyone as the project progresses.

Halo is the route of my passion and I want Halo to succeed in South Africa, I will do my best to make sure we have a healthy community.

Speaking of a healthy community, feel free to join the Halo South Africa Discord server!

Want to keep up with Development?#

I'm always talking about development on my personal Discord server:

If you want to keep track of all my projects and endeavors I am super active over on Twitter and I'm always happy to give advice and lend some help.

NicmeistaR on Twitter 🍣

Donate, Support or Fund#

If you love this project please consider donating or support the development by means of coffee. You may also fund this project to maintain active and close more issues. Just a cup of coffee is enough to appreciate my hardwork.

Author#

Halo South Africa is Developed and Maintained by Nicolaas Nel