ROCHESTER — Tucked away in a room of his home in northwest Rochester, Gautam Anand seamlessly switches back and forth between two webpages on his computer. On the one are the graphics of a multiplayer video game, "Swordbattle." On the other are thousands upon thousands of lines of computer code that animate those graphics on the first page.
Now a freshman at John Marshall High School, Anand created the video game in 2021 when he was still in middle school. It's just one of multiple projects that have come to solidify his status as burgeoning computer coder.
"It's nice to see people actually using it," he said about his programs.
And yes — people are using it. The video game has as many as 10,000 registered users and more than 100,000 unregistered users. Although he's continued to update it, he's opened the code behind it to other programmers as well.
But, that's just one of the programs he's either made or contributed to in his relatively short career as a coder. His website lists his portfolio of accomplishments, starting with a guessing game he created in 2018. Below the link to the game is a brief description of the project.
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"This was my first mobile app on the Google Play Store," the description reads. "Garnering a whopping 5 installs, this motivated me to continue coding."
His portfolio goes on to list other projects and competitions he's been involved with. The most recent entry is from August 2022 when Anand was part of a four-person team that won second place at the BDPA high school coding competition in Atlanta, Georgia.
The BDPA describes itself as "the largest professional technology organization for Blacks/African Americans and other minorities in the United States."
He's also started gaining revenue from his projects. When users play "Swordbattle," they're periodically presented with advertising, which benefits Anand. He's also earned revenue from a platform called Replit, where users can post programming projects for hire. Anand earned around $3,000 in 2022 from the platform.
"Swordbattle" also got him noticed by a group out of California that asked Anand to freelance on a project of their own.
Through it all, he's spent hours at his computer. For a coding challenge called "Advent of Code," he remembers staying up until midnight to see the instructions drop for the daily challenge.
His father, Anand Viruthagiri, works in IT professionally. He helped Anand get started in programming when his age was still in the single digits. They started with a system that allowed Anand to program by simply dragging and dropping different components around the screen.
From there, he eventually transitioned into writing actual code, delving into more and more complex systems. Viruthagiri's work is different than the kinds of projects his son has begun to immerse himself in. That means Viruthagiri isn't always able to answer questions Anand may have.
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"What he has been able to achieve at this age, that is really impressive to me," Viruthagiri said. "Now, when he comes and asks a question, I say 'OK, you can Google that. I don't know.'"
Not even through his first year of high school, Anand has years to hone his craft. For him though, the technical aspect of coding isn't necessarily the biggest challenge.
It's figuring out where to take it.
"In a way, coding is actually easier once you get the hang of it," he said. "Creativity is harder. You don't know when you're going to stumble across the next big idea. I think finding the idea is harder."
Want to play?
You can play Guatam Anand's game "Swordbattle" through his website. Got to codergautam.dev and click on the link to "Swordbattle" under the Projects tab.
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