Interactive Gaming App For LoyalJoys
Developing a fantasy sports app to virtualise the gaming experience
ABOUT THE CLIENT
LoyalJoys is a fantasy sports start-up based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Conceived and conceptualized by Jeff and Yanni, Loyaljoys aims to revolutionize the fantasy gaming space by making it more collaborative and interactive.The company was founded with the mission of establishing a platform that can digitalise the experience of enjoying a game at sports pub, stadium, sports cafe while enjoying the presence and enthusiasm of other fellow fans.
About the project
The Problem
The client was looking for a technical partner who specialized in WYSIWYG React native tools. The goal of the project was to create a robust fantasy sports gaming platform with the provision of virtual currency and virtual locations through which users can interact with other players. The client’s idea was to integrate moving parts ranging from real-time scores from the live game to real-time location updates on the map while connecting all the elements to provide a wholesome experience.
The development work on the application was spread over a span of twenty weeks on an Agile- based model. The project was based on designs that were provided by the client and the primary requirement was to build up an MVP based on which the development strategy could be planned.
OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
We believe in offering nothing but the best and Quality Assurance was critical to ensure that the development was proceeding without any major lags. The development phase was split into multiple phases or sprints where features were implemented and rigorously tested to ensure a flawless application. Tasks were broken down and assigned to team members using Jira to ensure that the flow of the development was going as planned.
In bird's eye view
- Docker was used for CI/CD
- The tasks were managed on Jira
- The API was deployed on AWS and DB server was deployed on MongoDB Atlas
DEVELOPMENT
The idea behind the collaboration was to create an interactive platform that would provide a fantasy sports gaming experience for users. The initial idea and designs that were set by the client underwent some minor changes and was enhanced based on the feedback from our developers.
The Frontend UI was developed in React Native due to its great performance and functionalities offered for mobile environments and also because of its popularity in the dev community. Meanwhile, the client suggested that we integrate NodeJS with MongoDB for the Backend as it was the perfect fit being a scalable, open-source NoSQL database solution. Using these two technologies together, web applications could be built quickly and easily and deployed to the cloud, which was finalised to be the AWS suite, with very little difficulty. Jeff, the co-founder of LoyalJoys, being an expert engineer himself, was a major contributor to the development phase and he also recommended using DRY and splitting the code wherever possible as he was very particular about clean coding. Bitbucket was the tool of choice for code management.
The first feature that was implemented in the project was an option for signing in and signing up which we integrated through open authorization. As the product roadmap was to to feature multiple sports to provide a truly complete gaming experience, we provided a games listing for basketball, football and baseball along with a list of places which include bars, sports cafes, stadiums and other favourites with each place having its where own feed where like-minded people can join and chat about sporting events . We used an external package-- ReactNativeActivityFeed for implementing the feed for places feed as creating a custom package is time consuming. We also created an option to add friends and challenge them to private contests to provide a truly interactive user experience where people could buy their way into the game using virtual money in the form of “balls”.
We believe in offering nothing but the best and Quality Assurance was critical to ensure that the development was proceeding without any major lags. The development phase was split into multiple phases or sprints where features were implemented and rigorously tested to ensure a flawless application. Tasks were broken down and assigned to team members using Jira to ensure that the flow of the development was going as planned.
TEAM ON CALL
After analysing the scope of the project, a team of expert developers were put together to take the venture forward. Based on the timeline and deliverables a team of developers spearheaded by a project manager was formed.
To design a fantasy sports gaming app providing a wholesome experience for multiple sports.
Contests based on virtual currency in the form of “balls”
Provision of virtual places to interact and compete with other players.
OUR APPROACH
- Simplifying healthcare service delivery with our client, the strategy for the project decided was to work on a fixed timeline model, with a scope of 13 weeks of development.
FINAL IMPRESSION
After weeks of hard work and countless trials and errors, we are finally all set to launch next month and LoyalJoys is more than happy with the envisionment. The client is delighted at the success of the MVP. While the product has not yet been launched on the occasion of Yanni’s birthday as planned, the team is in all preparation for the successful Beta deployment of the app in the coming weeks. As emotionally vested as Jeff is in the project, he trusted us with the idea to let us do the changes that would be a good fit for the final product and we have taken it into our stride to deliver nothing but the absolute best that we could.The application is all set to deliver the experience it was originally intended to give. Fantasy sports lovers can expect a one-of-a-kind experience as LoyalJoys successfully digitalizes the experience of enjoying a game with other fans and competing against them in a friendly match.
