BG Games

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Capricorn Software, LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

game development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire BG Games to accomplish?

• Unity and C# turn based game coding and level design
• unique new UI for all game stages and HUD
• concept art and sketches for new 3D monsters
• 3D low poly modelling and animation
• game design for balancing gameplay concept and writing detailed GDD plan with all features
• project management, because at some point I had 11 people working for me and was unable to spend enough time with each person

SOLUTION

How did you find BG Games?

Online Search

Why did you select BG Games over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fits our budget
• Great culture fit

How many teammates from BG Games were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Was working on a web3 NFT based game, using Unity and C#. The deliverables from BG-Games specifically were:

• 2D concept art and sketches for 3D alien monsters and their weapons etc'
• 3D models and animations
• Unity coding (C#) of the base game, multiplayer through socket.io (I wrote the backend server myself and they did the client side part of the game in Unity). 

Game was web-based and a very complicated multiplayer concept, so we only completed about 20% of the core game when I ran out of funds and the crypto bear market started (I lost hope to fundraise in these conditions, and project is frozen despite quite a lot of materials are ready, but I will continue working on it when have more $ or an investor who would be interested to pick it up and proceed).

Great looking website with adaptive design and renders from the game, so proud of it. But I took website down already, you can see it in wayback machine at "www.mystical.energy" , pretty sure it'll have the latest snapshot from like last year, when I took the site down. 

• Game designer from their team was working on the game design document and numbers crunching for balance of players and characters.
• Project management assistance. The project manager took care of detailed reviews and task assignments to the 11 people team and was a great help to me during these busy days of active development. 
• Solana coding of smart contracts, here I completely lost the thread because it was super complicated but they delivered it as a nicely packaged scripts with explanations and we tested how to send the NFTs and mint new ones (game characters on Solana crypto network). Quite a rocket science actually, was complicated for me. 

Also connecting website to Solana wallets, so I can login with Phantom and mint the NFTs by sending crypto to 'team wallet' on testnet, we tested all was working nicely. 

Honestly I didn't expect from them this delivery because it's VERY complicated and per hour rates at the time were astronomical anywhere in discord where I tried to hire a Solana developer, so I got surprised that they found a person to do it, and also charged me not more than for a javascript or python development (aka the cheapest common coding skills on the market =) ). 

•  We did the full collection of generative NFT aliens, which looks much better than 98% of currently existing NFT games out there. It's pretty sad that I had to stop this project and no investors joined us (I did send the investment brochure to all crypto funds but nobody replied because it was the end of the crypto bull run, everyone was "taking profits" and winding down, so only well funded projects survived, like Illuvium, Aurory, Big Time, The Sandbox, etc').

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Pretty impressed by the high quality of deliverables, I did not expect much for the amount of money I had to try out and build that game, and I'm happy with the results.
The deliverables were great quality, which is: concept art, 3D models and animations, sketches, adaptive website, unity game code and modules, multiplayer integration with my server. I can sincerely recommend their services and team.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were very responsive, both the management and the assigned artists and developers, everything was always delivered on time. They also recommended and assigned a few people to the team, who I didn't even know I needed. Like an additional senior UI/UX designer who helped with a concept for website layout and in-game UI. 

What was your primary form of communication with BG Games?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Really professional grade and high quality deliverables by experienced engineers and artists, in a short time and for a good price. Overall I'd say the value for money is top notch. And responsiveness, as well, they are much more responsive than freelancers one could find on Upwork and Fiverr, and I've been hiring freelancers for small scale projects since around 2010. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something BG Games could have done differently?

From the standpoint of the management team, I think they did a great job so I would not be able to suggest improvements. And from the standpoint of individual contributors who were assigned to the project and working on it, well these are small feedbacks that each contributor was receiving from me in real time, like "These textures do not match the style" and so on, but since most of them were junior artists and developers as per my budget allowance. 
I eventually judged them as such, and was still impressed a lot. So I'd say they'll be a top performer here on the platform if they'll find more customers to make projects with, pretty sure. Especially since Ukraine people are supporting their families now in these difficult times, and are really doing their best, I wish them luck.