FRAG

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Scooter Moose Games, a small video game development company.

What challenge were you trying to address with FRAG?

As a small company, we don't have the capital to bring on an entire development team, so we were looking to outsource the development of a mid-core, player(s) versus player(s) (PvP) game.

What was the scope of their involvement?

After providing FRAG with a basic concept and designed characters, they started developing a mobile game for iOS and Android, using Unity. They've been heavily involved throughout the process, and helped us narrow down the scope of work in order to achieve the core functionality of the game within our budget constraints.

What is the team composition?

I work with a project manager and about three artists and three coders. I've also been in communications with their CEO.

How did you come to work with FRAG?

I found FRAG through Upwork. After receiving about 100 replies to our project, I ultimately felt that FRAG provided the most in-depth and realistic response. We originally posted the scope of work with a smaller budget than what was needed to achieve everything we wanted, but FRAG's team was honest about what we could do with what we were willing to spend.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested about $25,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2018 and we just finished the alpha phase. We anticipate that we'll be ready to launch around September.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We've received a lot of positive feedback internally so far—everyone is very impressed with the work they've done. The art quality is superb and the gameplay function is already playable in a multiplayer format in the first phase.

They've also taken it upon themselves to make sure that they're providing the best possible product for us. The character designs I provided weren't conducive to a top-down view, so FRAG redesigned all the characters based on my original submissions to improve the quality of the game without changing their original quote.

How did FRAG perform from a project management standpoint?

They make themselves available for conference calls twice a week, which helps keep project milestones on track. They ensure all tasks are completed timely within a couple of days or by the end of the week after we discuss them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

FRAG's team is more interested in the quality of the product than the price of the bid. They'll expand the scope of a project (within reason) without expanding the budget just to make sure that they're providing a quality product for their customers. They've been invaluable in helping us get off the ground.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open minded to hearing the reality of a scope of a project. Many companies try to emulate something else that's been successful with a fraction of a budget, so I suggest being open to narrowing the scope in order to have success on a smaller level.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I own a small startup. I had an idea for a mobile game and decided to incorporate and raise money to build it.

What challenge were you trying to address with FRAG?

I worked with another company on the initial design, but their result didn’t work very well. I wanted a company with mobile gaming experience to help me rebuild it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had all the design ideas completed and a third-party designer in hand. I showed them the concept and talked about what platform we should use. They decided to build on a Unity platform and make the app function like a real game for both iOS and Android. I did background checks of our options and was pleased with their choice. They built storyboards and we went through development together to make changes and keep things on target. We had a couple of different versions to make sure nothing would break.

The game is called 50shadows. Players match clues to solve a light, comical mystery. They took my concepts and rebuilt the whole game from scratch. I have very little technical experience and they helped me through the process. They designed an intuitive, fast-paced game that flowed well and incorporated all the existing design. The designer created new content for some additional minigames within the app and we put together different pathways within the game. FRAG came up with a lot of ideas for improvements.

What is the team composition?

They assigned a project manager to act as my main point of contact. I also had two developers and an external design lead.

How did you come to work with FRAG?

I went on Upwork to find companies with the right background. I posted an RFP and got a few responses. FRAG’s experience drew me to them.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $18,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the app between May–November 2017. Any delays that happened during the process were on my end.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

So far, most of my users are friends. This version was way more successful than the first one. FRAG found the perfect technology and the new version eliminates all the previous issues. It’s intuitive and completable in minutes. There are options to play with friends and I’m really pleased. I wanted to turn my concept into a game and I accomplished that without spending exorbitantly. In the future, I might scale it to make it more robust.

How did FRAG perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked really well. I was dependent on them and they were always patient with my lack of experience. They were gracious and accommodated my existing designer. Most of our work was through Skype and email and everything was well-documented. We also used google docs to share designs, workflow documents, and the project plan. Though I’m in New York and they’re in Pakistan, they were always available to work on my time. I could contact my project manager or either of my developers when I had a question.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their understanding of gaming made a huge difference to the build and flow of the game. The other company I worked with just took my ideas and put it in an app. FRAG told me what would work and what wouldn’t and made the experience and the product so much better.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints. I’m a small company, but they always provided hands-on service and made me feel important.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend FRAG to anyone who wanted to build a mobile game. They understand the technical aspects and will help you turn your concept into something great. Their customer service is good and I’d happily work with them again.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an educational technology startup. We deliver online courses to K-12 kids through games. We built an educational gaming platform comprised of 3D games kids could learn from, with a learning management system where teachers and content providers could manage their courses.

What challenge were you trying to address with FRAG?

We initially went to them to develop a game. Based on their performance, we contracted them to build the platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the whole platform from scratch on Ruby on Rails. It’s web-based and the game is a computer install. The game is built on Unity 3D, which is easy to switch to mobile platforms if we choose to in the future.

We’re trying to deliver a full online course through a game, which we feel is quite unique. We have a lot of video plugins, YouTube, PDF and slide readers, text to speech functionality, and other adaptive learning algorithms. We use a basic level of machine learning to track each student’s learning, proficiency level, and weaknesses. Once it captures that information, it goes back to the database of questions and populates the ones that are best for each student.

What is the team composition?

We had one project manager and started with a team of about 7. That grew to 12 at one point in the process.

How did you come to work with FRAG?

We hunted for a few companies and found FRAG through a referral from a friend. They were very affordable. Our only concern was a possible language barrier.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $275,000–$300,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began around October 2015 and finished development around May 2017. We’re still doing updates and aren’t technically done yet.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re still piloting our software in a couple of schools now. The kids love the game and the platform is a win for both teachers and students. Teachers find the information and data useful. They can easily manage their classroom, without navigating a complicated learning management system. We built drag-and-drop course builder functions to manage classrooms and a notification system that alerts teachers when a student is struggling. It acts like a health monitor for the classroom. We’re very happy with what FRAG delivered, and are planning a second project for the near future.

How did FRAG perform from a project management standpoint?

A lot of development firms prefer to work within hours that fit their time zone, but they were willing to stay late. There were times when they were always available. We used Skype and Zoom to communicate and managed the project in Pivotal and Asana.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that their founders and project managers all had a U.S. education made it very easy to communicate. There was no culture shock and it felt like we were working with Americans who happened to be in Pakistan.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes their other employees aren’t as good with English, but that’s understandable with outsourcing. They’re easy to work with and better than a lot of firms I’ve experienced.