Program-Ace

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of 3Mind Games. We develop video games.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Program-Ace?

We had hired some animators to work internally but it didn’t work well. We were almost at the end of the project and we needed to hire animators right away because we had plenty of animation still to do. We decided to hire a firm and our budget was pretty low because we had spent a lot of money on the animations already.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Program-Ace to do the animations. They built tons of animations that we had on our list. We had done the animation for all the characters on our side. We had a list of all the animations that we wanted on an Excel sheet and this was divided by the numbers of characters. We provided them with descriptions of what animations we needed for each character. To give them more information, we had a call with the producer over there and spoke with them about the kind of animation we wanted for the characters.

We hired them to do some of our mechanics as well. We don’t have a lot of programmers internally, so we decided to hire some of their programmers to do some UI implementations for our games like saves, menus, all of that kind of work as well.

What is the team composition?

We had one point of contact for each department that we worked with. 

How did you come to work with Program-Ace?

I found them on gamedevmap. We did a lot of research in Ukraine and Poland where we knew it wouldn’t be as expensive. I clicked on their website and it looked professional. We contacted them as well as another five or six other companies in Ukraine and Poland. Overall, their price was better than everyone else and we decided to go with them.

How much have you invested in them?

It will cost approximately $40,000–$45,000 once the project is complete.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2020, and we are supposed to finish at the end of August 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We would not have been able to do all the animation internally because we had 50 to 75 animations to do. Internally, we can provide maybe one or two animations per day, but on their side, they produced five or six per day. We were able to finish the project faster with them. 

On the development side, it is more complicated because they have to understand the project and code. Our game is made with Unreal Engine and Program-Ace had to dig into our blueprint and codes, so it took onger to get started with because they had to understand everything. Now that they understand the project, it’s been going pretty well.

How did Program-Ace perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, we signed a contract and we established the timelines right away. They are right on track and will finish the development by the end of the month. The animation went faster than I thought it would. As far as project management goes, if they don’t understand something or if there is something on our side, we just have a call with them. We also used Slack for communication with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

When they provide something, we need to approve it. We have a list that we share with them. When they finish something, they put a tab to the animation example for us to review. On our side, we will review it and then we approve of them. For all of the animations they have done, there was not much that we didn’t approve of. Overall, they did a great job. On the development side, sometimes they had difficulties in understanding what we wanted and there was a lot of back and forth with them, but it ended up working well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is a little bit of a language barrier. It can be hard sometimes because they don’t speak English that well, but it isn’t their first language, and it isn’t mine either as my native language is French. It was okay overall, and we understood each other.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a good plan at the beginning with the dates and prices. When we add a price to the contract, they respect that price. For example, if they said it would take a certain amount of time, they won’t charge more for it if it goes over. 

Have a good way to communicate either with Zoom, Slack, or Discord and follow up with them with some sort of sheet. We use Excel, and they can see when we have changed something on the sheet right away, and when they modify something, we can see it on our side, which is why we use Google Sheets instead of Jira or Trello.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder of an educational company providing training to nursing students.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Program-Ace, and what were your goals?

We wanted to develop a system to manage and give access to training scenarios online.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We had worked with Program-Ace before and were satisfied with their professionalism and quality of work.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They developed an frontend app with Angular and Material Design. The frontend is connected to a backend for administrators and is programmed with PHP and Laravel.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

One main developer. One account manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project is used by end users. We continue to work on it and improve it over time.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used Trello to organize work and communicate.

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

The quality of the work is excellent and they are ready to work hard when a deadline is coming.

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

Not that I can think of.