StoryMode

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing partner of Blayze Games. We develop mobile games.

What challenge were you trying to address with StoryMode?

We wanted to supplement our staff with Unity developers to continue to work on updates, bug fixes, and new features for our games.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their work was mostly in Unity and C#. 100% of it was remote.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two resources. At first, I had the owner doing a lot of work, and halfway through the engagement, he suggested we bring on another person that was a more affordable resource so he could work on other projects. Since then, we’ve been working with Dmitri (Unity Developer, StoryMode). He’s pretty much taken the project over on their own.

How did you come to work with StoryMode?

I don’t remember we found them. It was a couple of years ago. We saw them on an online search.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $55,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since 2017.

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

They’re able to handle everything with a little help from our senior developer.

How did StoryMode perform from a project management standpoint?

Mostly, they’ve done pretty well. A few times things have taken longer than expected, but they communicated those timelines well. Being remote, they require a lot of communication to make sure I understand statuses. We talk over Skype and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their willingness to be flexible on hours stands out to me. Their price is also good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve had to work with and train the junior developer a little bit, as well as have an internal senior developer work with him. They could get more experience with the technology.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate often and be very clear about the requirements and deadlines. Based on the level of the developer — junior or senior — make sure you have someone more senior that can guide them and give them architectural guidance.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Ikonospace provides 3D and XR solutions to the cultural and educational sector.

For what projects/services did your company hire StoryMode?

StoryMode team supported us in developing and implementing a new collection management system for our core software Ikonospace. This included the development of an image database and implementing a new UI.

What were your goals for this project?

Release a new version of our collection management system in a short time frame.

How did you select this vendor?

We had previous experience with StoryMode on other projects and knew that they were a perfect partner for this part of the software.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

StoryMode implemented the new collection system based on our designs. They came back with interesting recommendations that made the end product even better.

What was the team composition?

For this project, StoryMode provided a full-time developer managed by a part-time project manager.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

StoryMode allowed us to release the new feature in the time frame we had planned.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Communication is key to the success of a project. We were very please with the active involvement of the team in the project. The main tools used were Slack, GitHub and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What we really valued was that we had direct contact with the developers and had very good communication with both the developer and project manager, making them a real extension of our team and not just an outsourcing team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

no, we were very pleased with service given

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Head of Line Production at Focus, a french videogame publishing company.

For what projects/services did your company hire StoryMode?

We were closing Age of Sigmar and we wanted to get extra support for the team, especially for compliance related tasks.

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

I has StoryMode in my contact list after I got in touch with them on LinkedIn, I knew they had some availability and the skills to perform this support.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They helped the dev team to reach the compliance criterias on different platforms, including the Nintendo Switch.

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

We worked with one engineer.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We managed to get first party certifications on time, same for the patches.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their integration in the dev pipeline was very smooth.

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

They did get into the project very quickly, which was a key factor for success in our case.

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

Nothing that I can think of :-)