Introduction
Two ardent cricket fans were interested in developing a fantasy cricket platform targeted for India. They conceived the idea and came prepared with the basics of the game algorithm. The clients wanted custom mobile app development to allow users (primarily in India) to play fantasy cricket on their platform. Evon helped them with developing the applications and reach out to market in a short time period of six months.
Challenges
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Scope preparation – The client came with the concept and the game idea, but not a definitive specification. Our Business Analyst worked with the client in converting the idea into a tangible scope for the MVP. Our BA also worked with the client on finalizing the approaches to various algorithms, iterating and testing the viability of these algorithms.
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Cricket API – The core match data of the cricket matches was the key input for the application. Various third parties were investigated for the same and CricketAPI was finalized. The team faced challenges throughout the development, integrating these APIs. At times, there were problems, errors that were faced in responses from these APIs. But the team worked closely with CricketAPI support to iron out the issues.
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Key algorithms – The application had some core algorithms that were first created on paper by the client and BA, implemented by the team and sometimes iterated for optimal results based on testing. Some of the key algorithms were:
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Player rating algorithm
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Reward algorithm
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Real-time game engine – Game engine is the core of the application. This gets match data from the Cricket API in real-time during the match for each ball. It processes the ball-by-ball updates based on the contest parameters and scoring matrix and converts them into points earned by each player on each ball and then updates the user apps in real-time. The sheer magnitude of the amount of processing and potential high number of users posed a performance challenge.
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Testing – This was an application that required load testing in the Live conditions with Live matches. Hence testing the accuracy of game engine and performance of the application was a big challenge. The application was tested for the entire duration of IPL 2018 before the platform was taken live.
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Limited Time Frame – The project started in January 2018 and had a hard deadline to be ready in three months before the start of IPL 2018, because of the testing requirements.
How Evon Helped
Evontech setup an offshore team to handle areas ranging from Scope definition to Designing, Architecting, Development, and Testing of the complete application. Evon helped the client choose right technologies to build the platform. Following diagram depicts the high-level architecture of the fantasy cricket platform.
The provided solution covered the following different applications:
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Public Website – Public website with marketing pages and collateral
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User application
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Responsive web application
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iOS mobile application
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Android mobile application
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Admin web application
Technologies Used:
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Web front-end application – Angular 4.7.7
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Android application – Java 8
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iOS application – Swift 4.0
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Game engine – Loopback 3.0, Node.js, Socket.io
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Backend application – PHP 5.6, CakePHP 2.8.1, MySQL 5.7.23, Apache 2.4.18
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API – Restful using JSON
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Third party integrations
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CricketAPI - https://www.cricketapi.com/
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Payment Gateway – PayU
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IFSC verification – Bank API
Outcome for the Client
When the client came to us with the idea, the race for fantasy cricket platforms was already on (largely because of the overwhelming popularity of cricket in India). So, time-to-market in this case was of paramount importance to get ahead of the competition. Evon’s team ensured that the client set a foot in the market as early as six months and quickly get to the next level. The startup is on the fast track to success now and has already become a challenge for existing and future competition.
Currently, Evon is providing a dedicated post-production support for the fantasy cricket platform with a team of 1 support engineer. Along with that, from time to time we undertake short-term enhancements for development tasks as per client needs.Reach us here to hire mobile app developer in India or email your requirements at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.