The story of an early success
CHALLENGE:
Creating a viral and addictive social game without a previous game development background is easier said than done. Maintaining success with an addictive social game is something else entirely.
Slagalica began as a hobby and passion project. Four friends landed on an idea for a web game while working together in the telecommunication software industry. The challenge was to create an app that would be a breakthrough in the social gaming industry without investments, marketing expertise, or graphic design skills.
SOLUTION:
A real-time multiplayer quiz game seemed like the best solution. People like to have their knowledge tested, especially in a competitive setting. This game could tap into the power of all the social networking habits. You can sit at home, test your knowledge, compete with friends, and win competitions. And what’s more, you can come back and play daily.
Slagalica’s development started in 2011. The first version was launched at the beginning of 2012, and it quickly became the top game in the region. It broke all the records in growth rate, including the number of users and social media hype. Shortly after the release, there wasn’t a classroom, store, or café where people weren’t playing or discussing Slagalica. With over a million users, Slagalica captured one-third of all Facebook users in Serbia in just a few months. Later that year, it saw explosive growth with the advent of greater usage through mobile devices. Now, Slagalica remains the most popular app in the region, with usage by more than 6 million users.
IMPLEMENTATION:
Implementing a custom real-time solution for many users was a quite challenging task. In 2011, web sockets were not supported by the existing web servers and browsers. HTML5 was still not standardized, and we had no previous experience in web development. Slagalica required zero-latency interaction between the users. All the game engines and real-time multiplayer frameworks in the market were either not flexible enough or simply too expensive.
The coding was done from scratch, and Slagalica was fully developed without the usage of third party libraries and frameworks.
The early success of the web app brought its own set of problems. In just a few months, the application server was dealing with more than 20,000 active user connections simultaneously, thus exceeding the maximum number of allowed Linux OS sockets.
CONCLUSION:
It’s not just about creating an app; it’s about getting creative and repeatedly giving users what they want.
This result is often achieved when the founder of a company, or an app creator, is a real-life app user or gamer.
The company has developed many software products since 2012, but its flagship app Slagalica remains the most popular game to date.
We’re here to convert your idea into reality!
It’s not just about creating an app; it’s about getting creative and repeatedly giving users what they want.
We take pride in using real-life experience as app users and gamers to create your desired results.