Project Type: Web, Mobile
Services: Development, Testing

Project Description:

This application gives the possibility to organize a chess battle and feel the atmosphere of a real tournament either in front of PC or on iPad. The user is able to see the opponent’s face and reaction, start a conversation, crack some jokes, or declare the victory in person. After the authorization process, the user gets into a virtual lobby, where one can choose an opponent for the game. The video chess game is integrated with Facebook, so it allows inviting friends, getting new ones and making all kinds of social interactions. In addition to a Web version, the application can now run on iPads.

Customer's Need:

The customer turned to Altoros to develop a mobile version of the real-time video chess game and optimize it for running on an iPad. The customer wanted to extend the possibilities of the service and allow using the Web camera of the portable mobile device.

Main challenges:

Altoros team experienced some challenges that arose while porting the Web application to a mobile platform. The Web version of the application was developed for more performing desktop hardware thus causing big delays in loading the content on mobile devices. Altoros had to provide the solution that would increase the application performance up to the results showed on PC. The video chess game architecture was designed for Web and utilized the data exchange method that could not be used in the mobile version. So, the developers had to implement new architecture and solve the issue with data storage.

The Solution:

• The developers introduced the way to optimize the assets size and quality to look great on a tablet, but not to involve a lot of GPU/CPU usage. This allowed achieving good performance results on a mobile device.
• The team adjusted the application architecture to mobile device structure and integrated a lot of loadable content into one lightweight application to reduce the time needed for data processing.
• To reduce the network load, the application can use a P2P connection, distributing the task among other participants without the central coordination by a server

The Outcome:

The team managed to create a good performing video chess game that provides opportunities to add some social interaction to the game. The customer got the solution that is optimized for iPad capabilities and runs without delays while streaming video data. The application is already available in the Facebook collection and coming soon in iTunes.