Online Gaming Tournament Bracket Development

Technology Stack

Laravel
JavaScript
iOS
Android

The Client

This is an interactive platform containing tournament bracket games. Users can sign into the portal, select bracket games, and vote for their favorite picks (e.g., music videos or ads) in each game. The highest-seeded choices move forward in the game and face each other in the finals to emerge as the single champion. Thousands of players can simultaneously log in to this portal and cast their votes to get rewarded upon making the right choices.

The Challenge

Capital Numbers was required to take care of the end-to-end development of the tournament brackets. The project demanded a significant amount of R&D. We had to understand the concept of tournament bracket games and develop solutions to:

Customize the tournament tree
Insert teams into the tree
Accommodate players
Generate a voting algorithm
Determine winners
Send promotional emails in bulk
Make the design responsive

In addition, the portal needed to have leaderboards, editable tournaments, smooth carousels, elimination rounds, and other dynamic features.

The solution had to be nuanced, detailed, and player-focused. The entire process demanded both tech maturity and delivery excellence.

The Solution

Capital Numbers’ expert engineers started by evaluating the architectural flow of the tournament tree. To assist our thinking, we laid out a process flow diagram. We started with the production work based on the diagram and our initial analysis of the integration points. We used the following techs to get the ball rolling:

We decided to go for Laravel as the backend architecture because its wealth of built-in tools make email, text, video, and styling integrations easy. Plus, it has authorization checks to verify new users before onboarding.

We knew that thousands of new players would sign in daily. So, we used Amazon RDS to store the massive datasets reliably. We also didn’t have to worry about backups or recoveries because Amazon RDS takes care of it efficiently.

Our frontend experts added JS sliders to create beautiful carousels with arrow navigation for users to cycle through voting options. We also made the platform mobile and desktop responsive using Bootstrap UI.

We relied heavily on Amazon SES to send mass emails to all players within the app. We connected Amazon SES and Drip to trigger automated emails and put the marketing on autopilot.

After integrating the above, we checked if everything worked well together, refactored code wherever needed, and tested the security scenarios to ensure a bug-free launch. Once we were confident of the portal’s smooth functioning and responsiveness, we deployed it on AWS.

We hosted this highly-trafficked site on AWS because AWS offers outstanding computing power and never bogs down the system despite user load.

Results

It wasn’t easy to tackle the intricacies. But we handled it with care. All thanks to our proficient engineering team for achieving the project’s complex needs.

Here’s a rough breakdown of the critical areas Capital Numbers specifically focused on and skilfully tackled:

Bracket Tree Illustrations

We drew a detailed flowchart to illustrate and place the brackets in the tournament tree.

Novel Visualizations

We perfectly visualized and sized the brackets and added pairs of contenders in each to depict ‘who wrestles who.’

Modular Architecture

We created a modular, component-based backend architecture to inject new logic if stakeholders demand it later.

Easy Onboarding

Our onboarding form is simple and requires players to add their names and emails to sign up and play.

Slick Slider

Our custom JS slider helps signed-in users swipe through slides to view voting options and cast their votes.

Voting Algorithm

Our well-defined voting algorithm aggregates users’ votes and shows the majority preferences on the leaderboard.

Bulk Email Sending

Our drip marketing strategy helps automatically send bulk emails to thousands of players who need to be informed about tournaments.

Custom Email Templates

Amazon SES integration also helped us enable email customizations for maximum impact and outreach.

Database Serialization

We also serialized massive user data to send targeted email campaigns and build hype around tournaments.

Easy-to-use Admin Control

Lastly, we incorporated an easy-to-use dashboard to give the admin complete control over tournaments, emails, user info, and the works.

QA and Testing

We rigorously speed-tested the entire staging site to spot code smells and sniffers before pushing it to the live server.

Responsive UI Designs

We must add that since the solution went live, it has enabled thousands of players to enjoy the bracket game right on their desktops, Android, and Apple devices.

Latency Optimization

Architecturally and visually, the site functions well on all devices without latencies or lags.

PHP and JS Expertise

It was a challenge to execute every integration, given the complexities of the tournament tree. But, our profound PHP and JS expertise helped us accomplish every task with perfection.

Improved Player Experience

We appreciate our team’s implementation choices and granular customizations, without which this bracket game wouldn’t have delivered the kind of player experience it does today.