Opticale: An Augmented Reality Game Set in the Astral World with Fantastical Creatures to Discover

For the past decade, the rise of new technologies has brought forth amazing gameplay possibilities in the video game industry, especially those designed for mobile devices. A young gaming technology called augmented reality, in particular, inspired a Swiss entrepreneur in 2016 to start a software company called Furinkazan SA and develop a game with a uniquely designed Astral World full of fantastical creatures called Opticale.

An augmented-reality game with mythical creatures of the Astral World, Opticale utilizes geolocation and amazingly designed graphic overlays to create an elaborate parallel universe simultaneously set in real-world geographical areas.

Initially developing the first version on iOS, the Opticale team finished creating the Astral World, its creatures, and history in no time. Wanting the game to be available on other markets and expand the franchise, however, their team needed help to duplicate the app on Android as well as optimize what they have already accomplished on iOS. So the hunt for a dedicated development team to fill their skills gap began.

From precision team augmentation to game app maintenance

Opticale founder Soufian was at a conference in Berne, Switzerland when he met Arcanys founders through a trusted friend. From there, Opticale and Arcanys reached an agreement to augment the Opticale team and supply the skills they need for their mobile development project to move forward.

A couple of months later, Arcanys was able to offer Opticale a flexibility that wouldn't be possible with in-house employees. And with the team being highly accessible and available through various communication platforms, the Arcanys team was able to fully immerse in the project, successfully duplicating the game app on Android as well as efficiently maintaining their iOS app.

Over the years, being in regular contact and moving the project forward together has given Arcanys developers the opportunity to become more of a partner than a provider to the Opticale team. Moreover, the collaboration has also successfully revamped the game’s UI and trading system recently. And since the Arcanys team’s knowledge about the app is beyond comparison, it only made sense that they continue to maintain the game app even today.

“Arcanys is a valuable partner that has enabled us to move forward efficiently in the realisation of our projects. The possibility of not having to internalise additional employees has in some cases pushed us to develop functionalities we wouldn't have done by ourselves.”
~ Soufian Mahlouly, Furinkazan SA founder

Enabling great flexibility in ramping up Opticale team as well as the development process

Initiating the project with one iOS developer fully dedicated to the project, Arcanys was able to gain crucial insights on the game and gave the Opticale team flexibility in ramping up their development process. After a couple of months, two more Arcanys developers and one tester were added to the team to code and QA the Android game app.

As a result, the partnership has allowed Opticale to successfully:

• Ramp up their team easily: from one iOS developer to three more Android developers and a tester
• Dedicate an iOS developer that has been working on the game almost since the start, who in fact, became a cornerstone of the whole production process

With the ultimate goal of making the mobile game available on most markets and expanding into a complete transmedia franchise, Furinkazan actually has 3 big new development phases planned for Opticale, as well as several new projects in development.

If you want, you can check Opticale in the App Store and Google Play.