Immocitiz is a web-based game that transforms the Immovlan real-estate website into a social gaming experience. Buy the best properties available on the market and build your very own real estate empire !
- Client :
- Immovlan
- Concept & Design :
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One Million Dollars
- Realisation period :
- 2010-2011
View website
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PHP
PHP | Server-side scripting language
Invented in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP is probably the most famous web programming language. Fast, open-source and widely spread, it is a very handy tool that powers millions of websites.
http://www.php.net
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Symfony
Symfony | PHP web application framework
Symfony is a web application framework written in PHP. It allows us to quickly build powerful, performant and robust websites / web applications without reinventing the wheel.
http://www.symfony.com
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Varnish
Varnish | HTTP accelerator
Varnish is a HTTP accelerator. Free and open-source, this technology can drastically improve your website performance. We use it for nearly every web project that we work on.
http://www.varnish-cache.org/
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Memcached
Memcached | RAM cache engine
Memcached actually stores your data in the server's RAM memory, and can deliver it in a matter of milliseconds. We use this tool to cache data that takes a lot of resources to compute.
http://www.memcached.org
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RabbitMQ
RabbitMQ | Messages and queues
RabbitMQ is a high performance distributed messaging engine written in Erlang. It allows us to build decoupled message queues that handle some of the most heavy tasks behind the scene.
http://www.rabbitmq.com
A unique perspective on social gaming
Immocitiz is a gaming platform built on top of Immovlan, one of the most visited real estate websites in Belgium
Contestants are invited to browse the properties available on the website. Using virtual money, they can buy the ones that they find the most interesting. Once a property has been bought, it generates revenue, as every visit on the property page brings a little play money to its owner.
Properties can be sold to the bank, or can be traded with other players. The player's sucess depends on his ability to spot profitable properties that will attract a lot of visitors and then sell them at a higher price.
As he progresses through the game, the player is rewarded with various badges and titles. He can also compare his real estate performances with those of his Facebook friends, and display his activity on his wall (if you want to try the game, don't worry - this is completely optional).
A twofold challenge
Connecting a game platform to a very serious real estate website might seem like a crazy idea.
From a technical perspective, it surely was : making two totally different systems interact with each other is no piece of cake. After countless hours of hardcore coding and heated brainstorming, we came up with an elegant yet performant solution.
But the real challenge was not about code or servers. It was about the game, and about what it takes to make people enjoy playing it. And from that point of view, Immocitiz has been a terrific experience.
