IGotNext mobile app showing gaming lobby interface on smartphones

Gaming Social Network for Nintendo Players

IGotNext connects Nintendo gamers in real-time across multiple titles, matching players by skill level with 60-second invite timers. Built from concept to dual-platform launch in 2 weeks, saving 40% versus traditional development.

Home→Cases→IGotNext
2 weeks
Concept to app store
Top 3
Product Hunt product of the day
40%
Budget savings vs traditional
250ms
Push notification delivery

🎯The Challenge

Millions of Nintendo Switch owners had no easy way to find other players for casual gaming sessions. Discord works if you already know people, but what if you just bought Mario Kart and want to race someone at your skill level right now? Glitch Creative Labs needed a mobile app to solve this — with real-time player matching, skill-based filtering, and instant invites. The catch? Two weeks from kickoff to app store submission for the MVP Challenge competition. Traditional agencies quoted 2-3 months at nearly double the budget.

💡Our Solution

Built a dual-platform mobile app using React Native that shipped to both app stores in 2 weeks. Brutal prioritization kept v1 simple: browse online players, filter by game and skill, send timed invites, exchange Nintendo IDs. Everything else got cut. For real-time updates, we used Redis with WebSocket connections — the filtered player list updates within milliseconds. Push notifications run on Firebase Cloud Messaging (95% delivered within 250ms).

Result: 40% cost savings versus traditional development, MVP Challenge winner, and Product Hunt top 3 product of the day. Our rapid MVP approach — one React Native codebase instead of two native apps, tight scope, zero feature creep — made the impossible timeline possible.

From Fragmented Communities to Instant Matching

Before IGotNext, Nintendo players faced a frustrating paradox: millions of people owned the same games, but finding someone to play with right now required jumping through multiple hoops. Post in Discord, check Reddit threads, tweet with hashtags, hope someone responds before you give up. IGotNext stripped away all that friction.

Transformation Overview

Before

Traditional Process

Discord game channels
Requires finding servers, joining communities, hoping someone's active
Friend codes only
Can only play with people you already know or manually exchange codes
No skill matching
Get matched with players far above or below your level
Platform fragmentation
Gaming communities scattered across Reddit, Twitter, Discord with no central hub
Delayed responses
Post in community, wait hours for replies, players already offline
After

Digital Solution

Game-specific lobbies
See exactly who's playing your game right now, ready to start
Instant matching
Filter by game and skill level, send invite, get Nintendo ID in under a minute
Skill-based filtering
Match with players at your experience level for balanced, fun games
Unified mobile app
One place to find Nintendo players across all supported titles
60-second invites
Countdown timer creates urgency — accept, decline, or move on quickly

About the Client

Glitch Creative Labs

A creative agency and game development studio founded by entrepreneur Devon Smittkamp. Glitch Creative Labs builds digital experiences at the intersection of gaming, social networking, and mobile technology, specializing in identifying ecosystem gaps and rapidly prototyping solutions.

They handled all visual design, app store graphics, and branding in-house — allowing our development team to focus purely on code. This parallel workflow was key to hitting the 2-week timeline. The result: MVP Challenge winner and Product Hunt top 3 product of the day.

By the Numbers

  • MVP ChallengeWinner of startup competition
  • Top 3Product Hunt product of the day
  • Dual platformiOS and Android simultaneous launch
  • Sub-secondReal-time player list updates
Devon Smittkamp, CEO of Glitch Creative Labs
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Devon SmittkampCEO, Glitch Creative Labs
LinkedIn
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ProductCrafters are the best development team we've ever worked with personally. They've been awesome, every step of the way. I highly recommend them.
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How We Delivered in 2 Weeks

The timeline sounds impossible until you see the process. We didn't cut corners — we cut scope. Every feature got the ruthless question: does this block v1 launch? If the answer was no, it went into the backlog for v2. Here's how we spent those 14 days:

Application Process Flow

01
📋

Scope Lock

Feature prioritization workshop

Spent day 1 ruthlessly cutting features. We listed everything Glitch Creative Labs wanted, then marked what was absolutely required for v1 versus what could wait for v2. Final v1 scope: game lobbies, skill filters, timed invites, Nintendo ID exchange. That's it. Everything else went into the backlog. This discipline is what made 2 weeks possible.

02
🏗️

Technical Architecture

Real-time infrastructure design

Days 2-3 were spent designing the real-time system. We knew Redis would handle the online player state, Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications, and WebSockets for in-app updates. Built proof-of-concept for the filtered player list to validate the approach before writing production code. Two days of planning saved a week of rework.

03
⚡

Parallel Development

Backend and frontend simultaneously

Days 4-10 were heads-down coding. One developer built the Node.js backend (game lobbies, matching logic, invite timers). Another built the React Native frontend (screens, navigation, real-time updates). We integrated continuously — merging code multiple times daily instead of waiting until the end. Glitch Creative Labs delivered finalized screens as we coded.

04
🚀

Testing & Launch

QA and app store submission

Days 11-14 were testing and polish. We ran through every user flow, tested on multiple devices, verified push notifications worked reliably, and stress-tested the real-time filtering with simulated load. Submitted to both app stores on day 14. First beta users were playing within 16 days of project kickoff.

Key Features

Every feature was designed around one goal: get players matched and gaming as fast as possible. No bloat, no unnecessary steps, just the core mechanics that make the app valuable.

IGotNext - Gaming LobbiesAndroid template

Gaming Lobbies

Want to play Mario Kart? Smash Bros? Animal Crossing? Each game gets its own lobby showing who's online right now. The architecture is completely modular — adding new games doesn't require code changes, just configuration. This lets IGotNext expand to any Nintendo title without rebuilding the app.

Technologies Used

We chose proven technologies that work well together and have strong community support. React Native gave us dual-platform deployment from a single codebase. Redis handled real-time state management for instant filtering. Firebase Cloud Messaging ensured reliable push notifications with minimal latency. Nothing experimental — just battle-tested tools used properly.

Technologies

React Native

React Native

Redux

Redux

Node.js

Node.js

MongoDB

MongoDB

Redis

Redis

Socket.io

Socket.io

AWS

AWS

Services we provided:
Mobile App DevelopmentMVP Development

Frequently Asked Questions

FaQ

We prioritized ruthlessly. Working closely with Glitch Creative Labs, we identified the absolute must-have features: player matching, real-time invites, and skill-based filtering. Everything else got cut from v1. Their design team handled all graphics and app store materials in parallel, so we could focus purely on code. The result? A working app in 14 days instead of the typical 2-3 months.

When you send an invite, both players see a 60-second countdown timer. The recipient can accept or decline. We built this using Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications (95% delivered within 250 milliseconds) and WebSocket connections for in-app updates. Redis handles the filtering logic so the online player list updates instantly when someone changes their game or goes offline.

Time and budget. Building two native apps would've taken 4-6 weeks minimum and cost nearly double. React Native let us ship both platforms simultaneously in 2 weeks. For an MVP proving market demand, shared codebase was the right call. The performance is excellent for real-time chat and push notifications — users can't tell it's not native.

The filtered online players list. We needed instant updates when anyone changed their game, skill level, or went offline — across potentially thousands of concurrent users. Traditional database queries would be way too slow. We solved it with Redis (an in-memory database) that holds the current state of all online players, plus WebSocket connections for real-time updates. Took 3 days to get right, but it works beautifully.

A few things: React Native instead of native iOS/Android (roughly 50% time savings), tight scope for v1 (no feature creep), and our team's experience building real-time apps (we didn't waste time solving problems we'd already solved). Glitch Creative Labs also made smart decisions — handling design in-house instead of paying us to do it, and being decisive about cuts. No endless revisions or scope changes. The result won the MVP Challenge competition and hit top 3 on Product Hunt when they launched it.

We prioritized ruthlessly. Working closely with Glitch Creative Labs, we identified the absolute must-have features: player matching, real-time invites, and skill-based filtering. Everything else got cut from v1. Their design team handled all graphics and app store materials in parallel, so we could focus purely on code. The result? A working app in 14 days instead of the typical 2-3 months.

When you send an invite, both players see a 60-second countdown timer. The recipient can accept or decline. We built this using Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications (95% delivered within 250 milliseconds) and WebSocket connections for in-app updates. Redis handles the filtering logic so the online player list updates instantly when someone changes their game or goes offline.

Time and budget. Building two native apps would've taken 4-6 weeks minimum and cost nearly double. React Native let us ship both platforms simultaneously in 2 weeks. For an MVP proving market demand, shared codebase was the right call. The performance is excellent for real-time chat and push notifications — users can't tell it's not native.

IGotNext is purpose-built for finding Nintendo players right now. Discord is great for communities, but terrible for instantly matching with strangers at your skill level who want to play the same game. IGotNext strips away everything except the core action: see who's online, filter by game and skill, send an invite, get their Nintendo ID, start playing. The whole flow takes under a minute.

Absolutely. We architected the game lobby system to be completely modular. Adding a new game requires zero code changes — just configuration. The filtering, matching, and invite systems work identically across any number of games. This was intentional design for future expansion.

The skill levels are self-reported, which is fine for v1. Players quickly self-correct — if someone marks themselves "Expert" but plays poorly, they'll adjust their profile or others won't accept their invites. For future versions, integration with Nintendo Online stats could provide verified skill ratings. But honestly, even approximate matching beats no matching.

No, and that's deliberate. IGotNext uses a blind matching system. You see someone's game, skill level, and online status — that's it. Nintendo IDs are only exchanged after both players accept the match. This prevents harassment and keeps the focus on playing, not profiles. It's a feature, not a limitation.

That's a question for Glitch Creative Labs. We delivered a production-ready app in April 2020. The technical foundation is solid and scales well. Whether they continued operating it depends on their business strategy and market conditions, which we can't speak to.

IGotNext is purpose-built for finding Nintendo players right now. Discord is great for communities, but terrible for instantly matching with strangers at your skill level who want to play the same game. IGotNext strips away everything except the core action: see who's online, filter by game and skill, send an invite, get their Nintendo ID, start playing. The whole flow takes under a minute.

Absolutely. We architected the game lobby system to be completely modular. Adding a new game requires zero code changes — just configuration. The filtering, matching, and invite systems work identically across any number of games. This was intentional design for future expansion.

The skill levels are self-reported, which is fine for v1. Players quickly self-correct — if someone marks themselves "Expert" but plays poorly, they'll adjust their profile or others won't accept their invites. For future versions, integration with Nintendo Online stats could provide verified skill ratings. But honestly, even approximate matching beats no matching.
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