Mobile Delivery App (Mr Delivery, TakeALot etc)

Enchiridion

Hey guys!

So this isn't really related to gaming, but I am on a mission to scope out what it would take to make a delivery app such as Mr Delivery.

I have no idea where to start and wanted to know if I could get some advice from you guys or get pointed in the right direction (or websites/resources).

I would need to make a client side app, where people can create an account and place orders which are delivered to their address. Then I would need a server side app to manage all the orders and later on possibly another app for the drivers.

What I need to know is what backend structures this would require, databases etc. Because I only have knowledge with Unity, that's where I was going to start, at least to create a demo.

Bonus points to anyone that knows who developed the Mr Delivery, OrderIn or TakeAlot apps.

Thanks in advance!

SkinnyBoy

This is not game related.

Leslie

Use something like Xamarin to develop the client side (since you come from Unity and know C#) or use the iOS/Android SDKs and related development tools/IDEs.

You could try build your own back-end with tech like NodeJS and Couchbase or use existing frameworks. There are a lot of options for the back-end and the one you choose will dictate the database tech you use. Do some research on BaaS (Backend as a Service) to get started. Some options include, https://firebase.google.com/, https://parseplatform.org/, https://heroiclabs.com/.

TheCorinthian

@enchiridion Yeah so this is a MASSIVE undertaking if you're going at it solo.

I would recommend building your back-end first as that is going to determine how your front-end apps communicate.
The BaaS suggestions are good. Firebase is a winner, and I would also look at Realm. It provides a back-end service with realtime sync as well as an object-relational database for Android and iOS.

What are your timelines looking like?
And who is your target market, or is this just a personal project?
Does the app need to do routing or route optimisation?
Do you need to process payments?

What is your development experience? If this is a personal project and you aren't comfortable designing software with multiple platforms in mind I would strongly suggest starting with something smaller. Like a lot smaller.
Try a stopwatch that posts lap times to a backend and displays those on a website. That should give you enough exposure to different tech / tools so that you get a better idea of just how large the scope is for something like a Takealot / Mr. D app.

If you want you can send me a DM and I'll try and break down the parts you'll need to build and offer some tech suggestions.

roguecode

I built the bidorbuy app (fairly close to the ones you were asking about). Are you asking about this because you want to do this as a business, or you're just interested in the tech?
If it is the former, the tech really isn't the hard part. The hard part is providing the actual service and somehow beating the people that are already there. The companies you mention pay millions to advertise alone each year. If you're posting this question here I assume you don't have that kind of money (if you did you would just be going to a dev house and asking them to quote).
Basically, stop. Find something easier to do.

Tuism

1. What is everyone's view on this kind of completely non game-dev related dev discussion? I think what I'm going to do is to allow it since there's scope for brief engagement, but sink it (so it doesn't come back up when new comments are added). Cool?

2. I think for something like this, the software side is the least of your worries, as there are relationships to be built and financial things (currency exchange) to be managed. This is far, far, far away from a solo project and requires a company of people dedicated to many different parts of a BUSINESS for this to even feature on anyone's radar. Mr D and UberEats are not your friendly neighbourhood entrepreneurs, and I haven't heard of any single case of a small startup in this space. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, though.

francoisvn

Tuism said:

1. What is everyone's view on this kind of completely non game-dev related dev discussion? I think what I'm going to do is to allow it since there's scope for brief engagement, but sink it (so it doesn't come back up when new comments are added). Cool?

AFAIK historically we haven't typically allowed unrelated posts or job listings like this, because it kind of opens the flood gates to this becoming a job board filled with recruiters and other (IMHO) unsavoury characters trying to poach game devs. I've seen this happen with other software dev communities a couple times. Also, you mention relevant discussion coming out of it, but realistically I don't think any of this discussion is useful to game dev, so it's really not relevant to this community. So IMHO there are just many better places for this kind of content and we should keep these forums pruned and focused on their goals. It's totally cool for there to be multiple communities that have a lot of members in common and potentially even some overlap in goals, but when you try get one community to do all the things then it ends up doing none of them well.

mattbenic

I agree with @francoissvn. There simply isn't any kind of conceptual or tech crossover that could justify discussion about this kind of project here. If they were planning to build it as some kind of gamified AR app where the delivery guys had to collect runaway zombies on their route, we'd have something :) But just a vanilla delivery app? Nope.

Tuism

I think I'll let this one sink for now, if more stuff come up frequently I'll close them in future.