An online marketplace for all things Star Atlas, this platform allows users to buy and sell various assets supported by the Star Atlas AAA video game, built using Unreal Engine and the Solana blockchain.
About
Designed to allow users to buy and sell their ships, resources, and services on the Star Atlas Marketplace. Users can connect their Solana Wallet and buy various NFT assets that are used as items in the game. They can also buy and sell other Star Atlas products and services such as the series Graphic Novel and special access to other Star Atlas services and products.
Project Objective:
The main objective of the project is to provide Star Atlas users the ability to buy, sell, and trade in-game assets, special access passes, and other products and services associated with the highly anticipated AAA game, Star Atlas. Our goal as part of the infrastructure & automation team was to ensure the team had a robust CI/CD pipeline that involved various technologies like a front-end client (the marketplace itself), a fully-secured back-end server (Galaxy Server), an interactive components library (storybook), a custom React UI Library (React Components) and provide the scalable, reliable, and fully-monitored infrastructure to run these various technologies.
Conceptualization:
- Technology research and development
- Deployment strategy
- CI/CD Pipeline design
- Availability research
- Identify Key Performance Indicators to be tracked
- Test and validate the desired infrastructure
Technologies Used:
- Next.js
- Node.js
- JavaScript/TypeScript
- GitHub Actions
- Google Cloud Platform
- Cloud Run
- Cloud Build
- Cloud Storage
- Cloud DNS
- Various Solana RPC Providers
- WebSockets
- Rust Language
- MongoDB
- StackPath
- New Relic
Features:
- Solana wallet connection
- Integrated payment gateway
- Product listings
- Analytics
- Order management
- Product bookmarking
- Product searching capabilities
Functions:
- Buy and sell various Star Atlas in-game assets and associated products and services
- Track order history and unfulfilled orders
- Bookmark products and save them for later
- Search for various Star Atlas products and services
- View featured products and services
Project Challenges:
- Working on a tight deadline with little resources
- Untested infrastructure comprised of rising new technologies
- Unknown usage statistics or projected numbers for product usage
- Security concerns in regards to being a Crypto project that could be targeted by many different kinds of attackers
Solutions we developed:
- Working under a tight deadline gave us the opportunity to make fast decisions based on our prior experience and instincts. Also, while we had a small team at first, it allowed us to work quickly and stay in sync with the rest of the Star Atlas team for maximum efficiency
- While developing the infrastructure to support the Star Atlas Marketplace, we performed a large amount of research and development to help us iterate and refine our final solution as much as possible before making it public
- As the company was first starting out at this time, we had no idea just how popular it would become and just how many potential concurrent connections to the marketplace our infrastructure would need to support. With our upgrade to Google Cloud Run, we were able to deliver a solution that could scale at any moment to meet the Marketplace’s demands.
- As Star Atlas is a crypto project, they would be targeted by a large number of malicious players who seek to infiltrate or exploit the services and products we offer as a means to steal money, data, or other important information. Taking that into consideration, we constantly kept up to date with the latest security best practices and developed a solution that could sustain the threats and mitigate the risk of any security issues.
