AI-First Web Game Shipped in Six Weeks for a Budget-Constrained NGO
Implex built Media Minds, an interactive media-literacy game for Ukrainian students and teachers, for the Stabilization Support Services (SSS) Foundation. We delivered it against a fixed donor budget by running the build AI-first rather than AI-assisted: product requirements, UX/UI, illustrations, frontend, and infrastructure were each driven by an AI tool, with a team equivalent to about half of one full-time person. Implex remains on support today.
Industry:
EdTech / NGO
Region:
Ukraine
Client since:
2025
Stabilization Support Services (SSS) is a Ukrainian charitable foundation that builds government and community capacity to respond to crises caused by the war. It has delivered humanitarian aid to over 530,000 people and legal or social support to more than 220,000, alongside restoring more than 2,100 pieces of infrastructure. Media Minds is part of SSS’s youth education program: a gamified media-literacy course for students aged 18-25 and the teachers who work with them.
1,000+ PLAYERS
have played the game per month, by SSS's own tracking
~0.5 FTE TEAM
one fractional full-stack developer, tester, DevOps engineer, and designer combined
5 AI TOOLS
across design, illustration, code, requirements, and infrastructure – AI-first, not AI-assisted
Services and expertise
Challenge
A full-scope interactive platform, a fixed donor budget, and a tender to win first
SSS needed a branching, card-based game in the style of Reigns and Tinder, with a multi-metric scoring system, 10-12 endings, a teacher-facing admin panel, and full Ukrainian/English support – built from nothing, with no existing content or platform to extend.
- The budget was fixed, typical of donor-funded NGO work, and Implex had to win the mandate through a competitive tender before any building could start.
- The scope was large for that budget: 80-100 situational cards, character illustrations, a scoring engine, and a content-management admin panel, all in one build.
- Everything – product logic, visuals, code, and infrastructure – had to be created from scratch on a compressed timeline.
Solution
We treated AI as the primary builder at every stage of delivery, not a tool we occasionally reached for client-facing work like:
- AI-first product requirements. Instead of a traditional PM-led spec process, we used Claude Code paired with Notion to define and structure the platform’s business requirements directly, keeping “what to build” moving at the same pace as the build itself.
- AI-first UX/UI design. The interface and game screens were designed in Figma Make, letting a single fractional designer (5% of the project) cover work that would typically take a full design cycle.
- AI-generated illustrations. Character art and card visuals were produced with Adobe AI rather than commissioned from an illustrator.
As well as technical works like:
- AI-first frontend build. The entire frontend was built in Cursor by one fractional developer (25% of the project), handling work a traditional build would split across a multi-person team.
- AI-first infrastructure. Hosting, deployment, and backend setup ran through devin.ai and Claude Code on AWS instead of a dedicated DevOps buildout, with the entire setup defined as infrastructure as code rather than configured by hand.
- Closing the gap between client expectations and system behavior. Early in the build, translating AI-generated designs straight into working logic left a gap between what SSS expected the platform to do and how it actually behaved. We added a dedicated step – using Claude Code and Notion to formalize business requirements before implementation – which closed that gap and removed a wave of small business-logic bugs before QA ever saw them.
The tools and technologies we used were:
Results
Despite a fixed NGO budget and a full-scope build, Media Minds shipped fast and lean
Daria Zhykharieva
PM at Stabilization Support Services
“
Implex delivered a fully functional, engaging, and accessible game that enabled users to explore the consequences of their online behavior. The team demonstrated strong project management skills and was well-organized, proactive, and transparent. Moreover, Implex was creative and responsive.
- Built the full platform in six weeks (mid-December 2025 to end of January 2026), with public launch following in February 2026.
- Delivered by a team equivalent to roughly half of one full-time person: 0.25 full-stack developer, 0.15 tester, 0.05 DevOps engineer, 0.05 designer.
- Costs SSS $5-10 a month to run and can be restored from backup and redeployed in about 30 minutes if something goes wrong – sustainable for an NGO budget both day to day and in a crisis.
- Caught business-logic bugs before launch by adding a requirements-formalization step mid-build, rather than after QA found them.
- Implex remains on ongoing support for the platform post-launch.
- Surpassed 1,000 players during the 1st month after launch, with SSS tracking user numbers, engagement, and participation to guide future updates.
More Case Studies
We take great pride in the work we do and the values we uphold. Here are some of our best case studies
Building a Scalable Front-End Architecture for a High-Growth Trading Platform
We re-engineered the front-end (FE) architecture and authentication system, making the platform of a leading solutions provider for active options traders more scalable and user-friendly while enabling the seamless display of complex option data. These enhancements boosted customer acquisition, increased mobile engagement, and opened new revenue streams through API sales and feature expansion.
View Case Study
Re-engineering a legacy mob app into a modern MAUI solution
A legacy Xamarin.Forms mobile application for PDR technicians, stalled mid-migration, re-engineered to .NET MAUI under a hard app store deadline. Through reverse engineering and iterative requirement discovery, we rebuilt the full field workflow — damage documentation, invoicing, job tracking, and commission management — on a clean, maintainable architecture that reduced crashes by 30% and cut maintenance effort by 40%.
View Case Study
(R)evolution of the high-load visual art web encyclopedia
The aim of the project was to make art accessible to anyone, anywhere. Today, WikiArt features over 250,000 artworks by 5,000 artists, localized to 8 languages. These artworks are displayed in museums, universities and town halls of more than 100 countries, yet most of it is not on public view. The client claims that they are planning to cover the entire art history of the Earth, from cave artworks to modern private collections.
View Case Study
Rapid Prototype for a Startup in the HR Reskilling Area
Within just one month, we delivered a fully functional MVP of a complementary product built around the client’s proprietary ML/AI for skill extraction — a targeted reskilling tool developed specifically for live demonstration at a major innovation exhibition.
View Case Study
Telemetry service for data-driven decisions & product growth
Implementation of the new Telemetry service, which should have a significant impact on Percona's business decision process. By collecting data on how the company’s product and services were being used by clients, Percona is able to identify and prioritize new features based on user needs and improve the product development flow. This lightweight, scalable service was implemented with high quality, allowing the company to meet its product release schedule and manage its software more efficiently.
View Case Study
Flutter Edtech App for primary school students
A cross-platform mobile application that helps to learn the Ukrainian language to kids whose native language is Hungarian or Romanian. Developed for schoolchildren, it is simple, logical, concise, and at the same time, attractive and low resource-consuming to work fast, even on old mobile devices. The app has been created in partnership with a digital agency, "Friends of Brands", for the program of cooperation between Ukraine, Finland, and the EU aims to support the reform of the New Ukrainian School (NUSch).
View Case Study
Bid farewell to blocks, restrictions, and CAPTCHAs
Implex built a custom software to scrape data from the internet to support client’s marketing efforts. Web scraping is a technique used to extract data from websites. However, some websites are well-protected and can make scraping more difficult. This case study will present the solution we've developed to overcome common problems that can be encountered while scraping more demanding websites. These issues include protection against scraping from IPs of public clouds and VPNs, the requirement of a CAPTCHA, rate limiting per IP address, and region-specific restrictions.
View Case Study
Turning unusual vision into a novel map-based web product
CyberQuantic's web application transforms a mind map with cases into an innovative map-based website with intuitive navigation. Mental maps are the primary content and navigation method with an easy-to-read visualization. The web app is integrated with CyberQuantic's knowledge base and maintains a high level of website performance. The site includes data on 600+ AI firms in Europe and 200+ open APIs, and excellent Google PageSpeed Insights ratings.
View Case Study
Admit.me: trustful cooperation in education domain
Admit.me is a free virtual admissions coach that offers step-by-step guides through the admissions process of the best schools. The developed solution allows for generating personalized admissions programs based on the applicant's background and goals. Admit.me provides tools and lessons designed to optimize the applicant's admissions chances by framing the applicant's thinking and informing critical admissions decisions.
View Case Study
Rapid MVP for the on-line mobile and web car auction
A B2B startup for car dealers who sell used vehicles across the USA via the marketplace. The developed application has a whole range of functions to support the workflows of car dealers and inspectors, like auctions workflow, live and proxy bidding, post-auction counter offering, and deal closing. The solution is integrated with different APIs to gather information about vehicles, helping dealers make the right decisions at auctions
View Case Study
Lightning-fast website for a reputable cybersec company
A cybersecurity services company Berezha Security Group rebranded as BSG in 2020. So they needed to improve their website, but redesign was only part of the story. The ultimate goal was to make the website fast and SEO-friendly, keeping its Google PageSpeed Insights scores in the green 90-100 range, what's impossible using a WordPress-like CMS approach. A static website with perfect usability, external CMS and one-click deployment functionality, and revision control successfully represents the BSG brand now.
View Case Study
Every journey starts from the first step
Leave your contact details, and we will reach you within 24 hours