Client description

Game company ‘The Barn’, settled in Delft South Holland, have created a board game that handles the difficulty of making decisions to make a busy port thrive both economically and environmentally.

The assignment

The board game has also been turned into a digital version as well, but people (mostly the ones who work at the Port of Rotterdam) frequently find themselves confused or overwhelmed by the game’s complex rules and mechanics, and not all actions players are recommended to make are as natural as intended. 

Our goal is to improve the game’s user experience and clarity. The game needs to be easier to understand for the people who work at the Port of Rotterdam, who most likely are not familiar with video games.

The game

Within the game, players get 10 turns/rounds to make changes to the Port of Rotterdam by building or demolishing buildings, upgrading existing buildings or closing them down.

During gameplay, several things are measured, mostly the CO2 emission, as well as the added value of all used facilities of the port. There is a gauge that measures how environmentally friendly the port is, using the level from the added value of each used facility, as well as the total CO2 emissions from these facilities.

Members

Members that worked on this project are:

  • Alessandro Busacchi
  • Angel Angelov
  • Brian Vlaar
  • Florian van der Kun
  • Rick Janssen
  • Vladimir Vladinov

Game’s key features

What we created is a tutorial based in different scenarios to help the player better learn the rules of the game.

Beside this, we managed to create cards for the tutorial only, to avoid that players make strategies beforehand. We used playtesting to balance them.

Finally, we improved the UI, making it more enjoyable by the player.

Unfortunately, due to privacy reasons, we are not able to show any screenshot of our game.

Gameplay

The game consists of a board, which contains all the buildings already built in the port in a card form and a market with all the buildings available for purchase. The board also displays the different stats – CO2 emissions, added value and available money. 

At the game’s start, the player is given a board where many buildings have been built. Only one empty space is given for a new construction site to take place. The CO2 emissions are quite high, and the player must take proper decisions to reduce them. By round three the emissions must be lowered, or a penalty is applied.  

There are 10 rounds. Before each round, predictions are given to indicate that something may change in the following rounds of the game. The player must be able to adapt to them accordingly to maximize their score.