Status: Done
The assignment
As part of the study Game Technology, every student has to partake in a bigger project consisting of groups of around 10 students where they work for an outside client. Our client was a combination of two researchers from the USBO, the management faculty, and the head of the psychiatric wing of the UMC, the biggest hospital in Utrecht. They wanted a game that could show future managers what it is like to keep multiple stakeholders satisfied. We were supplied with a number of scientific theories that explained how certain policies have an effect on different variables within the hospital. Using this, a visit to the hospital, and continuous input from the client(s), we developed a game that simulated the effects of the policies chosen by the player.
The game
The gameplay was divided in four similar rounds. Every round, the player could read the feedback from the stakeholders and look at a report containing values regarding the hospital. The stakeholders would be very vague and only say whether they were satisfied or not and what variable caused this. The report would contain hard data on variables such as the time spent per patient. Using this, the player could choose certain policies to influence the variables. After the final round is over, the player gets a screen with fictional grades from every stakeholder based on how satisfied they were. A lot of emphasis had to be put on the fact that the player can’t satisfy everyone. This meant some challenges in keeping the game engaging since there was no way to get a perfect score and part of the effectiveness was frustrating players.
Role within the team
I quickly took on the role of game designer within the team. This meant that I made proposals for how the game would look, feel, and play. I was responsible for most of the decisions when it came the game. I also organized all the playtests. This meant making sure we got the information we wanted from surveys and later processing this information and translating it to a list of improvements and changes for the game. I learned a lot about working together in a larger team from the entire experience.