Oliver Engström

Final Fish XVII

A game created for a new exhibit in the upcoming Skansen Baltic Sea Science Center as part of my intership.

Roles: Designer, Programmer, Configuration Manager

Skansen wanted a game that fit in one of their upcoming exhibits

The requirements we got were that the full playtime did not exceed 3 minutes, not too fun so that people wanted to play multiple times and no highscore or leaderboards that would incentivise multiple playthroughs that is played on a 60 inch touch screen.

The goal of the game is to teach about fishing methods in the Baltic Sea and sustainable fishing in general.

Design

3 players each stand on a side of the screen. The game starts by choosing a character and language before being introduced to a tutorial.

The players start out with one ship which is launched by dragging and releasing the ship. (Picture 1)

After the ship has been launched 2 buttons appears where the ship was. These buttons select what fishing tool will be launched on the ship.

The 2 tools have different uses and funktions. There is the net which trails behind the ship as it travels leaving a net that prevents ships from traveling over it. The net can only catch medium sized fish as is the case in reality. There is also the trawl which follows closely behind the ship catching fish of all sizes. Each fish the players catch add up to their quota for that species. The players get penalized if they exceed their quota. The trawl has a much bigger impact of the fishing population than the net. That is something Skansen wanted expressed as part of the goal of teaching about sustainable fishing methods.

After the tool has been chosen the same button can be pressed again to stop fishing with that boat.

After 23 seconds of fishing the round ends and the players are presented to whom earned the most money last round, how the fish populations are doing and a turn counter. While this in happening the fish populations are proliferating. (Picture 2)

How much the different fish populations proliferate are based on models provided by fish researchers at Stockholm University.

If a fish species is nearing extintion they become protected which is expressed as a loud horn-like sound and a warning circle around the schools of fish affected. If a player fish protected fish a negative sound plays for each fish fished while draining the players money.

If a species becomes extinct the game prematurely ends and the players are informed that the ecosystem has collapsed due to their reckless fishing. (picture 3)