- Player Guide -

Part 1: About the game

 

 

 

Part 2: How to play

 

Starting the game

1. Enter a unique username of your choice.
2. Click the HOST GAME button if you want to host the game or click the JOIN GAME button
3. If you are the host, wait for other players, then click on START GAME
4. If you have joined the game, wait for the host to start a game

Starting a new trade

1. Click on another player’s island
2. Under the heading “Your offer”, enter the amount of the resource(s) you are promising to ship and the amount of requested resources (this offer will be visible to other players).
3. Under “You actually send”, enter the amount of the resource(s) you would actually ship to the other player (invisible to other players) and click SET.
4. Click on the OFFER button to confirm the new trade.

Viewing and responding to pending trades

1. Click on your own island and choose TRADE.
2. Use the navigation buttons “PREVIOUS” and “NEXT” to go to the pending trade transaction you wish to respond to.
3. Under “Actual resources”, enter the amount of the requested resource(s) you would actually ship to the other player (invisible to other players).
4. Click on TRADE or DECLINE, based on your decision.

 

Rules

1. You can decline or accept offers from other players
2. You can only trade your unique resource
3. You can cheat others by sending them less than promised
4. You can play, until you have run out of one or more resources

Enjoy our game!

 

- Technical Documentation- 

 

STARTING POINT

As we were a new team on this project, we first had to get acquainted to what the previous team had been doing and what the objective of the project was. A meeting was arranged with the previous team, so they could report on their work and we could see their game. When we first tried out the game, it initially did not work as intended, so we had some trouble understanding the way it works. Nevertheless, our predecessors explained what they had done and how the prisoners dilemma had been implemented into it. Eventually, we decided to make a new game of our own, which we started to work on immediately. As we were starting from scratch, we had the opportunity to choose more appropriate working tools. Our game developer decided to use the Unity game engine for its integrated networking functionality and cross-platform compatibility, thus making the game more flexible and future-proof. Through the development process of the new game, we also gained better understanding of game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma.

BASIC INFORMATION ON THE GAME

Our game, Hanse Islands, is playable on Windows OS and Android (4.1 or later). The app gives the player an option to host or to join a session. There can be 2 – 8 players in a session. All the devices must be connected to the same network. Further information on the game can be found in our player guide.

DEVELOPMENT PHASES

The first part of our project consisted of brainstorming ideas on what to do before the trip to Spain. This part lasted for one week, after which we made the decision to make a brand new game. The idea came from our mentor and our game programmer.

As we had little time left, we had to quickly make a few key decisions. The first one was that we would keep a similar approach to the prisoner's dilemma as adopted by the previous team and also retaining the same game concept. Specific roles were distributed to every member, which resulted in Jan overseeing the programming part, as he had previous experience on Unity. Nejc was put in charge of setting the rules and instructions for the game, while Miha was given responsibility of making all the graphics. In addition, Andraž and Jaka were tasked with making the presentation and making notes of our progress, respectively.

With the allocation of tasks complete, the real work could finally start. We would meet with our mentors weekly to report on progress and discuss further plans. At the meetings, we would normally include finalising the rules down to the last details, checking on drawings and making flow charts representing the logic to be followed by the program. Jan started making the game by setting up network discovery. He then proceeded to make the game’s UI, actually setting up the mechanics of the game. After that, he put together the back-end networking. All that was left to make the game playable was to stitch everything together. Miha then showed his designs for the game’s graphics. He started with the islands and the game’s wallpaper. Later he detailed the islands and made icons for the resources. After making the game playable and stable, we would start giving it out to testers, so we could research the strategies being used. However, we ran out of time. So instead of giving the game to the testers, we decided to make it more user friendly. At the end, the game was playable, but the UI needed further tuning, since not all the graphical elements had been completed. We therefore decided to download some default icons and when we had our own, we would then replace them.

TEAM REFLECTION

All in all, we are quite proud with what we have managed to produce at such short notice. We were able to work efficiently together and make a decent, playable game, based on the given project goals and constraints.

However, we also had some difficulties which we had to overcome. One of the biggest difficulties was to actually make the decision to make a game from scratch. That came after we had realised that the previous game could not be easily posted on the school’s server.

As for the future, we would like to improve the user-friendliness of the UI, make some of the controls more intuitive and add a tutorial. Additionally, we feel it would make a lot of sense to complete and improve the graphics and get more information and feedback once the game ends.

As a team, we acknowledge that this project also served as a valuable learning experience for everyone involved. We have learnt that making a game is not simply about coding and making the graphics. We have also realised that a team must put their heads together and think how to make the game as easy to understand as possible, user-friendly and at the same time, to make it interesting for the game to be playable for a long time. To sum up, we can say that we enjoyed making this game and look forward to working further on it and updating it in the future.

 

HANSE Team, Vegova Ljubljana

Downloads:

Game:

 

Questionarie 1: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd879jcp6xlvEvR5c8_1s-L5-zuT4wFz8zma5DIIKb4Ill1AQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Questionarie 2: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZzTpWxxGoS91ITKshjJV29xmkN8S9AKAbyDVb8ENhBsomqQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

About the game:

Technical documentation: