Not In My Backyard
Nimby, or Not In My Backyard, is a game created during my 2nd year of Communication and Multimedia Design at the Hanze UAS in Groningen. It's main goal is to create sympathy for green energy providers. Making the players go through some of the same issues these companies experience when providing renewable energy sources.
The game was made with the help of Soleila, a solar energy company based in Groningen focused on building large solar parks. They provided us with helpful insights that green energy companies face.
The game
The game is a puzzle game where the player has to place solar panels in a small area. Players need to get enough points to advance to the next level. The amount of points is affected by their proximity to certain obstacles. The solar panels need to be close to the houses. However, they should not be too close because then homeowners will get angry. Another obstacle players need to deal with are  trees, whose shade can affect the effectiveness of the solar panels. There are also nature patches and rivers the player needs to account for.
Designing the game
Simple
We tried to keep the game simple because the target audience is older people in rural areas. This was important to the energy company which operates mainly in rural areas. Furthermore, they wanted to reach people who are less in touch with technology.
This was one of the greater design requirements I needed to keep in mind while designing the game. Therefore the game is designed to be playable by all ages and level of technological skills.
My participation
Project leader and lead designer
Working on Nimby my function was as the project lead and lead designer.
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As the project lead/ product owner, I was in charge of the project. Not only did I make sure that our art and coding "departments" were functioning together but I also played a huge part in designing the mechanics for the game. Like mentioned before the game was to kept simple so that our target audience could be reached.
At the beginning of the project my task was working on designing how the game would look and playtesting. Furthermore, I was responsible for keeping the organization running and to make sure people had enough work to do. However, later on in the games development my role in the team changed a lot. My role transitioned to a playtester/level designer. Where I not only gave a lot of feedback on how the game looked, but also dictated how levels were to be designed. Designing the first few levels as a little tutorial.
I gave a lot of feedback to our artist and programmers including:
Helping with the art direction, providing mood boards and examples. Then feedback on the different iterations.
Helping with animation timings, sitting down to make sure the animations in the game were as crisp as possible.
What sound effects were used, making sure the sounds in the game were the best ones.
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