A Game for Swiss Post

In strategic cooperation, the companies Daktiv and GLEIS6 develop individual entertainment elements for sponsoring or event commitments. They link the "on-site activities" with digital components such as games, challenges or quizzes. A game was developed for Swiss Post, the main partner of Swiss Hiking Trails, to present the special hiking trails for children to families at various events and online until 2023. We were allowed to accompany this project as a technical partner and we had a lot of fun.

Initial Position

In order to bring children and their families closer to the Swiss children's hiking trails in a playful and digital way, a game is to be developed in which the figure of the squirrel "Ursin" can be used to collect points in the form of packages, stamps and signposts. Further requirements for this game were multilingualism (GER/FR, IT), the possibility of generating leads (participation in the competition, newsletter) and the presence of two independent game instances (“on site” at trade fairs and permanently online on the website) with separate rankings. It should also be possible to expand the digital application at a later date without major problems.

The Implementation

Design/User Interface

The individual illustrations such as the squirrel, the background, the signposts and the falling objects were already fixed and were made available to us by Swiss Post. Our design task was to combine these elements into a game and to present a logical and clear process. The screens, the ranking list and the form were also designed by our design department.

Conception / Game Sequence

The course the game follows is that the squirrel can collect various elements such as packages (5 pts), stamps (10 pts) and signposts (5 pts), which fall irregularly from the sky. Danger lurks with the falling pine cones. You can lose the three lives of the squirrel. The longer you collect points / elements, the faster the elements fall down and the level of difficulty increases. "Ursin" is controlled in the desktop application via the left / right arrows on the keyboard and in the on-site application at the events via pedals built into a platform, which are operated with the feet. The points collected result in an automatic placement in the ranking. The rankings of the online application and those of the trade fairs are decoupled from each other. The ranking is reset for each event. The language of the game instructions can be selected from the three national languages (GER/FR/IT).

Technical Implementation

For the development of this game we have chosen a simple but solid approach. It was therefore quick and inexpensive to complete so that it was ready in time for the first trade fairs. We developed the frontend with ReactJS. By using svg files for all images, we achieve outstanding responsiveness on all end devices. The programmed algorithm creates random rows of falling objects. Sound effects have been added to match the gameplay.

Thanks to the CMS Sanity used, the administrator can directly make changes to the game themself:

• Text and Images
• Speed of falling objects
• Intervals to increase the speed of the falling objects
• Number of columns of falling objects
• Maximum number of falling objects per line
• Size of the objects and their score
• Conditions of Participation

This wide range of editing options for the administrators simplifies the management of the game and makes it a cost-effective solution. All details of the game participants can be extracted from the backend for further lead processing (competition, newsletter, ..). We use the Vercel platform for hosting and for CI/CD (continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD).

Features

• Game with two instances for online and on-site at events
• Usability with foot pedals
• Sanity CMS with clear admin interface
• Customer as admin can independently influence and change many parameters
• Opportunity for Lead Exploitation
• Ranking List
• Expansion Options