“The Netherlands only has seven large amusement parks, so we’re looking elsewhere”

Four UU students have developed a game in which you can play on a large screen against other players, using your own smartphone as a game controller. The game would make standing in a queue less tedious, so it would be a perfect solution for amusement parks. The student creators have set up the company CrowdConsole around the game. They created the game as part of the course ICT Entrepreneurship, earning them a perfect 10 grade and an award for the best business plan. The students also used the game for the course Mobile Interaction, for which they earned a 9.

The Master’s students Chrit Hameleers, Jorrit Velzeboer, Niels de Vries and Rebecca Latukolan developed the game together with HU student Maik van den Hengel. In the current version of the game, players compete to see who can collect the most gold nuggets, but the game concept can easily be altered or expanded. “The main thing is that the game should be simple, so that anyone with a smartphone can start playing immediately, without having to download anything”, explains Niels de Vries, first-year Master’s student in Business Informatics. “The goal of the game is to create interaction between people. It’s a lot more fun to stand in a queue if you can compete against people in other queues.”

Large amusement parks

A pilot with a major amusement park is currently being set up, but the students are already thinking much bigger. De Vries: “The Netherlands only has seven large amusement parks, so we’re looking elsewhere. The game would also be interesting for gyms, supermarkets, corporate lunchrooms, cinemas, festivals, shopping centres; you name it.” And if a potential partner isn’t interested in the game itself, then they might still be interested in the technology behind it.

Prototype

This summer, the students will continue the development of the current prototype in the startup incubator StudentsInc. But they have even larger ambitions: the company hopes to eventually offer custom-tailored games to clients, in addition to the generic game that customers can customise with their own images and logos. In September, Rebecca Latukolan will begin her second year at the Business Informatics Master’s programme, but she is also hard at work building CrowdConsole. “We’re going to continue our studies, but we’ll be developing our company as well. It’s going to be a busy year.”