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CLIENT GAME · BROWSER · GAME DESIGN, 3D, DEVELOPMENT + CMS
Tide Keepers.
A board game that grew into an island.
A browser game about collective wealth: a walkable island, three playable keepers, choices that build a village and storms that test it, plus a CMS the client’s editors run themselves.
The brief
Help people feel what collective wealth means: a village is richer when its trust, knowledge and shared resources grow together.
What I built
Game design, 3D, interaction design, development and the CMS. It began as a digital board game, then NationSwell played a walkable version beside it and picked the island. Here is what shipped, in five parts.
Part 1
A walkable island
An artist-authored low-poly island at walking scale, with a landmark in every region: a lighthouse to climb, Marina’s treehouse, a harbour sail race, a river and falls, and a market. Day turns to night, and lanterns light up as you pass.
Part 2
Three keepers, three ways to move
Drift the otter runs and belly-slides, Marina the owl flies and Finn the dolphin swims. I rigged, animated and compressed each one so it loads on a phone.
- 14 MB → 727 KB
- Marina the owl
- 435k → 105k
- triangles on Drift
- ~722 KB
- Finn, with his animations
Part 3
Choices that build the village
Players collect 40 path tiles. Each one opens a small dilemma, from tile copy by What Else, and civic choices appear on the island as buildings. Then storms gather, flood and scar the land, and the damage stays until someone repairs it.
Part 4
Built for the phone in your pocket
It plays with touch, keyboard, mouse or a controller, and a phone can become the gamepad for a bigger screen. The sound is generated and curated, and the music follows the weather.
Part 5
A CMS the client runs
Editors change every card, conversation and ending with a live preview, review each changed word before it publishes, and move objects on the live island in a 3D map editor. Insights, release notes and bug report packages sit alongside.
Where it landed
Tide Keepers is live at tidekeepersgame.com, and the client’s editors keep its words, endings and map current on their own.
Client: NationSwell. Creative partner: What Else (tile copy, image references, character and board reference imagery and video). Game design, 3D, interaction design, development and CMS: Waldo.