The Venture Zone Game: Looking for Your Thoughts

By Kevin Shaw, 8 June, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS Gaming
I work for the CNIB Foundation in Canada as the program manager for entrepreneurship & innovation. On May 16, we released The Venture Zone Game—a business simulation learning game for iOS—think Farmville for running a business. The game is available in the Canadian App Store with an international version coming later this summer. In the game, you as the business owner borrow virtual cash to create a production-based business centred around a product you choose at the start of the game. You learn to run your business by branding, marketing, manufacturing and selling your product. Hire staff; fire staff, set up your own factory and even crowdfund your product. If you get stuck, there is a comprehensive help system built into the game, as well as a tutorial to get you started if you have never run a business before. The game is fully accessible with VoiceOver and was built natively in Swift using UIKit objects. We have even added VoiceOver hints specific to the game so you know exactly what each button and control does. Post your high score to Game Centre when your business gets bought out at the end of the game. We'd love any feedback, suggestions or comments on the game. I can't post in the App Directory out of conflict of interest with AppleVis, but would love it if you could post your experiences with the game. We're looking at developing version 2.0 already, so please feel free to add any suggestions. Search for "Venture Zone Game" in the Canadian App Store or click the link below: https://apple.co/2I0ZTl4 Looking forward to your feedback!

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Comments

By techluver on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I don't think so: it sounds like it's going to be only an IOS game. I could be wrong though.
Echo and IOS work on 2 very separate development platforms, so a developer would have to code the game for both platforms independently to enable echo functionality.
That would be pretty cool though!

By Kevin Shaw on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Hi guys,

Great news! Venture Zone Global has been submitted to Apple. Keep your fingers crossed that they say yes.
Feel free to follow our social accounts for news on the game:
Twitter: @CNIBVentureZone
Instagram: CNIB.venturezone (For those of you with usable sight). We always alt tag our images.

By Bogdan Muresan on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Hi all. Did someone tried the international version? I want to ask you something. While playing it appears the buy out thing. After this, I have only the button to post the score and return to mayn menu. There is a way to play longer? If not, it is too short.

By tyler chambliss on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Okay, it's a game, even though it is business focused, it shouldn't be in the business category in the app directory. Also, the game should last more than two years, maybe until either you go bankrupt, have set an amount of years in the game settings, or maybe slow down the time in real life the game day takes as the game is very short. Also, all the close buttons in the tutorial are extremely annoying. the app should know what I've clicked on and present the next dialogue in the tutorial, instead of all these close buttons because that slows you down in a game where a day only lasts 7 seconds. Maybe pause game time while you are navigating the interface, and let it resume when yu do something to possibly prolong the game, because, again, it goes way too fast to actually be enjoyable because sense it goes so fast you don't get much real time, give or take 30 to 45 minutes most to play. Next, if you do allow it to go on in an endless mode, it would be cool to be able to make and sell multiple types of products, and have teams that do marketing research and target different nitches. Example, I sell a nice watch marketed towards teens, and a suit marketed to professionals. Speaking of that, maybe either add more products to sell or the ability for users to type custom ones, and have the ability to change price point in the product screen as you are starting the game.

By Bogdan Muresan on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Yes. It is too short. It will be great if you can add things like levels or stars. For example, you can build a specific level only if you reach a star or a specific grade. Also, I would like for example if you want to sell furniture, start from pillows and reach to top for example by building masiv desks from oak wood, etc. In other comments like those above, I can say that the game is really kool. A longer gameplay will be great.

By Ornella on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I agree with all those things and I was hoping for us to customize products and put in our own prices and products like shoes and party supplies or even candy to export to other countries. Hope for that in a future update.

By techluver on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I'll start by saying that mobile games very rarely hold my interest.
I was really looking forward to this, but thought it may be a disappointment. I'm very glad to say that I was 100% wrong!!!
I have spent the last 2 hours playing this game, and I just want to build another business. I built up madam malkins designers jeans shop, and flourish and blots sunglasses shop (gotta change it up a little, ya know?)
I'm having a blast! Now... I didn't start building my brand early enough and i hired too early. Now on to make zonkos computer monitor store...

By Kevin Shaw on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

In reply to by tyler chambliss

Hi, and thanks for the great feedback! For a version 1 release, we had to pick a point to stop adding features. The game should not be counting out days while the narrator is talking. We have some of this planned for version 2.

By techluver on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I know that you are probably already working on version 2 but:
1. It'd be awesome if I could have a short game (2 years), or a longer game (5 years or so). This game seems like its super scalable.
2. I wish if you wholesaled more units to a store, you could offer them less of a discount. E.G. if you wholesaled 100 units the store would only take 35% but if you did like 5000 units they would take 20% or something. Make it up on volume, ya know?
3. It'd be interesting, if during the game world random tarifs would come up... fun stuff!

By techluver on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

When you internationalize it, are you planning on having narrators for each language?

By Quentin on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Hi!
I love this game
I think a longer time option could be cool.
Thank for this game

By Bogdan Muresan on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Hi. As I said, a longer game will be great, but I was able to complete it having staff in every department and also a products factory. The best choice if you want a good marketing and stuff, is to have local team, cause the task will finish faster. I was able to upgrade the logo to the maximal level.

By Quentin on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

With a complete team I finished the logo and the web site.

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I ended with 57 million and are now currently number 1 on The global leaderboard.

By Quentin on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I am third

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I wonder if the person in second place is part of the blind community? I guess we'll never know.

By Quentin on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I love the autotasks feature.

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Can't do it all by yourself, especially when things start to move fast.

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

What happens if we don't for fill orders from retail deals? Will we lose the deal, or will our sales department staff handle them automatically?

By Quentin on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

I don't really know.

By techluver on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

It seems like the sales staff is quite useless. They don't handle deals on their own (but I think this might be a bug).

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

They do seem to handle everything else, although we will need confirmation regarding the deals. They are good at making deals, but bad at solving them lol.

You can create retail deals yourself or have your sales team go out and do this. Once your deal has been accepted, you will need to fulfil the order, even if a staff member brings in the sale. If you don't fulfil the order, this negatively affects your brand strength. You will need to do the approving because, after all, that's what makes the game fun and it helps you determine whether you should keep staff on your payroll if they're not performing to your satisfaction.

By Kevin Shaw on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

In reply to by techluver

Your sales team goes out and creates retail deals. You need to approve the sale in time. It may take someone who is a junior some time to get to the point where they're selling lots of units.

Glad everyone is enjoying the game.

By DMNagel on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Thanks for the confirmation. I have been expecting this but I just had to make sure.

By Nathan Hester on Friday, August 23, 2019 - 03:14

Hi everyone, a quick introduction, my name is Nathan and I am one of the developers who worked on the Venture Zone Game.

First off I just want to say a great big thank you for all the amazing feedback in this post! As a developer its great to see how our game has been received and to read all your suggestions for improvements / changes.

As Kevin has said, in order to get the game released, we had to stop developing new features. However we are currently planning version 2.0 and after reading all your comments its starting to become clear what features we should be working on :) .

This is our first accessible app, hence I would love to hear more about its usability in general, we spent a lot of time working with CNIB to try and get the formula right but I expect we still have some room to improve!

Once again I just want to say thank you and I am looking forward to hearing more of your suggestions and feedback.