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Cold Water Cowboys — interactive series site

Discovery

Cold Water Cowboys

Atlantic Empire

An interactive companion to Season 2 of Cold Water Cowboys on Discovery. Atlantic Empire is an immersive multiplayer HTML5 gaming experience that captures the essence of a high-stakes Newfoundland fishing adventure with a combination of both strategy and skill-based gameplay, including in-depth information about show characters and locations.

Client
Discovery
Role
UI / UX / Art Direction
Project
HTML 5 Game
Agency
Switch United

Using map-based gameplay, players have the ability to choose their ports, customize their harbours and fishing operations, bringing in as much fish as they can in order to build their fishing empire.

The Atlantic Empire game running on a laptop, showing the top-down ocean map

Game Characters & Icons

Five Cold Water Cowboys cast members shown as circular in-game character tokens
A row of Atlantic Empire game icons — ports, boats, sonar, crab pots and catches
In-game map of Newfoundland with selectable ports: Cow Head, Piccadilly, Twillingate and Valleyfield
The harbour-building screen, placing structures on an isometric shoreline

Process & Planning

Throughout the length of the project, a considerable amount of time was spent experimenting and tweaking game and motion assets in order to reach the visual, real-life aesthetic we were looking for. In order to extend the long-term experience and allow the game to grow — design and development were approached in a way that accommodated updates and additional features.

Planning whiteboard mapping out the game's mechanics and mini-games
Hand-drawn wireframe of the seine-net fishing mini-game
Flat-colour concept mockup of the same net-fishing screen
Early functional prototype of the fishing grid
The Atlantic Empire loading screen on a tablet
The Challenges and leaderboard panel on a tablet

On The Move

Once an account is created and the user is logged in, they are able to continue building their empire from wherever they are. Start on desktop — then move to mobile and pick up right where you left off, being sure to not spoil your catch.

Seine-net gameplay on an iPhone

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