Thinkwave
A strategy game that teaches you how to take an idea from concept to market.
01
The Brief
Eindhoven Engine, a collaboration of TNO, Fontys and TU/e, had real research into how successful innovation projects are structured. They wanted to turn it into a game teams can play in workshops to learn how to bring a product from idea to market. It had to feel like a real game, not a dressed-up checklist.
Fig. 02
Late in the game, more actions are spent and fewer options are left.
02
My Approach
Teams manage a 500-week timeline, spending time on actions across Research, Ideation, Development and Business. Every action costs time and adds impact to its category, but the scoring rewards balance. If you pile everything into one area, the returns shrink, so teams that spread their choices well come out ahead. All content, from action names to impact values and end texts, lives in a Google Sheet, so Eindhoven Engine can rewrite or rebalance the game without a developer. Progress is saved, so teams can pick up where they left off. A colleague designed the UI, and I built the game.
03
The Result
The finished game has over 30 actions, feedback at key milestones and a newspaper-style ending that shows how each category turned out.
04
Outcome
Thinkwave has been played over a thousand times and is still in use. Eindhoven Engine came in with clear research and good instincts, the design was clean and the development went smoothly. It's one of the projects I enjoyed most.
Video · 1 clip
Fig. 05 · Video
Weighing costly Business actions against the timeline.
03 / About
Concept first, medium second
I'm Ramon, a multimedia designer based in Eindhoven. Projects start with a problem: what the thing has to do, and how someone should move through it. The answer has been a 360 film, a VR walkthrough, an explainer animation, a configurator and an AI training platform.
My part is 3D, design and code: modelling and lighting in Blender, interface and motion in XD/Illustrator and After Effects, plus the build in PlayCanvas or Next.js.