The Game

The way you build your net worth is by building shops where you can sell things to people. These shops are your business. In a business, you want to make profit – money that you earn by selling something for more than you paid for it. That’s how a business works.

You will start small, with just a mat and a box of a few things you can sell to people. But if you make smart choices and use your money well to create profit, you can soon change your mat into a wagon, then a kiosk, then a small shop, a large shop, or even a supermarket! Each time you grow, you can make more profit, and increase your net worth. You can start new shops in new areas, and make a whole chain of stores. If you are smart, you will have profit coming in from many places at once.

But just in case you think this is going to be easy, think again! There are a lot of things you need to learn to be successful in your business.

You have to choose the right people to work for you, and treat them properly. You have to sell things that people in your neighborhood want, or else they won’t buy anything. You have to set the right price. You have to find ways to let people know your shop is a great place to buy things. You have to make sure your store is safe. And much more.

Don’t worry. You will learn all these things as you play.

Baalty teaches business skills by allowing the player to experiment different approaches and strategies in a simulated retail environment. Players learn by trying things out, making mistakes, learning from their mistakes, and seeing for themselves what is successful.

Here are some of the skills that players learn as they develop their business enterprise:

	Location: Choosing a location for your shop based on a target market and a budget
	Shop Type: Determining the best type of shop to grow your business within the constraints of your budget
	Product: Selecting quality, quantity, and pricing of your product based on supply and demand
	Employees: Choosing the best employees for your business, determining salary, providing training
	Upgrades: Investing into your business through upgraded equipment, shops, and services
	Marketing: Making your shop known to people using the most effective medium
	Workplace Safety: Ensuring that those working for you are safe from accidents and workplace hazards
	Community: Understanding the role that your shop's image in the community plays in your business

Financing and Loans: Experiencing the key role that financing and loans can play in growing a business. Understanding the differences between various types of financial institutions, and budgeting for loan repayment.

Sales Reports: Learning to understand what is happening in sales, and what to do in order to improve sales.

Cashflow reports: Learning how to analyze income and expenses on a daily, monthly, or annual basis.

Balance Sheets: Understanding how a balance sheet works and learning to use it as a better indicator of business health than cash-in-pocket.

Click on any picture below to see a larger size image.

Baalty has been developed under the project entitled: 'Promoting and Protecting the Interests of Children who Work'. In 2004, the project launched the development of the game by interviewing a group of working girls and boys in Aswan, Egypt in order to determine what types of education would be most useful to them. These children are from families that are a part of a community-based micro-loan program designed to enables families to establish and build micro-businesses and small businesses.

The children expressed an interest in computers and computer-related training. It needed to be related to real life. It needed to teach them useful skills for running small businesses. It needed to train them in the use and management of credit for growing a business. And it needed to transmit good business ethics related to dealing with employees and workplace safety.

As the game concept began to take shape, a number of different business models were studied, including a bakery, a carpentry business, a pharmacy, an auto mechanics shop, and a small grocery store. The grocery store (baala in Arabic) was chosen as the model that would allow players to experiment with the greatest number of specific skills in a realistic simulated game environment.

From 2005-2006, the game was developed. In late 2006 the game was first tested, and over the following year it was refined into a more stable working version. It has been used in a growing number of cities in Egypt as a creative and fun way of providing young people with hands on training in setting up and running their own business.

Baalty has been developed in collaboration with:

The Egyptian Association for Community Initiatives and Development

Partners in Technology Exchange Ltd.

Mennonite Economic Development Associates

The software has been designed and programmed by Andrew Dempsey, Educational Consultant and Software Developer (www.andrewdempsey.com) with technical assistance from Heidi Sifein, and 3D modeling and graphic design by Invent Business Solutions (www.inventithere.com). Extensive game testing was performed by Sean, Dana, and Kinzi Dempsey.

Financial support has been provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)