He plays well with a bad hand
That might sound like a lot to wrap your head around for a game that can be played in 15-20 minutes, but it’s a surprisingly accessible experience for the most part. The game provides many explanations and news articles that you can click on to better understand the real-world context and in-game results.
However, each ship approved for transit incurs more costs or compromises as the game progresses through the 10 playable days between March 3 and April 13, 2026. You have the option of not sending any ships through the strait on any given day, but this can quickly lead to the bottom line of “empty shelves” and “food collapse” and “desert collapse”. lack of fresh water from energy-deficient desalination plants.
A screenshot of the browser-based game Bottleneck based on the real Strait of Hormuz crisis.
If you manage to mix all the factions and avoid spiraling, the endgame results still give you a lot of real-life graphics and numbers. Strait of Hormuz the crisis is far from over. Even squeezing a few dozen ships in 10 days—the best shipping scenario in the game—is a far cry from the pre-war average of 130 ships passing through the strait each day. The inadequacy of this shipping rate continues to have daily real-world consequences.
Gornicki designed and built the game himself in 17 days while executing the game’s core code with the help of an AI coding tool, which he described in the press kit as “checked and tweaked every step of the way.” It also incorporated over 125 verified and linked news articles, along with shipping data from sources such as Windward Maritime Intelligence and Lloyd’s List.
“The tipping point is not a story you read once and put it down — it comes back every week in fuel prices, fertilizer shortages, food insecurity in places far from any tanker,” Gornicki said. “I wanted to give people this reporting form where they can’t go through their history.”
