Chaotic Café - From an Erasmus Side Project to an Educational Game

Chaotic Café is a game that started as a side project during my three-month Erasmus stay in Cork, Ireland. What initially began as a project I worked on during my time abroad eventually developed into a longer-term collaboration that continued after I returned to the Czech Republic.

The game combines interactive gameplay with accounting concepts. The main experience is built around a singleplayer mode, while multiplayer is available as an additional way to play. The game is currently in development and is planned to be used at universities in Ireland.

From Erasmus to continued collaboration

I spent three months in Cork, Ireland as part of the Erasmus programme. During my stay, I started working on Chaotic Café as a side project.

After returning to the Czech Republic, we agreed to continue working together on the game. What started as a project during my Erasmus stay therefore became a longer-term collaboration that continued even after I returned home.

This also gave me the opportunity to experience what it is like to work on a project with people from another country and to communicate in English throughout the development process.

A game built around accounting

Chaotic Café is built around financial transactions and accounting concepts. Players draw cards and work with transactions that affect the state of the game.

One of the unexpected benefits of working on the project was that I had to learn about accounting myself. In order to implement the game mechanics correctly, I needed to understand how individual transactions work and how they are represented within an accounting system.

The project therefore gave me practical insight into an area that I had previously had very little experience with. Instead of learning accounting only through theory, I could explore the concepts while implementing them into an actual interactive game.

Building the game in Unity

The game itself is developed using Unity. I am responsible for the complete technical implementation of the game, including its gameplay systems, user interface, and other systems required for the game to function.

The main experience is designed around the singleplayer mode. The player interacts with the game's mechanics, works with transactions, and learns through the gameplay itself.

The goal was to create a complete game rather than simply a technical prototype. This meant working on the individual systems and connecting them together into a coherent and playable experience.

My first experience with multiplayer

Although singleplayer is the main way to play Chaotic Café, the project also includes multiplayer functionality.

This was my first time developing a multiplayer game. Before this project, I had never worked with game networking in practice, so I had to learn how multiple players can communicate with the game and how the state of a shared game session can be synchronized.

Multiplayer therefore became an additional technical challenge and an opportunity to explore an area of game development that was completely new to me.

It also gave me a better understanding of the differences between designing a singleplayer experience and building systems that have to coordinate information between multiple players.

A cross-platform launcher

In addition to the Unity game itself, I also created a separate launcher. The launcher is designed as a cross-platform desktop application for starting and managing the game.

For the launcher, I used Avalonia UI, a cross-platform .NET framework that allows applications to be built using C# and run across multiple desktop platforms.

This gave me the opportunity to work outside the Unity environment and create a standalone desktop application that works alongside the game itself.

Creating the launcher also meant thinking about the game as a complete product rather than focusing only on the game executable itself.

Working in English

Because the project originated during my Erasmus stay in Ireland, English became an important part of the development process.

After returning to the Czech Republic, I continued communicating in English while working on the project. This gave me practical experience with using English in a real development environment rather than only in an educational setting.

I had to discuss requirements, explain technical decisions, ask questions, and communicate changes to the project in English.

This was valuable because English became a natural part of the development workflow rather than something used only for learning.

From development to planned release

Chaotic Café is currently still in development. The project is being prepared for a planned release and future use at universities in Ireland.

The goal is not simply to create a prototype demonstrating accounting concepts or technical features. The intention is to develop a complete game that can eventually be used by real students as an interactive learning tool.

This also means that development is focused not only on implementing individual features, but on making sure the different parts of the project work together as a complete product.

What this project taught me

Chaotic Café has given me experience in several areas that were completely new to me.

These include multiplayer game development, networking, cross-platform desktop application development, accounting concepts, and technical communication in English.

At the same time, the project allowed me to deepen my existing experience with Unity and game development by working on a larger project with real requirements and a planned release.

One of the most valuable aspects was that the project required me to learn outside my usual area of programming. Understanding accounting, communicating with an international team, and learning multiplayer networking all became part of the development process.

The result

Chaotic Café is still under development and is planned to be released for use at universities in Ireland. The project combines game development, accounting, optional multiplayer, cross-platform tooling, and international collaboration in a single project.

Most importantly, the project started during my Erasmus stay in Ireland and continued after I returned to the Czech Republic. What began as a side project therefore developed into a longer-term collaboration and a game intended for real educational use.