Humanitarian Worker Simulator
A management simulation game built on four years of MSF field experience. Navigate logistics, security, and access negotiation in crisis zones — where the right decision is never obvious.
In Humanitarian Worker Simulator, you play as a Field Coordinator working for ARAN — Aid & Relief Action Network. ARAN does not exist. But everything about it was designed to be indistinguishable from the real thing.
ARAN delivers emergency medical care, water & sanitation services, and logistical support in conflict-affected and disaster-stricken areas. Our independence from political and military actors is the foundation of everything we do.
Using a real organisation — MSF, ICRC, IRC — would carry the risk of misrepresenting their actual doctrine, decisions, or operational principles, even unintentionally.
ARAN was created to give the game full creative and educational freedom: to explore difficult dilemmas, including situations where the "right" answer costs lives, without implying that any real organisation made those choices.
The scenarios, however, are drawn directly from real field experience. The complexity is real. The tension is real. Only the logo is invented.
Humanitarian Worker Simulator puts you in the seat of an ARAN Field Coordinator. Every day brings decisions with no clean answers — because that is what the field is actually like.
Every patient reached depends on a vehicle that moves. Manage maintenance schedules, fuel reserves, and movement authorisations — in a context where roads are not safe after dark.
Armed groups control territory. Your ability to operate depends on being trusted, not on having guards. Acceptance is your security strategy — and it can be lost in a single bad decision.
Burnout is an operational risk. Fatigue causes errors. Errors escalate. The simulation tracks your team's morale — because a team that falls apart cannot run a mission.
"Stressed-out colleagues are a security risk to themselves and to others."
Most games about humanitarian crises put the player at the centre of rescue operations — hero narratives that flatten the complexity of the real work.
This game shows the management layer: the decisions made before anyone reaches a patient, the compromises that keep operations running, and the weight of responsibility carried by field coordinators.
The simulator is built iteratively — each version tested against real operational logic before the next layer is added. Two parallel tracks: a browser/PWA version available now, and a full Unity release in development.
Every mechanic, event, and threshold in the game is grounded in real field guidance, operational reports, and sector standards. 25 sources across 5 categories.
The sector reference for road safety in humanitarian organisations. Covers light vehicles, motorcycles and mixed fleets. Winner of the Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Award.
Basis for driver incident events, vehicle safety checks, and the stat "time on the road is the most dangerous part of a humanitarian worker's job."
Fleet management is the second largest cost in the humanitarian sector after staffing. Examines how the Fleet Forum was founded to address fragmentation and inefficiency in NGO transport.
Justification for the budget pressure mechanics and the vehicle cost model.
Full evaluation of UNHCR's centralised fleet model. Covers vehicle lifecycle policy (5 years / 150,000 km), GPS tracking, insurance schemes, and cost efficiency data across five country operations.
Vehicle lifecycle/disposal mechanic and the "aging fleet" risk event.
Academic study developing a fleet-sizing model for humanitarian operations. Transportation is the second largest overhead cost after personnel.
Fleet sizing logic and the relationship between programme footprint and vehicle demand.
Practical field logistics guide covering the IN-STORE-OUT model, FIFO stock management, warehouse organisation, documentation chains, and transport planning.
Warehouse events, stock management mechanics, and the depot/supply chain gameplay layer.
Templates and frameworks for fleet strategy, including performance management and cost controlling. Transportation is the cornerstone of programme delivery.
Strategic fleet planning decisions, buy/lease/dispose tradeoffs, and the fleet KPI dashboard.
The definitive security manual for field workers. Covers threat assessment, acceptance as a protection strategy, armed escorts, checkpoints, kidnapping, and survival in conflict zones.
The Acceptance mechanic, Security mechanic, checkpoint events, armed escort dilemmas, drunk soldier encounters, and night driving protocols.
Updated ICRC security management framework. Integrates field security with daily operations management and more recent operational contexts.
Supplement for recent threat scenarios and the concept of "residual risk" — the irreducible danger that remains even with full precautions.
Conceptual framework articulating the "irreducible residual risk" and the foundational role of acceptance as a protection strategy.
Philosophical basis for the risk/impact tradeoff: risks are only accepted if the humanitarian impact justifies them.
The standard UN manual for access negotiation. Covers preparation, principles, tactics, and case studies from real negotiations with armed non-state actors.
The access negotiation system, dialogue options with armed factions, and the four-pillar acceptance framework.
Field research across 4 ANSAs, 6 communities, and 37 NGOs in North Kivu. Identifies why smaller organisations lose access first and the four conditions for effective access.
Direct basis for the Acceptance/Access mechanic and how organisation size affects access.
Case study of humanitarian operations in North Kivu during the M23 offensive. Covers MSF's refusal to evacuate and the operational consequences of maintaining presence during acute conflict.
The "stay or evacuate" decision event and the MSF non-evacuation model as a gameplay option.
The global reference for minimum humanitarian standards. Technical chapters cover WASH, food security, shelter, and health. Used by governments, UN agencies, and NGOs worldwide.
All WASH thresholds: litres/person/day, latrine ratios, chlorine residual targets, and the minimum water reserve of 3 days.
MSF's field WASH manual. Covers water supply systems, chlorination, latrine construction, hygiene promotion, and emergency WASH response.
Direct source for chlorine dosing mechanics, FRC monitoring, water trucking calculations, and the latrine overflow event.
MSF's operational and clinical guide for cholera response. Covers CTC/CTU/ORP network design, oral rehydration therapy, IV protocols, case fatality rate targets, and chlorination point management.
Full cholera epidemic mechanics: the 3-tier treatment network, CFR tracker, and the 3% CFR hard loss condition.
Field reports on cholera outbreaks in DRC. Document real CTC setup timelines, patient intake volumes, CFR spikes, water point failures, and supply logistics challenges.
Calibration data for epidemic event timing and the "dry season water source contamination" event.
Logistics requirements for mass vaccination campaigns: cold chain, vehicle and fuel co-location, generator continuity for refrigeration, centralised supply point design.
Cold chain integrity mechanic, VVM triage events, and campaign logistics coordination.
Covers the fall of Goma to M23/AFC forces. Documents warehouse looting of WFP, ICRC, MSF, UNHCR and WHO; vehicle hijacking; access suspension along the Goma-Sake axis; 2,880 injured treated.
Multiple events: warehouse looting, vehicle hijacking, road axis closures, mpox/cholera co-epidemic scenario, and IDP site overflow.
Crossfire hit the MSF logistics base, damaging vehicles and structures. Airport became inoperative, cutting air resupply. Teams faced critical medicine shortages within two weeks.
Airport closure event; vehicle damage from crossfire; countdown-to-stockout mechanic ("14 days of supplies remaining").
Road from South Kivu to Goma blocked; supplies could only reach teams by boat from Lake Kivu or off-road by motorbike. MSF suspended activities on several occasions.
"Route blocked" event with three-choice logistics: wait, boat (slow/expensive), motorbike (risky/low capacity).
Analysis of the January 2025 M23/AFC offensive. Documents armed groups controlling routes RN2, RP1030, and RP529; Lake Kivu port closure; over 700,000 people displaced.
Named real road axes used in the game's route system. Lake Kivu port closure event.
Testimony to the UNSC. Documents summary killings, systematic sexual violence (155 survivors/day average), looting, and access obstruction by all armed parties. Trauma admissions at Rutshuru Hospital up 67%.
Hospital trauma surge event, multi-faction hostility system, and the moral weight of the "stay and deliver" decision.
Concise reference on the four core humanitarian principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality, independence. Explains their operational relevance for negotiations with non-state armed groups.
The four humanitarian principles are surfaced as gameplay constraints — compromising them triggers access penalties and morale loss.
Legal framework for humanitarian access under IHL. Covers consent requirements, obligations to facilitate aid, and the distinction between access denial and legitimate security measures.
Legal grounding for access negotiation events — when denial of access constitutes an IHL violation.
OCHA's central resource on humanitarian access, including the Access Monitoring and Reporting Framework, guidance on non-state armed group engagement, and reference documents on armed escorts.
Reference framework for the access constraint classification (physical obstruction, bureaucratic denial, insecurity-based suspension).
Every document produced across the development of Humanitarian Worker Simulator — from the game itself to the org chart, world-building assets, and developer guides. All in one place.
I spent four years working in the field with MSF — Médecins Sans Frontières. My role was in fleet management and logistics: the infrastructure that makes everything else possible. When a surgical team can't reach patients because a vehicle isn't moving, the medicine in the warehouse means nothing.
I built this simulator because I found that most people who want to work in humanitarian aid have very little understanding of how operations actually function. The complexity is invisible from the outside. The decisions are hard not because the right answer is unclear, but because every option costs something.
This is a personal project — made in the margins of other work, built iteratively, guided by the same principle I learned in the field: start with what you have, adapt as you go.
More details will be shared as the project develops.
Humanitarian Worker Simulator is currently in active development. A playable version will be available here soon.
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This is a solo, independent project. There's no studio, no publisher — just a former fleet manager building a game in their spare time. Every contribution goes directly into development time and playtesting.