CUSTOMS QUEUE

Customs Queue is a game about customs clearance, which probably sounds boring to most people. To me it’s genuinely interesting because it connects directly to something I did this summer. I spent a month at a port in India working as a customs supervisor, where I saw firsthand how a port actually runs and, more importantly, how much work customs officers put into verifying every shipment that enters the country. The game is partly my way of appreciating those officers, who quietly keep our countries safe. It definitely simplifies their job down to comparing paperwork, weights, and markings against the container, but I think it’s still a real glimpse into the world of customs, and maybe a way to get younger people curious about a career most of them have never thought about.

Looking back and playing the game now, there are a few decisions I’m really happy with. First, the game is played with keystrokes instead of a mouse. Pressing A or F keeps the pace fast and makes it feel more like an actual inspector’s workflow, something closer to a job than a click game. Second, the tutorial. It’s optional, so experienced players can skip straight to a shift, but if you take it, it’s thorough and walks you through every check you need to make. Finally, the colour scheme. The first version used a much lighter palette, and I changed it to darker, sunset port colours because the original felt flat and the new one makes the game way more engaging to look at. Claude really pulled through on a few things I never asked for. The best one is the funny line it generates when you catch a smuggler, revealing what was actually inside the

container, like a stowaway named Gary or eleven thousand garden gnomes. It turns a correct call into a little reward and gives the game a personality I wouldn’t have thought to add. The animations are also much better than I expected, down to containers still rolling along the conveyor on the start screen. It also invented fictional countries instead of using real ones, which avoids the game accidentally saying something political about a real nation’s trade. Honestly that was a smarter call than I would have made on my own.

So is the game mine? Partly. I didn’t write a single line of code, and honestly I didn’t even write the first prompt on my own, since Claude helped me draft it. Some of my favourite parts, like the smuggler reveals and the fictional countries, were Claude’s ideas, not mine. But the game only exists because of a month I spent at a port in India watching customs officers work. No AI was going to decide on its own that a game about checking shipping manifests was worth making. I think of it like commissioning a building: the architect designs and builds it, but it’s shaped around what the client wanted and why. I chose the idea, I played every version, I decided what felt right and what needed changing, and I decided when it was finished. The execution is mostly Claude’s, but the reason it exists is mine.

Prompt 1: “Let’s make it slightly faster paced, maybe change the rules slightly faster. Also some of the text is overlapping or under something, like the weight on the shipping manifest, and also the final score. Along with that, can we make it more clear when something is flagged correctly and incorrectly?”

Prompt 2: “Add a tutorial to the game which is completely optional but is extremely thorough. Explain each way a cargo can be smuggled and also make sure there are a few practice cargos for each.”

AI Disclosure

I used Claude (chat) to brainstorm the concept and help draft my first Claude Code prompt. I built the game in Claude Code over about 5 rounds, correcting overlapping text, pacing, unclear feedback on correct and incorrect calls, and the colour palette, and adding an optional tutorial. I also used Claude (chat) to refine the wording of this statement from my own answers and to draft the authorship paragraph based on the position I chose.