BOTTLENECK
The Strait of Hormuz Crisis Game
A journalistic newsgame about the world's most dangerous chokepoint.
A FREE BROWSER NEWSGAME ABOUT THE 2026 STRAIT OF HORMUZ CRISIS.
BOTTLENECK is a free browser-based newsgame about the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis. You play a crisis maritime coordinator with three transit slots per day for ten days, triaging oil tankers, food bulkers, LNG carriers, fertilizer ships, container vessels, and military escorts through the chokepoint that carries roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil. Every decision cascades. Block oil, and fuel queues form in Mumbai. Authorize military escort, and Tehran's trust collapses. Prioritize food cargo, and Japan loses its LNG supply. There is no clean solution. Only trade-offs.
The game is built on verified reporting - 125+ linked sources, 40 ships modeled on real cargo flows, five stakeholders grounded in named officials and named interests, a cascade engine calibrated against Windward Maritime Intelligence and Lloyd's List daily transit data showing the actual collapse from roughly 130 transits per day to near zero. The endgame compares your decisions against the real-world numbers. It plays in fifteen to twenty minutes in any browser, in English, Polish, or Spanish. Free, independent, no studio.
WATCH THE TRAILER
“51 seconds. The chokepoint. The cascade. The triage.”
Watch on YouTubeComing soon. The Hormuz crisis without the game UI. Check back, or contact Jakub for an early cut.
THE FIVE STAKEHOLDERS
Every decision cascades through five named interests. Each carries its own logic. None is the villain.
ANALYST
Energy markets, supply chains, transit data. The reader inside the game.
HUMANITARIAN
Food, fertilizer, medicine. Cargo that does not make headlines until it stops moving.
MILITARY OFFICER
Escort doctrine, rules of engagement, risk to flag and crew.
SHIPPING EXECUTIVE
Insurance markets, charter contracts, fleet exposure. The industry that pays the queue.
NAVAL CAPTAIN
The ship at the chokepoint. The decision the player authorizes lands here first.
WHAT THE PLAYER TRIAGES
Different ship classes. Each carries different cargo, different risk, different consequence.
BUILT ON VERIFIED REPORTING
Every Dispatches entry inside the game links back to its original article, by name and by date. Every casualty number, every quote, every URL is tied to a real outlet. Five ship encounters carry “Verified Event” tags mapped one-to-one to specific named incidents - including the IRGC navy chief's death, the April 18 re-closure, and the USS Spruance's seizure of the Iranian-flagged Touska on April 19.
NOT IRAN-AS-VILLAIN
The stakeholder system gives Tehran, Washington, and the shipping industry equal weight as named interests with their own logic.
NOT A TECH DEMO
The interactivity serves the reporting, not the other way around.
NOT A SEQUEL
Standalone. Single project. No franchise.
NOT PROMOTIONAL
Independent, self-funded, self-hosted. No publication paid for placement. No advertiser.
JAKUB GORNICKI
Jakub Gornicki is a journalist and artist working at the intersection of reportage, physical space, and interactive form. He works under the term Artistic Journalism - the practice of giving reporting physical, spatial, or interactive form so that it reaches audiences who would otherwise scroll past it. He is the co-founder and Creative Director of Outriders, an award-winning global newsroom. His current projects include Reakcja (journalism on stage, premiering autumn 2026), Portal (a public-art installation, 2026), and BOTTLENECK - a newsgame about the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis. Previously, as COO of the ePaństwo Foundation, he helped launch Code for Poland, the Personal Democracy Forum in Central and Eastern Europe, and TransparenCEE.
- (Paszport Polityki - Kultura cyfrowa (2022))
- (Polsko-Niemiecka Nagroda Dziennikarska (2021))
- (INMA Global Media Awards (2023-24))
- (Hostwriter Pitch Prize (2017))
- (European Press Prize shortlist (2021))
- (Grand Press Digital (2017 / 2026))
- (New Europe 100 Challengers (2014))
He has presented at INMA Summits in New York, Dublin, and Toronto, the iMEdD Forum in Athens, b° future in Bonn, and the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. Works internationally.
TEAM AND CREDITS
BY JAKUB GORNICKI. CONCEPT, JOURNALISM, GAME DESIGN, ART DIRECTION, SOURCING, AND QA BY JAKUB. CODE EXECUTED IN COLLABORATION WITH CLAUDE (ANTHROPIC), SESSION-BY-SESSION, UNDER DIRECTION.
BOTTLENECK was built session-by-session - I directed the work, AI executed code I read, audited, and corrected. I made every editorial call. I sourced every article. I wrote every line of journalism inside the game. The 22 build sessions, the 125+ verified URLs, the cascade math, the real-data calibration, the i18n in three languages - these were all my decisions, made in real time. The code that implemented those decisions was AI-generated and human-audited.
Newsgame · Journalistic game · Serious game
Crisis-management simulation · Triage · Narrative strategy
Free, browser-based, single-player
English · Polish · Spanish
15-20 minutes per playthrough
Yes - decisions, incidents, and cascade outcomes vary between runs
Web - any modern browser, mobile and desktop, fully responsive
Free, ad-free, no paywall
27 April 2026
Released - live
125+ linked articles inside the game
Windward Maritime Intelligence, Lloyd's List, PIB India, Kpler. Pre-crisis baseline ~130/day. Crisis average ~3.7/day (97% collapse).
Endgame compares player decisions against real-world transit collapse
5 ship encounters mapped 1:1 to specific named incidents
Free for streaming, Let's Play, monetized video coverage. Press use: free for editorial, credit "Jakub Gornicki / jakubgornicki.com". No embargo.
The reporting that BOTTLENECK draws on is the work of hundreds of journalists from outlets named above, who covered the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis day by day. The game is a derivative form of journalism that depends entirely on theirs. Every Dispatches entry inside the game links back to the original article, by name and by date.
ASSET GALLERY
All images, lazy-loaded. Click to enlarge. Right-click to save.
DOWNLOAD ALL ASSETS
Free for editorial use. Required credit: Jakub Gornicki / jakubgornicki.com.
ZIP / FULL PRESS KIT BUNDLE
MP4 / 51-SECOND TRAILER
MP4 / HERO KEY VISUAL LOOP
PNG / FULL LOCKUP LOGO
PNG / APP ICON
PNG / SCREENSHOTS (8)
PDF / PRESS RELEASE - ENGLISH
PDF / PRESS RELEASE - POLISH
LICENSE AND CREDIT
All press use is free for editorial purposes. Required credit: Jakub Gornicki / jakubgornicki.com - or a link to https://jakubgornicki.com is sufficient.
Streaming and Let's Play coverage allowed, including monetized videos. The game itself is free, ad-free, no paywall. No embargo - the game is already public.
PRESS CONTACT
Available for interviews in English and Polish.