Level & Design Philosophy
This project was driven by a very clear design constraint: creating a game that a two-year-old could understand, enjoy, and successfully interact with. Inspired by my child’s fascination with tractors and heavy machinery, all mechanics, controls, and visual elements were intentionally designed to be simple, readable, and immediately rewarding.
To avoid frustration or harsh punishment, the game was designed as an endless runner where failure simply restarts the run, with no penalty beyond resetting the timer. Rather than moving the player forward, the environment, obstacles, and road surface move toward the tractor, creating the illusion of forward motion while keeping player input minimal and manageable. This allowed the game to feel active and engaging without overwhelming the player.
A strong focus was placed on visual feedback and “juice” to make interactions feel impactful and satisfying. Movement, collisions, and obstacles are exaggerated and highly readable, reinforcing cause and effect in a way that supports learning through play rather than trial-and-error punishment.
The result is an experience that prioritizes accessibility, clarity, and enjoyment. While simple in scope, the project demonstrates how clear audience targeting and intentional constraints can shape mechanics, presentation, and overall design direction.
Level Design
Levels were designed with a strong focus on clarity, predictability, and immediate feedback, so even very young players could understand and interact with the space without needing explanation. I wanted the environment itself to do the teaching, clearly communicating where the player can go and what is safe or dangerous through simple shapes, spacing, and exaggerated visual cues.
Rather than relying on sudden or unfair threats, hazards are introduced gradually and presented in familiar, repeatable ways. Moving obstacles, such as pipe-like hazards that close in on the player, are designed to be highly readable and predictable, giving players time to react and understand cause and effect. This allows learning to happen through play and repetition, even when a mistake results in restarting the run.
To keep interaction intuitive, level design and input design were treated as one combined system. Movement and interactions were aligned spatially, and the world responds clearly to player actions, reinforcing cause and effect. This lets the player focus on steering and reacting, instead of having to understand rules, buttons, or complex controls.
Throughout development, levels were iterated on through observation and informal playtesting, paying close attention to how players naturally responded to obstacles, speed changes, and visual signals. Based on this, pacing, obstacle placement, and visual clarity were continuously adjusted to ensure the experience remained accessible, engaging, and fun to play.
Game Design
Game design for this project was guided by a very clear audience and a set of intentionally strict constraints. The goal was to create something a very young player could understand and enjoy without reading, explanation, or prior knowledge of how games usually work. From the start, this meant designing mechanics that were forgiving, immediately readable, and focused on interaction and feedback rather than challenge or mastery.
The core gameplay loop was kept deliberately simple: steer, react, and keep going. Early on, one of the main challenges was avoiding frustration when the player made a mistake. Instead of traditional fail states or progression systems, I chose to let each run restart without penalty beyond resetting the timer. This made mistakes feel safe and encouraged repetition and experimentation, which felt much more appropriate for the target audience.
Input design became an important part of solving accessibility challenges. I noticed during early tests that understanding controls could easily become a barrier, so controls were mapped spatially to match direction rather than relying on traditional keyboard conventions. Combined with exaggerated visual feedback and clear cause-and-effect responses, this helped players quickly connect their actions to what was happening on screen.
Playtesting played a key role throughout development. I observed that it often took players two or three runs before they fully understood what the game was asking of them. To address this, I added more visual “juice,” clearer reactions to movement and collisions, and stronger feedback when interacting with obstacles. These changes made the game easier to read from the very first run and helped players learn through play rather than instruction.
Overall, this project reinforced how much strong game design can come from intentional limitations, clear audience targeting, and a willingness to adjust based on real player behavior. By focusing on accessibility, clarity, and comfort, the game became more inviting without losing its sense of fun.
Problems & Solutions
To keep the controls simple and accessible for very young players, I chose not to move the player character forward in the traditional sense. Instead, I built the experience around the idea that the world moves toward the player, creating the illusion of forward motion. This meant writing several C# scripts to control road movement, obstacles, and pacing, while keeping player input minimal and easy to grasp.
This approach allowed players to survive for longer without needing precise timing or complex controls. A simple timer was added to give a light sense of progression. While this wasn’t something the target audience actively cared about, it became an unexpectedly fun element for older players during playtesting, adding a subtle sense of competition without affecting accessibility.
During early playtests, I noticed that it often took players two or three runs before they fully understood what was happening on screen. To address this, I leaned more heavily into visual feedback and “juice.” Movement, collisions, and obstacles were made more exaggerated and readable, helping players immediately understand cause and effect and making the experience feel more playful and rewarding from the very first run.
One technical challenge was making the road feel like it was moving naturally. I initially struggled with scrolling materials at runtime, which led me to experiment with different solutions for simulating motion in a clear and readable way. By separating visual movement from player input, I was able to maintain performance, clarity, and consistency while reinforcing the illusion of motion.