After a game about farting your way to Uranus, I wanted the opposite: a calm little game a younger kid could simply wander around in. No reading required, no rush, and nobody turns into the Hulk.
A game for little explorers
Kids these days play Roblox and Minecraft without reading a single word on screen, so I didn't want to rely on text either. You tap where you want to go, you find your friends, you bring them home. Very little difficulty, no timers, no fail states. The idea came from Avery, who was six at the time, and since June the game carries Avery's name too.
Before any code, the kids talked the details through with ChatGPT in voice mode: who gets lost, who comes to the rescue, what lives in the forest. Then I asked ChatGPT to turn the conversation into a Markdown file, which became the first game design document. The game has wandered off in plenty of new directions since, but that file was a very good starting map.
The Apple test
I also wanted to see if I could get something through Apple's famously strict rules for kids' games. That meant no ads at all, a parental gate in front of every purchase and every link out of the game, and a lot of reading of guidelines. It's freemium: the first five levels were free from the start, recently I've added a few more free ones, and the rest come in a single Full Adventure purchase.
Apple kept me humble. My first in-app purchase couldn't be found at all, because it turns out the very first one has to be approved together with a new build. And in September an update was rejected because the reviewer couldn't reach the paid levels. Strict, as advertised.
Find your friends, bring them home
A group of friends has got lost on a camping trip in the woods, and it's up to you to find them. Every friend has a real name and a kind-of-real appearance, borrowed from our own family and friends. Along the way you collect wood, stones and berries, build bridges to cross rivers, and steer clear of raccoons, deer and foxes, all to very relaxed background music. Stars give you a reason to play a level again, and there are settings to make the game easier or calmer. Think of it as a Sunday passeggiata in the woods: nobody's in a hurry, and everyone gets home.
At first there was only one hero. Then we decided to add a few more, each with a small perk. The perks make very little difference, but a difference nonetheless, and when you're six that matters a lot.
Pawns, not pixels
I used SpriteKit again, but I didn't want the pixel look of the fart game. I tried a few different styles and settled on Scenario for the characters: static figures, like pawns on a real board game. It looks charming, and it also meant I didn't have to spend weeks animating everything, which was entirely the point.
The very first builds looked rather different, though: an orange square wandering across a grid of green tiles. Then the tile grid started to fight the art, so the levels became painted watercolour boards instead.
The part I loved most: the editor
Every level started as an example on a piece of paper. Then I built an editor to map out the different areas, plus a randomiser, and used ChatGPT to paint each board from the guidelines the editor exported. I liked building the simple interface, but I loved building the editor even more. Give a prehistoric web developer a canvas and a toolbar, and this is what happens.
The soundtrack
Suno helped me make some lovely, properly relaxed music, and ElevenLabs did the sound effects. Each hero even has their own instrument leading the tune. After a game made almost entirely of farts, it was a nice change.
Where it is now
About six weeks after Avery's idea, version 1.0 went off to Apple. Since then it has grown to 25 trails, a camp with 30 things to build and a photo album of forest critters, in English, Italian, French and Spanish. Still no ads. Still no rush.
