🏆 Goals, Score & Game Over
Your hero looks alive, runs, jumps, and grabs coins. But here's a sneaky question: is it actually a game yet?🤔 Right now you can't win, and you can't lose — you just… mess around.
One small ingredient turns a toy into a real game: rules.
The big idea: a game = a goal + rules
A toy is something you just play with— fun to poke at, but there's no winning or losing. A game adds two magic rules: something to reach (a goal — like “collect 3 coins”) and something to avoid(a danger — like “don't touch the spikes”).
Every loop, the game quietly checks both: “did I win yet?” and “did I just lose?” Those two little questions are what make your heart race. And the best part — you get to decide what the rules are.
Your turn: make it winnable (and losable)
Set how many coins win the game, then play. Touch the spikes and it's Game Over; hit your goal and You Win. Try flipping Danger off to feel the difference between a toy and a game.
Click the game, then ← → move, ↑ / Space jump. Grab coins, dodge the spikes!
🎯 The goal
How many coins to win? You decide the rule!
Danger ON → a real game. Reach the goal AND avoid the spikes.
▸🔧 Peek inside: “win” and “lose” are if/then rules
The win and lose checks have a name programmers use constantly: if/then. Every loop the game asks two yes-or-no questions: IF the score reached the goal, THEN you win, and IF the hero touched the spikes, THEN it's game over. An if/then is a little fork in the road — the game looks at what's true right now and picks what happens next. They're everywhere: in your jumps, your coins, your enemies, all of it.
Discovery missions
Try each one, tick it off, then peek at the secret.
🧸Turn Danger OFF and play. Can you win? Can you lose? Does it still feel like a GAME?
🎚️Set “coins to win” to 1 and play. Then set it to 5 and play again. What changed?
💥Walk straight into the spikes on purpose. What pops up?
🏆Now actually win — collect enough coins to hit your goal.
🦘There are coins on the far side, past the spikes. Figure out how to safely get them.
🌟 You leveled up! You now know:
- 🧸 A toy just moves. A game has a goal and rules.
- 🎯 A win condition: reach the goal (enough score) → You Win.
- 💥 A lose condition: touch the danger → Game Over.
- 🔁 The game checks both rules every single loop.
- 🎚️ Those rules are yours to invent — that's game design.
🎬 Behind the scenes — what's next?
Your spikes are dangerous… but they just sit there. The scariest part of most games is danger that moves — baddies that wander, or even chase you! Next, we give an enemy its very own little brain. 👾👇