Spread Love
Mini Game
Spread Love is a small game we created to explore how far interactive animation could be pushed inside Rive. The idea is simple: spread some love. Sad characters are coming your way, and your job is to show affection and send hearts in their direction. That's all it takes to make them happy! Send them back into the world and see how long you can keep it going. What started as a simple experiment gradually became a playable system with movement, projectiles, collisions, scoring, character states and game logic.
Process
The first version was built before scripting existed in Rive, so the game logic had to be pieced together using lots of states, event triggers and animation transitions. Even then, the game already had movement, heart projectiles, collision detection, character transformations, scoring, death and restart behaviour. It worked, but the underlying setup reflected what was possible in Rive at the time. When scripting arrived, we returned to the project and rebuilt the logic around a more modern architecture. That gave us much cleaner control over spawning, multiple enemies on screen, collisions and gradually increasing difficulty, while keeping the character animation and interaction at the heart of the game.
The first version was built before scripting existed in Rive, so the game logic had to be pieced together using lots of states, event triggers and animation transitions. Even then, the game already had movement, heart projectiles, collision detection, character transformations, scoring, death and restart behaviour. It worked, but the underlying setup reflected what was possible in Rive at the time. When scripting arrived, we returned to the project and rebuilt the logic around a more modern architecture. That gave us much cleaner control over spawning, multiple enemies on screen, collisions and gradually increasing difficulty, while keeping the character animation and interaction at the heart of the game.
Turn the Head
Visual Language
The main challenge was representing abstract ideas such as clarity, momentum, overwhelm and neglect without making the experience feel analytical or judgmental.
Rather than using obvious positive and negative states, we used gradual environmental change.
More activity can introduce life and movement. Neglect can appear through moss or reduced activity. Overwhelm can influence the atmosphere through effects such as fog or vignette.
The physical structure of the garden remains stable while its condition evolves.
The physical structure of the garden remains stable while its condition evolves.
Visual Language
The main challenge was representing abstract ideas such as clarity, momentum, overwhelm and neglect without making the experience feel analytical or judgmental.
Rather than using obvious positive and negative states, we used gradual environmental change.
More activity can introduce life and movement. Neglect can appear through moss or reduced activity. Overwhelm can influence the atmosphere through effects such as fog or vignette.
The Result
Spread Love became a compact playable experiment that brings animation and game logic together inside a single Rive experience. The project was never intended to become a full game. It was a way to explore what happens when character animation stops being something you simply watch and becomes something you can play with.
Spread Love became a compact playable experiment that brings animation and game logic together inside a single Rive experience. The project was never intended to become a full game. It was a way to explore what happens when character animation stops being something you simply watch and becomes something you can play with.
The Result
Spread Love became a compact playable experiment that brings animation and game logic together inside a single Rive experience. The project was never intended to become a full game. It was a way to explore what happens when character animation stops being something you simply watch and becomes something you can play with.
Click!
The Result
Spread Love became a compact playable experiment that brings animation and game logic together inside a single Rive experience. The project was never intended to become a full game. It was a way to explore what happens when character animation stops being something you simply watch and becomes something you can play with.