Morning Route: deliver the Morning Edition
A paper route at 6:45 AM on an El Segundo street: lit porches take the paper, the mailbox scores more, and the trouble is a sprinkler, a sitting dog and a car backing out. Atari 800XL or Commodore 64 colors, chip sound, a mood you keep together.
Morning Route is a paper route the way a home computer in 1985 would have shown it. It is 6:45 AM in El Segundo and the Morning Edition is out. The street scrolls down the screen while you ride up it. Houses line the right side: subscribers have lit windows, a lit porch and a mailbox; the dark houses do not take the paper. Throw to the right, a moment before the porch reaches you. A paper on a lit porch scores a hundred, in the mailbox two hundred and fifty, and a paper on a dark house is a miss. The bag holds ten to start, and bundles on the road fill it back up. The trouble is gentle: a sprinkler that comes and goes across the sidewalk, trash bins, a friendly dog that just sits in the way, a car backing out of its driveway, skateboarders rolling down the road. Bump one and you fall off for a moment. Sixteen houses make a day, Monday to Sunday, and every day ends with a report card in the same three-by-five pixel font as the rest of the row. The game keeps a mood with you. Porches in a row bring FLOW and the music opens up. A fall brings DRIFT: the street slows, the gaps between obstacles widen and the porches get easier to hit. RUSH speeds the street up and lays a short ramp lane with stars to catch in the air. You set a dial, CALM, PLAY or RUSH, and the game relaxes toward it. On CALM a fall never ends the route. Built for a phone held upright and a desktop in full screen. Drag to steer, tap the right half to throw. Nothing is copied: the sprites are plain rectangles drawn for this page and every sound is synthesized as you ride. [Play Morning Route](/morning-route). [The route as JSON](/morning-route.json). [Walk Cabinet Row](/cabinet-row).
