Mood, both ways
The game keeps two numbers with you. Deliveries raise its energy; a crash lowers its calm; time brings both back toward the dial you set. Four words name where it is.
- DAWN warming up. Dewy lawns, a bouncy major tune, porches and mailboxes a little easier to hit.
- FLOW five porches in a row without a fall. Bright lawns, the music opens up.
- RUSH the street speeds up, the border runs raster bars, the targets tighten, and a short ramp lane with stars to catch in the air appears on the left.
- DRIFT after a crash. The street slows, the gaps between obstacles widen, bundles come sooner and the targets grow.
Your side is the dial: CALM (crashes never end the route); PLAY (three riders, an extra rider for a perfect day); RUSH (starts hot; the street goes faster and a ramp lane appears). The game relaxes toward it. The mood tape stays in this browser, and when you leave after a ride, the game hands its mood to the town.
The route
16 houses a day, Monday to Sunday, then the week starts again a little faster. Lit porches take the paper; dark houses do not. A paper on a lit porch scores 100, in its mailbox 250; a paper on a dark house is a miss. You start each day with 10 papers and pick up bundles from the road. Every subscriber served is a perfect day: a bonus and, on PLAY or RUSH, an extra rider. The day ends with a report card.
The street is gentle: sprinklers that come and go, trash bins, a friendly dog that just sits there, a car backing out of its driveway, skateboarders rolling down the road. Bump one and you fall off; three falls end the route, never on CALM.
Two machines
ATARI 800XL (1983, POKEY). The Graphics 0 blue with a black border; raw square waves with a noise bite, in the POKEY spirit. A READY prompt and a RUN before the street.
COMMODORE 64 (1982, SID). The blue field inside a light-blue border; a resonant filter sweep on every voice, in the SID spirit. The BASIC banner, then LOAD, then RUN.
Controls
- Phone: drag anywhere to steer; drag up to pedal faster, down to ease off; tap the right half of the field to throw. Two thumbs work: one steers, one throws.
- Keys: ← → or A D steer, ↑ ↓ or W S speed up and slow down, Space throws, P pauses, F full screen, M sound, C scanlines, 1 and 2 switch machines, 3 turns the dial.
- The paper flies to the right and keeps your pace, so throw a moment before the porch reaches you.
- FULL uses the Fullscreen API. iOS Safari has none for pages, so the stage fills the screen instead; add to Home Screen for the whole display.
After Paperboy
Paperboy (Atari Games, 1985) put a newspaper route on an arcade cabinet with handlebars. Morning Route borrows the idea, a week of days, subscribers and non-subscribers, a bag of papers that runs out, and turns the trouble down to a friendly street. Nothing is copied: the sprites are plain rectangles drawn for this page, and the music is generated as you ride. Read the research note.