
As a redhead, there's a little game that I play every day in summertime called "Stay in the Shade". The rules are simple: make it to my destination as quickly as possible while avoiding all possible sunlight. This involves hopping from shade patch to shade patch. The cost of failure is the dread Irish Tan. These bizarre antics were inspiration for a game design called Shade.
As with any of the designs you find on this site, I heartily encourage you to prototype it and use it as a learning project. I know that there is a group of you itching to try out the latest 3D engines with sex-a-licious real-time shadows. This is your chance to finally use the technology in a way that produces meaningful game play.
I'll give out the much coveted Bronze, Silver, and Gold Lost Garden badges to anyone who creates a worthy prototype.

Basic gameplay
You play the part of a rugged mushroom rancher who must collect adorable sentient mushrooms living in the shade. All you need to do is run up to a planted mushroom and touch it. It will pop out of the ground and start following you around. Lead it back to the start location and you'll be awarded multiple point based off its size.
Unfortunately, it is a scorchingly hot day. You can meander about the landscape of giant grassy blocks with impunity due to your meglo-awesome wide brimmed hat, but the mushrooms wilt quickly in sunlight. To lead them back successfully, you'll need to keep to the shadows and plot the optimal path home.
Basic Elements
- Player: The player can move about on a 2D plane using the arrow keys or a joystick.
- Blocks: Strewn about the landscape are blocks that cast shadows.
- Planted mushrooms: In the shadows of the blocks, planted mushrooms will slowly spawn over time. If left alone they will slowly grow in size.
- Mushrooms: If the player runs into a Planted Mushroom, it will pop out of the ground and start following the player's motions exactly. If multiple mushrooms are collected, they will follow in a line behind the player. A mushroom can last in direct sunlight about a second before they expire. This amount of time is cumulative and is shown by slowly shrinking the mushroom as it is exposed to more sunlight.
- Homebase: This is a spot on the ground that you need to lead the mushrooms back to in order for them to be counted.
- Mushroom score: In the upper right hand corner of the screen is the HUD. The most important element is the Mushroom score that shows you how many mushrooms you've collected so far today.
- Day timer: The day slowly progresses from morning to evening over 15 minutes. The shadows change position as the day progresses.
The game is over at the end of the day. Total mushrooms collected is entered into a highscore table.
Technology
We've had lovely real time shadows for quite some time, but very few designs take advantage of the technology. Luckily there are an immense number of cheap 3D engines that can pump out real-time shadows. Some options:
Not so long ago, this tech was the exclusive domain of techsperts like id and Epic. But now there are no excuses. And the very clever folks will figure that you can make this game in a 2D engine with a little finagling.
Art
Since this design is likely a 3D game, I'm not providing art assets. I recommend that you use cubes and other primitives for the various elements in the scene. They are inexpensive, highly effective and can always be replaced at a later point with more advanced models once you've proven out the gameplay.
With this type of game, a good amount of pleasure will come from the motion of the mushrooms following the player and the movement of the shadows over time. Slick graphics can enhance this, but they aren't necessary to find the fun. Again, no excuses.
Advanced gameplay
Once the basic gameplay is in place, there are immense opportunities for more interesting variations.
- Movable blocks: Blocks that you can push around allow you to create optimal paths for harvesting mushrooms.
- Muncher: Once a planted mushroom grows to a certain size and it is hit by the sun, it turns into an AI driven creature called a muncher. Munchers find a nearby green block (also known as a bush) and start munching on it. This reduces the size of the block and therefore the amount of shade it provides. Munchers can be stunned and killed by running into them repeatedly.
- Bush seed: A dead muncher turns into a Bush seed. A bush seed is an object that can be collected by running over it with the character. If you press a button, the bush seed is planted on that location and begins to grow.
- Multiple days in a row: What happens to the landscape if you let the world run for multiple days? With the inclusion of bushes and munchers, we have a self balancing ecosystem. As you plant more bushes, there is a greater chance that mushrooms will turn into munchers, which in turn reduce the bushes. Can you turn a simple landscape into a mushroom plantation?
This is the sort of game that lives or dies based on balancing all the various elements. There are a number of variables that you'll need to mess about with
- Size of the blocks
- Number of blocks and shadow area
- Spawning rate of mushrooms
- Size of mushrooms
- Amount of sunlight to kill a mushroom.
- Speed of the character
- Size of the map.
- Size of the viewport onto the map.
The Lost Garden Awards
Once again I'm giving out the always desirable Lost Garden badges for any prototypes that result.

- Bronze Medal: You built an interesting software toy. If you make an attempt at a design and it is interesting to futz about with, you get the Bronze Medal. Most people never get a Bronze medal due to the simple fact that they prefer to sit around and think rather than make something. Simply by doing (instead of not doing), you join an elite club.
- Silver Medal: You found the fun. You've iterated on your design and have identified a few key elements that make the game enjoyable. There is at least 5 minutes of interesting play. It likely isn't polished and some of the higher order reward loops are broken, but the core is there. If past challenges are any indication, I'll give out only a handful of Silver Medals per challenge.
- Gold Medal: You made the fun repeatable. The game that you've built is entertaining enough that I'm willing to play it for 15 to 20 minutes. This is a hard level to reach and it is only populated by the most elite cadre of weekend warriors. An entire production team could be seeded by your efforts. To reach this level, you've made some critical design steps beyond the initial concept and built unique and sustainable gameplay based off dozens of game play iterations. To this day, no one has won a Gold Medal. You could be the first.
You need to post a public, playable version in order to be eligible. I'll issue the rewards about one month after the initial challenge is posted. If something comes in after the original deadline has passed, I'll add it retroactively to the award post. If you win a Bronze or Silver, you can still come back later and make an attempt at the Gold. Anyone who gets a Gold medal is an automatic rock star in my book.
What do you get if you win? First off, you get the right to post a snazzy LostGarden medal on your website. Most importantly, you get that warm fuzzy feeling in your tippy-tip toes that stems from a job well done.
Conclusion
Shade is an interesting game design to me for the following reasons
- Exploration-based play: The joy is in exploring the ever changing landscape and finding mushrooms and interesting paths back home. It is more strategic than action oriented.
- Simple controls: All you need to play are directional controls and one button. It should be pretty easy to pickup.
- Non-violent: In general there is very little combat. I like this. I can imagine the title having a very meditative feel.
- Uses real-time shadows for some unique gameplay. Real-time shadows have been used for sneaking games, but little else. Surely it is time to expand the number of games that use this fascinating technology.
take care
Danc.
Past challenges
Mockup