Rollout

Rollout started as a speed test. We wanted to see how fast a 3D browser game could feel while staying responsive on a mid-range phone, and a rolling ball on a floating road was the smallest possible test case for that. The physics were already fun before the game existed, so we added obstacles. The course came last, which is backwards from most projects but useful here because it meant every design choice had to justify itself against gameplay that already worked.

Procedural course generation took longer than the ball physics. Randomly placed obstacles produced unfair sequences; evenly spaced obstacles got predictable. The current generator uses a rolling difficulty window that draws obstacle types from a weighted pool based on the current speed and the last few meters of course. Barricades, split gates, and narrowing shoulders each need different reaction-time windows, and mixing them creates the uneven rhythm that makes runs feel alive.

The one design rule we kept returning to: no power-ups, no collectibles, no score bonuses for anything other than distance. A rolling-ball runner lives on pure reflex — the moment you add collectibles, players start hunting collectibles instead of reading the road, and the core test gets diluted. Rollout's score is just meters traveled, and that is deliberate. Related speed-first reflex games on the portal include Orbit Rush and Cube Jump.