Game Design Experiment - Hyper Casual Runner using Unity and Playmaker (Part 1) August 2020

Hi I'm Jerry from Bliz Studio LLC. In this game design experiment, I am working through building the beginnings of a Hyper Casual Runner game using Unity and Playmaker. (Part 1) 🚀 Download Trixel Rocket for free on App Store at: https://apple.co/31s4gzt ► Download Unity at https://unity.com ····

This is the very first session of the hyper-casual runner experiment: an idea sketched straight into Unity. The concept — ground rushes toward the camera while the player click-drags to rotate the whole world around its axis — gets proven in one sitting with a few cubes and two Playmaker FSMs.

Step 1 — Project setup

Create a new 3D project named Hyper Casual Runner. Import Playmaker from the Asset Store (import, then run its installer), grab the free iTween asset, and — easy to miss — open the Playmaker welcome screen's Add-Ons section to import iTween support, which adds the iTween actions to Playmaker. Save the scene as runner, drop a cube at the origin, and frame it: camera raised, rotated down on X until a sliver of horizon shows.

Step 2 — Structure for rotation

The player will rotate the world, not individual cubes, so the cube goes inside an empty named Platform Container — rotate the container and everything inside follows. A separate empty, Rotation Manager (filed under a managers label object), carries the FSM that drives it. Planning the hierarchy around what rotates together is the architectural decision that makes the rest trivial.

Step 3 — Click-drag rotation

The FSM has two states. Listening holds Get Mouse Button Down (left button) sending a mouse down event. Mouse is down holds two actions: Get Axis reading Mouse X — copy the exact axis name from Edit > Project Settings > Input Manager — into a float variable x move, and Rotate targeting the Platform Container on the Z axis, using x move as the angle. The first test reveals the classic omission: rotation never stops, because nothing listens for release. Add Get Mouse Button Up in the same state, sending a mouse up event back to Listening. On mobile this maps directly to touch events — same structure, different input action.

Step 4 — Tune with the multiplier

Second test: dragging left rotates right. The fix lives in Get Axis's multiplier — a negative value flips the direction, and the magnitude is the sensitivity dial. Negative 10 corrects the direction but feels twitchy; negative 5 lands comfortably. One number controls both polarity and speed.

Step 5 — Fake the endless ground

The cube gets its own FSM, Move Cube. A first attempt with Set Velocity adds the required Rigidbody — and the cube promptly falls out of the world, because rigidbodies default to gravity on. Turn gravity off, then swap the approach entirely: an iTween Move By on the Z axis, vector -1 (toward the camera), over one second, loop type Loop, so the cube glides forward and snaps back endlessly. Duplicate the cube a few times at staggered Z offsets (1.1, -1.1, -2.2) and the row of cubes reads as continuously flowing ground. Click, drag — the whole stream of cubes rotates as one. Concept proven; the next experiment replaces the fake loop with genuinely generated platforms.