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Hopfall

My nephew asked me to make him a game. I built the first version in under a day, then kept going until it was ready for the App Store.

Year

2026

Role

Design and build, solo

Platform

iPhone

Status

In App Store review

Why I made it

Every time my nephew visits, he plays hopping games on my phone. One day he asked if I could make him one, with dinosaurs. I said yes before I knew how.

What I did

All of it: the game, the 3D world, 17 characters, the sound, a pixel typeface and the iPhone app.

How fast

The first version took me under a day. He was playing it the same night.

The island falls away

In most hopping games you can stand still and think for as long as you like. I wanted a reason to keep moving, so the island crumbles behind you. Rows crack and shake, then each tile falls with whatever is standing on it: trees tip over, cars slide off.

Hopfall’s island crumbling: a row of grass, road and river cracks, and its blocks, trees and a car fall away into the sky — Fig. 1
The crumble catching up
Recorded from the game

Chased by giants

He asked for dinosaurs, so dinosaurs chase you. Every era has its own giant: an allosaurus, a T. rex, an avalanche, a camel stampede. A rumble comes one row before, and the screen counts the rows left to escape.

The Cretaceous’s voxel T. rex stomping after a small friend in an orange cone hat, past ankylosaurs and palm trees — Fig. 2
The T. rex in the Cretaceous
Recorded from the game

Six eras

Once he had finished Today’s 12 worlds, he wanted more. The Jurassic, the Cretaceous, the Ice Age and Ancient Egypt cost 400 gems each, earned by playing, and each has its own animals, chase and music. The sixth, the Odyssey, is on the way.

Three runs on a phone: Maple Hills in Today, Circe’s Isle in the Odyssey and Geyser Springs in the Jurassic, each with its score and the world’s name — Fig. 3
Today, the Odyssey and the Jurassic

Three more runs: the Cretaceous with dinosaurs on the road, Cave Hills in the Ice Age and the Temple of the Sun in Ancient Egypt — Fig. 4
The Cretaceous, the Ice Age and Ancient Egypt

17 friends

Kids pick a character before they do anything else, so every friend has a personality: their own hop, idle moves, reactions and a tiny voice. Pip’s face changes for close calls, gems and falls.

The 17 voxel friends on their coloured stands: Pip in a cone hat, a chef, a bee, a ghost, a dinosaur suit, an astronaut, a robot, a capybara, a firefighter, a granny and more — Fig. 5
The 17 friends

Pip four times: waving hello, grinning at a gem, wide-eyed at a close call, and cheering — Fig. 6
Pip: hello, a gem, a close call, yay

Its own type and sound

I drew the typeface cell by cell, so the score and every banner feel like part of the world. The sound comes in four packs, Toy Box, Arcade, Lo-fi and Storybook, each playing the same tunes on its own instruments.

HOPFALL in big pixel letters with an orange side, then the alphabet and the numbers in teal and pink — Fig. 7
Hopfall Block

A run in Today: the pause button, the next world, 1048 gems, a score of 68 and Maple Hills coming in, all in the pixel type — Fig. 8
The score and a new world in a run

Smooth on an old phone

He plays on an old hand-me-down phone, so the game had to run smoothly there. New rows are built in the spare moments between hops, effects are prepared when the game starts, and slower phones step down in quality and remember where they settled.

Ready for the App Store

It runs offline, with haptics, sharing and progress saved on the phone. No data leaves the phone. It’s in App Store review now.

Hopfall on an iPhone: the title screen, then a run through roads, rails and a river in Today, then the Jurassic — Fig. 9
Hopfall on an iPhone
Screen recording

More work

Kaha

A tablet POS for cafés and restaurants.

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like this?

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