03
Year 3, Sep to Nov 2026
Playable 3D game on a real place
Century Dash
A real place becomes a game once you measure it.
When
Year 3, Sep to Nov 2026
What
Playable 3D game on a real place
Tools
Three.js, Blender
My part
Idea, direction, site measuring, design and testing.
A sprint course on my real campus route, built as a playable game. You start at a gate you recognise and run the real 800 m through traps and checkpoints.
Why I made it
It started as a wayfinding prototype for a walk I know, the roughly 800 m from the Century Artizan gate to Srishti Manipal Gate 1. At first it was a car following a navigation line. Then I took the car out and put a person on the route.
Once you could walk it, it became a question of what else the walk could be. It turned into a deathrun: 25 obstacles and 8 checkpoints laid along the real route, where any trap sends you back.
A generic obstacle course could be anywhere. This one is recognisable to the people who actually walk it, and that is the reason it exists.
Ducking under the laser gate.
In game: a jump, with the run timer and route bar.
In game: sliding under a bar.
The spinning blade pillar.
Timing the pendulum axe.
Spike tiles on the way to the gate.
The slime rift.
The dart wall at the finale.
Crusher walls closing in.
The whole route from above, built on the real campus.
The start: a gate players already know.
The route at 250 m.
And at 430 m.
The point was to find out what happens to a place you know when you can play it.
The test I set was simple: a first-time player should understand what to do without reading anything, die, and want one more go.
How it moved
Wayfinding
A glowing route line and turn banners on a 3D model of the real walk.
A person
The car came out. A figure you control walked the route instead.
A deathrun
Traps, pits and checkpoints on the same 800 m, with sprint, slide and mantle.
The work
Learning
The route and the gate had to be measured before they could be played. I also found out how I improve work fastest: by playing it and fixing what feels wrong. Players learn the place by running it, and the traps teach timing.
Design
Write rules, build, play, adjust: obstacles, trap audio, time of day, and controls for keyboard, gamepad and touch. My definition of design now includes feel. A design isn't finished until it feels fair.
Experience
Sound, light and traps create tension, and recognition makes it personal. I haven't watched many people play it, so the audience's experience is my biggest unknown.
What others showed me
Most of what I learned here came from the place itself. When I do watch people play, I expect someone will do something I never thought of, and that will teach me more than I can work out alone.
Strongest at
Vision, scoping and critique across a complex build.
Still growing
Writing the code myself, and tuning game-feel with testers.
Next
Rebuild in Unreal for a look close to the real place, test with players, and record where they fail or quit.