Writing
Winter Hare: a little letter adventure
A pencil sketch, a childhood fondness for Frogger, and a bunny that needs warming up. Finding the fun in a little spelling game.
It started with a little pencil drawing. Long ears, a broad smile, and a character I wanted to send on an adventure.
The little sketch that started it.
I used ChatGPT to explore bringing it to life, keeping the shape and feel of the drawing. A few quick iterations gave us four brightly coloured bunnies: blue, yellow, red and green. Then I asked for skis for the blue one.
I’m still rather fond of the skier.
Four friends. One came prepared for the snow.
For the game, I drew on something I remembered from when I was little: Frogger. I liked the simplicity of choosing a direction, taking a hop, and figuring out the next one. That felt like a good starting point for this little character.
Our bunny hops between ice floes on a river. Some have letters on them, and you collect the right letters in order to spell a word. The view follows you upwards as you go. Pick a bunny, find your first letter, and you’re off.
There is an educational flavour to it, but most of my attention has gone into whether it feels fun to play. Is the next hop inviting? Do I want another go? Does the bunny feel like it belongs in this little world?
Melting ice came from being curious about difficulty. What could make the journey a bit trickier while keeping the same basic game? An ice floe that starts melting when you land on it adds a reason to keep moving. You still hop and collect letters; now you also have to think about how long you can stay put.
The speed needed some experimenting. A small adjustment can make a surprisingly big difference when you’re standing on the thing that’s disappearing.
Then there were the mistakes. Those turned out to be some of my favourite parts to work on.
Miss the ice and the bunny takes a dip. It splashes into the water, then returns to the previous snowbank with the letters you’ve already collected. That gave us a place to restart, but the bunny had just been in a freezing river. A little fire seemed kind.
Landing on the wrong letter needed its own reaction. Here, the bunny freezes on the spot, and a little fire helps defrost it before it can hop away. It stays where the mistake happened. You get a moment to see the letter you landed on and work out where to go next.
These details grew out of trying things, playing again, and noticing what felt missing. A splash, a pause, a tiny fire. I like how much character can come from such small responses.
The game now has a home in Learnalist, as A little letter adventure. I’m calling our little winter outing Winter Hare. You can give it a single word or a list of words and make an adventure around whatever you want to practise. The same bunnies can take on BUNNY, the rainbow colours, or the days of the week.
There’s plenty I’d still like to try. At the moment, highlighting gives away the next correct letter. I’d like to remove that visual hint so you have to look for the letter yourself. One-finger tapping also needs tightening up, with more forgiving touch controls for children. Getting that feeling right is part of making the game welcoming.
For now, I’d love you to have a go. These adventures have melting ice switched off:
- BUNNY : Try a single word.
- Rainbow colours : Play through the seven rainbow colours.
- Days of the week : Hop from Monday to Sunday.
Or make an adventure with your own words.
Pick a bunny and give it a hop.