Ramu Kaka'sDelivery Service
Balance two milk cans, a bicycle and a busy Kolkata street. Every delivery tips the scales.
Game concept
Ramu Kaka is a milkman on his morning round, cycling down a crowded Kolkata street with a milk can hanging on each side. As he hands out milk, the cans empty unevenly and the bike keeps pulling towards the heavier side. You keep him upright, serve the customers waving from the roadside and dodge whatever the street throws at you.
It is built for teenagers who want a laid-back cool-down after long, intense PC and console sessions: short runs, mouse-only controls and a street that feels familiar.
Development
Semester 2, Design Project I
Genre
Casual endless runner
Platform
PC · Unity · Mouse only
Target audience
Teens cooling down after hardcore gaming
Design pillars
Balance first
Mouse-only controls
Short, pausable runs
A familiar Indian street
Design process
01
Research
Interviewed players and read up on casual games in India.
02
Boundaries
Simple, short, interruptible, and rooted in India.
03
Ideation
Six ideas, from camel caravans to a milkman on a bicycle.
04
Prototype
A tilt test to find out how balancing should feel.
05
Playtesting
Too fast, too wonky, too repetitive. Back to the drawing board.
06
Iteration
Level mode, braking, parallax and a paper-cut street.
Primary research
What players told me
Teens play casual games to cool down after hardcore gaming; working adults play to de-stress and stay in touch with friends.
Frustration kills it. Sessions should fit 5–15 minute gaps, work offline and feel as effortless as scrolling reels.
People rarely search the store. They find games through social media ads and word of mouth.
Casual players want familiar Indian themes like food and festivals, and sound that feels culturally right.
Secondary research
What the reading said
Most Indian players are under 24. Over 75% play for stress relief and social time, and around 76% play on mobile.
Casual games began as paper puzzles like crosswords and Sudoku: easy access, simple rules, quick rewards.
From Jesper Juul's Casual Revolution: positive fiction, usability, interruptibility, forgiving difficulty and juicy feedback.
Boundaries I set
Intuitive controls
Easy to play, hard to master
Stop any time
A piece of India
Short sessions
No chores
One clear goal
Initial concepts
Sand dunes and camels
A camel driver carries water to far-off villages in the Thar desert, managing food, water and heat while dunes and mirages get in the way.
Poem creator
Words float around a theme. Combine them into lines until they form a complete poem.
Brick laying
Arrange bricks into patterns to build walls and buildings, like the pietra dura of the Taj Mahal.
Through the crowd
A boy gets swept away by a rushing crowd and has to find his way back to his mother.
Focal length
Switch focus between near, mid and far to reveal things that are hidden or blurred.
Picked
Milkman balancing
A milkman cycles with a milk can on each side. As he delivers, they empty unevenly and you keep the ride steady.
Finalised concept
Hand out the milk without losing your balance
Possible mechanics: tilting with the cans to balance the bike, deciding how much milk to give and when, and avoiding traffic and pedestrians.
Core loop
One continuous run on one street. Ramu Kaka pedals forward on his own; your job is to keep him upright while the street keeps asking for something.
There are no separate levels in the endless mode. The run slowly gets harder until you crash, and then it starts again.
Lean too far → Game over
Core mechanics
Controls
Mouse ← →
Lean the bike
Lean and click
Deliver milk
Steer and click
Refill
Scroll down
Brake (level mode)
Balance first
Move the mouse to keep the bike upright. Tilt past the limit and Ramu Kaka falls.
Uneven weight
The bike always pulls towards the fuller can, so you keep making small corrections. It feels like fighting the system itself.
Deliveries
Lean into the roadside zone to hand milk to a waiting customer. Each delivery costs one unit of milk and earns a point.
Refills
Steer into a roadside canister to refill. A refilled side gets heavier, so every refill is a risk.
Hazards
Potholes, stones and cows jolt your balance. Touching the road edge is an instant crash.
Braking
In level mode you can only deliver below a certain speed, so you have to slow down at the right moment.
The street cast
Everyone and everything Ramu Kaka meets on his round, all cut from the same paper.
Man with a can
Waits on the kerb with his can. Lean towards him to fill it.
Woman with a can
Steps out of her doorway for the morning's milk.
Old man
Waves Ramu Kaka over from the roadside.
Two kids
Sent out with the family's can.
Refill boy
Steer into his canister to top up one side.
Refill uncle
Another refill point further down the street.
Cow
Wanders onto the road. Swerve or crash.
Pothole
Jolts the bike and throws off your balance.
Stone
A sudden bump that tips the bike.
Street light
Lines the street and gives the parallax its depth.
Electric post
Tangled wires overhead, like the real street.
The fall
Lean past the limit and the milk goes everywhere.
Character states
Every customer and refill stall has the same four poses, so the player can read what they want at a glance.
Idle
Waiting
Lean
Taking the milk
Wave
Calling you over
Warning
Badge shown ahead
Three iterations
Each round of playtesting changed how the ride felt, from a bare tilt test to a paper-cut street with levels.
1st iteration
Making a 2D street feel like a ride
The first challenge was the tilt mechanic and a scrolling background that makes it feel like Ramu Kaka is really moving through the world. Getting that sense of motion in 2D mattered most.
I kept the controls to the mouse alone, for ease of play and accessibility, and built a basic tilt prototype to test how balancing feels.
2nd iteration
An endless delivery run
Ramu Kaka now pedals forward on his own. You tilt and sway to stay balanced on the way to each delivery zone while the cans slowly empty. A refill mechanic lets you top up and keep the run going.
What didn't work
The speed was too fast to control, obstacles felt repetitive, the ride felt wonky, and the visuals looked rough.
3rd iteration
Level mode and a paper-cut street
Added a level mode, redrew every sprite in cut paper, added parallax, gave the bike acceleration and braking, and brought in more obstacle types with speed management.
Still to fix
Street lights and electric poles stacked oddly in the parallax, some objects popped in, and a few sprites at different scales broke the perspective.
A paper-cut street
For the 3rd iteration I redrew everything in a layered, hand-cut paper style with soft shadows between the layers.
The palette comes from the mood board of old Kolkata lanes: faded blue, ochre, pink and terracotta shopfronts under a bright paper sky.
Closing reflection
Thanks for riding along
Working on Ramu Kaka’s Delivery Service taught me how physics-based mechanics can make even a simple task like delivering milk fun and challenging. I learned how to design gameplay around balancing, movement, and obstacles while keeping the experience engaging.
Design Project I, Semester 2. Reference: Casual Revolution, Jesper Juul.
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