Under the Helmet

A very different beginning

Helmet Horizon didn’t begin with a helmet — or even a road. Its earliest version dates back to 2015, when it was a space game built around ships, planets and a very different kind of movement.

Most of that original idea eventually disappeared, but the project itself survived. Over the years, it changed direction, went through a series of experiments, and slowly evolved into the physics-based driving game it is today.

It wasn’t a straight line. There were long stretches when the project sat untouched, and more than one moment when I was ready to let it go.

“You got this! No need to rush. Find your perfect balance and timing.”

That’s the first thing players see when they open the game. It’s there to prepare them for levels that only get harder. Looking back, it’s not bad advice for finishing a game, either.

How it went from a space game to a helmet on wheels deserves a story of its own. For now, it’s enough to say that before it found the horizon, it was looking much further upward.

Built natively for iOS

Helmet Horizon is built natively for iOS, the platform where I’ve spent most of my mobile development career. I was already developing software for Pocket PC devices before the iPhone existed, but ever since the first iPhone, iOS has been home. When the game began to take shape, building it natively wasn’t really a strategic decision. It was simply how I’d make it.

SwiftUI forms the outer layer of the game: its menus, garage, store, settings and interface overlays. When a level begins, a SpriteKit scene takes over through SwiftUI’s SpriteView, handling the gameplay, rendering, camera and physics.

The rest comes from Apple’s own toolbox. AVFoundation powers the audio, StoreKit handles in-app purchases, and SpriteKit scene files built in Xcode define not just the levels and environments, but also the drivers, the helmet and many of the visual effects.

One project, a lot of hats

This is a solo, independent project. I design the game, build its interface and write the code behind it.

“Solo” doesn’t mean I made every asset myself, though. A graphic designer helped shape many of the game’s visuals, some elements — including the in-game parallax artwork — come from licensed external artists, and the music is licensed as well.

Working alone means changing roles as the game takes shape. One moment it’s design or code; the next, it’s testing, tuning, integrating artwork, or solving whatever problem comes next.

The journey from here

The Dev Journey looks back at the ideas, experiments and turning points behind Helmet Horizon — from its earliest space-game prototypes to the game it is today, and forward to where it goes next.

Part of why I’m writing it is that other developers’ journeys often helped me while I was building the game. It was encouraging to see people working through their own ideas and problems, and some went further, sharing practical solutions or pieces of code that turned out to be genuinely useful.

If something in these notes gives another developer the same kind of push — or helps them past a problem of their own — then putting them together will have been worthwhile.