2026-04-29 — RPG × Motocross decision

The user asked us to design the Vue PWA's UX feeling like "an RPG game × motocross challenge GBA game" and shared a 13×13 sprite sheet of T-Rod (~169 frames showing a full coach lifecycle: walking, running, mechanical work, pushups, kicks, victory poses, sleeping, even a stargazing frame). The user closed with "chose the best UX that feels like an old game."

This journal captures the why behind the call we made.

What the user actually has vs what they said

The phrase "GBA game" pointed us initially toward GBA-strict aesthetic (F-Zero Maximum Velocity, Mario Kart Super Circuit, 240×160 native resolution, 4-shade palettes). But the sprite sheet they shared isn't GBA:

• 30+ shades of grey/red/black/skin in the T-Rod sprite alone
• Smooth dithered shading (not 1-bit dithering)
• Modern proportions (head ~1/4 body height, slim build)
• Activities far beyond what a GBA character set ever included (mechanical work, push-ups, stargazing, sleep)

That sheet is modern indie pixel art — Stardew Valley / Eastward / Pyre era. Way more visually rich than a pure GBA game would have been.

So the user's words and the user's reference disagreed. We went with the reference, not the words. The aesthetic is "modern indie pixel-art RPG that feels like an old GBA-era racing game in structure." Best of both.

The pitch we committed to

It's an RPG where the dungeon IS the racetrack.

References we decided to chase:

Game	What we take
Stardew Valley	Warm, lived-in pixel-art with NPCs; daily rhythm
Pokémon Emerald	Trainer card, save slots, Professor-Oak mentor archetype
Tony Hawk PSGBA	Career mode with sponsor goals, stat trees
Mario Kart Super Circuit	Track-based progression, cup/championship structure
Crosscode	Stage-clear celebration, modern pixel-art proportions
Motocross Challenge GBA	Real-feel racing on a 2.5D engine; practice/career split

Crucially not F-Zero Maximum Velocity. Too much arcade, not enough RPG. The driver isn't the camera; the driver is the protagonist.

What this means concretely

• Visual reference = the user's T-Rod sprite sheet (Stardew-era proportions + 30+ palette)
• Resolution = 480×320 logical (2× GBA) at integer scales
• Information architecture = career-mode RPG (save slot → garage hub → world map → pre-brief → drive → cool-down → stage clear)
• Coach = mentor NPC archetype (Professor Oak), 5 personas, affinity meter, NPC-walks-around-the-garage behaviour
• Progression = real telemetry-derived levels, medals, evolution charts. Nothing fabricated for the game; everything grounded in bridge data
• Audio = chiptune music + jsfxr SFX + pre-rendered TTS coach voice
• Architecture-as-game = the trainer card displays the driver_profile endpoint's output directly; the world map drives /track/<id>/elevation; stage clear is the score formula made tactile

What we deliberately rejected

• Pure GBA palette — the sprite sheet rules it out
• Anime / manga portraits — visual disjunct with the sprite sheet
• Cinematic 3D intro — too much production cost; pixel art is the budget-honest choice
• "Game over" / fail states — the driving is real; bad sessions are feedback, not failure
• Microtransactions in any form
• Stamina/energy gating
• Public leaderboards (post-Sonoma decision)
• "Ironic retro" — this is sincere

What we'll know in 1 week

After scaffold + first 2-3 screens are implemented:

• Whether the modern-indie-pixel-art direction holds at integer scales on a real Pixel screen (vs only-pretty-on-laptops)
• Whether the chosen palette has enough range for night-mode + high-contrast variants
• Whether m6x11 body font is readable at 1× scale on a phone — if not, fall back to Pixel Operator
• Whether the audio + sprite system feels game-shaped at all, or like a webapp-with-pixel-art

If those hold → the design philosophy survives the first contact with implementation, and the screen docs become specifications.

If they don't → revisit, but only after measuring on real hardware.

Tone note

This whole doc folder reads as a design journal not a dry spec because that's how the user asked: "create a vue folder in the docs to document the journey." We commit to that framing. The screens will say what they are, but they'll also be honest about where the decisions came from. If a future contributor reads 04-trainer-card.md and wonders "why a Pokémon-style trainer card?", they should be able to walk back to this journal and find the reasoning.