Otto's Rocket Car Train Adventure

A tiny browser game for Otto about moon cars, rockets, moon trains, moon tunnels, space bats, moon race cars, a colorful toy garage ramp on the moon with gentle burst-out zoomies, moon food, moon birthdays, a gentle moon crane, a friendly robot helper, a friendly moon tow truck, dance parties, and one quick trip back to Earth to collect passengers.

Run it

python3 -m http.server 8123

Then open http://localhost:8123.

Controls

Use the large story buttons to make the game easier to steer:

• Back and Next move through the story scenes.
• Pause/Play stops or resumes the story timer and narration.
• Speed cycles through Slow, Cozy, and Zoom pacing.

Use the big vehicle buttons for toddler-friendly action:

• Zoom! makes the cars stretch forward with speed lines.
• Jump! makes the cars bounce extra high.
• Twirl! spins the vehicles.
• Rocket! makes rocket flames bigger and wigglier.
• Train! adds chugging motion, steam, and speed sparks.
• Crane! wiggles the moon crane as it gently lifts cars, rockets, or passenger pods with a soft sling.
• Tow! pulls out the friendly moon tow truck with a gentle lift and a happy honk vibe.
• Party! starts the confetti adventure burst.

Keyboard helpers: Space jumps, g or Right Arrow goes to the next scene, Left Arrow goes back, p pauses, z zooms, t twirls, r rockets, c chugs the train, l lifts with the crane, and w calls the tow truck.

Turn on Narration to hear each story scene aloud. When narration is on, vehicle actions also say short kid-friendly phrases, and automatic scene changes wait until the current line finishes (recorded audio or speech). With narration off, scenes still advance on the story timer as before.

Recorded narration

The game looks for recorded narration in audio/narration/manifest.json. If those files are present, it plays them first. If they are missing or cannot be played, it falls back to browser SpeechSynthesis.

To generate ElevenLabs narration locally:

ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your-key-here node scripts/generate-narration.mjs

Optional settings:

ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID=voice-id ELEVENLABS_MODEL_ID=eleven_multilingual_v2 node scripts/generate-narration.mjs --force

Do not put API keys in this repo. Keep them in your shell environment or a local secret manager.

If you reorder, add, or remove story scenes, run with --force so every scene-*.mp3 stays matched to the scene list (filenames are positional).