Duck Mail

A tiny duck in an infinite universe

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Inspiration

We wanted to create a game that feels less like a traditional 3D runner and more like stepping inside a living piece of digital art.

The idea behind Duck Mail came from combining something simple and playful — a cute duck delivering mail — with something unexpected: an infinite cosmic universe filled with colorful mandalas, planets, stars, glowing roads, and surreal visual elements.

We wanted the player to experience a feeling of “just one more run” while constantly discovering new visual and audio moments.

The result is Duck Mail 3D, a fast-paced artistic endless runner where a small duck travels through an infinite artistic universe, collecting coins, avoiding obstacles, and trying to reach legendary distances.

What it does

Duck Mail 3D is a browser-based 3D endless runner built around a simple gameplay loop:

Move → Dodge → Collect → Accelerate → Survive → Reach the next milestone.

The player controls a 3D duck traveling along an infinite winding road.

As the player progresses:

  • 🦆 The duck continuously moves forward.
  • 🪙 Coins appear along the road and can be collected.
  • 💥 Cosmic obstacles appear and must be avoided.
  • 🌌 The environment is filled with planets, stars, nebula-like colors, and animated mandalas.
  • ⚡ The duck continuously becomes faster as the distance increases.
  • ⭐ Milestones reward the player with stars.
  • 🏆 Reaching the final distance unlocks the Legendary Duck ending.
  • 🎵 An artistic ambient soundtrack accompanies the journey.
  • 🔊 Sound effects respond to important gameplay events such as collecting coins, launching, hitting obstacles, reaching milestones, and winning.

The game also supports mouse, touch, and keyboard controls, allowing it to work across desktop and mobile devices.

How we built it

Duck Mail was built as a lightweight browser-based 3D experience using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Three.js.

The 3D world is procedurally constructed using Three.js, including:

  • A custom 3D duck assembled from primitive geometries.
  • A dynamically generated infinite road.
  • Procedurally positioned stars and planets.
  • Custom-generated colorful mandalas.
  • A procedural sky texture.
  • Dynamic lighting, shadows, fog, and tone mapping.
  • Real-time camera movement following the duck.
  • Dynamic obstacle and coin spawning.

The road is generated mathematically using multiple sinusoidal functions, allowing it to continuously curve while maintaining a playable path.

The game also uses a real-time game loop to control movement, collision detection, animation, speed progression, spawning, milestones, and the win condition.

For audio, we added a dedicated sound system using the Web Audio API, allowing background music and gameplay sound effects to be independently controlled.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was creating the feeling of an infinite world without actually creating an enormous 3D level.

Instead of building hundreds or thousands of road segments at once, we dynamically generate and remove sections of the road as the duck moves forward. This allowed us to create an effectively infinite environment while keeping the experience lightweight.

Another challenge was balancing the increasing speed.

If the game becomes too fast too quickly, the player loses control. If it stays too slow, the game becomes boring. We therefore designed a progressive speed system where the duck becomes faster as the player travels farther.

We also had to make sure that the artistic environment did not interfere with gameplay. The world contains many visual elements, so we needed to maintain enough contrast and spacing for the road, coins, and obstacles to remain readable.

Finally, browser audio introduced another challenge because modern browsers restrict autoplay. We solved this by initializing the audio system after the player's first interaction with the Launch button.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are especially proud that Duck Mail started as a simple idea and became a complete playable 3D experience.

Some of the things we're most proud of include:

  • Building a fully playable 3D game directly in the browser.
  • Creating a procedurally generated winding road.
  • Designing a unique artistic visual identity instead of using a conventional environment.
  • Creating the duck completely from 3D geometry.
  • Implementing dynamic difficulty through progressive speed.
  • Building real-time coin and obstacle spawning.
  • Adding multiple gameplay states including launch, gameplay, milestones, game over, and victory.
  • Adding an original audio layer with music and contextual sound effects.
  • Supporting mouse, keyboard, and touch interaction.
  • Keeping the entire experience lightweight enough to run directly in a web browser.

Most importantly, we are proud that the game has its own personality.

It is not just an endless runner with a duck.

It is a tiny duck traveling through an enormous universe of art.

What we learned

Building Duck Mail taught us that creating a memorable game is not only about mechanics.

The visual identity, sound, pacing, feedback, and small interactions all contribute to how the player feels.

We learned how to:

  • Build and manage a real-time 3D scene with Three.js.
  • Generate environments procedurally instead of manually creating every object.
  • Implement smooth character movement and camera following.
  • Create collision and spawning systems.
  • Design progressive difficulty.
  • Work with browser audio and the Web Audio API.
  • Optimize dynamically generated 3D content.
  • Combine technical systems with artistic design.

Most importantly, we learned how powerful a simple gameplay mechanic can become when it is combined with a strong visual concept.

What's next for Duck Mail

Duck Mail is designed to grow beyond its current endless-runner prototype.

Next, we want to transform the experience into a larger artistic adventure universe.

Future updates could include:

  • 📬 Actual mail-delivery missions.
  • 🌍 Multiple artistic worlds with completely different visual styles.
  • 🪐 Planet-specific levels and environments.
  • 🦆 Duck customization and collectible outfits.
  • 🎒 Unlockable abilities and power-ups.
  • 👾 New types of cosmic obstacles and enemies.
  • 🎵 Dynamic music that evolves with the player's speed and location.
  • 🏅 Global leaderboards and high scores.
  • 🗺️ A progression map connecting different universes.
  • 📖 A narrative explaining why the duck is traveling through the universe.
  • 🎨 More interactive artistic environments.
  • 👥 Multiplayer or asynchronous challenges.

Our long-term vision is to turn Duck Mail into a small but distinctive game universe where gameplay and digital art continuously interact with each other.

The road may be infinite — but the duck's mission is just beginning. 🦆🌌

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