The Betel Driver

Project Summary

The Betel Driver is a dual-screen experimental game developed in Unity. The left screen features a third-person traffic-dodge driving system where players weave a truck through dense traffic. The right screen presents a LocoRoco-inspired mouth physics system where players tilt a human mouth to roll and bounce a betel-nut ball to maintain the driver's alertness.

Both screens are linked by a shared alertness meter: as alertness decreases, vehicle control becomes unstable, forcing players to manage both external driving risk and internal stimulation at the same time.

Project Intentions

This project was inspired by two closely linked social issues in China: the danger of fatigue driving and the rising number of oral cancer cases caused by long-term betel-nut chewing.

I came to realize that betel nut is not merely a habit, but a survival tool for people pushed into chronic overtime and extreme exhaustion by economic pressure. Through mechanical design, I want players to experience this state of forced stimulation and exhaustion.

Personal Contribution

This is a fully independent solo project. I completed core mechanics, the alertness system, dual-screen interaction logic, progression, balancing, custom jaw-driven physics, vehicle control, procedural spawning, object pooling, and dual-camera split-screen control.

I also handled UI layout, icon design, interface composition, post-processing tuning, and 3D production for the oral-environment models. The comic panels were generated with MidJourney using locked character consistency and composed in Photoshop.