3D Retro Game Design: Build Interactive Maps with Rive Engine

3D Retro Game Design: Build Interactive Maps with Rive Engine3D Retro Game Design: Build Interactive Maps with Rive Engine

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Paul N.

• Jan 30

I made 3D in rive work. A-maze-ing_rive a tiny engine for 3D retro style games, with text editable maps, mini-map, shading, CRT scan lines(accidentally 😏 ). And importantly onscreen hover and click controls (so it works inside rive 😎).

Rive 3d scriptingwithrive

Paul N.

• Jan 30

My first post on linkedin showing off rive-scripting, well outside my normal wheelhouse. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-n-0298943a5_3d-retro-game-design-build-interactive-maps-share-7422861073361440768-VAiF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAGNDpCEBGl1GOxedeBQ4tve1EZfHy3aCJlY

linkedin.com

3D Retro Game Design: Build Interactive Maps with Rive Engine | Paul N

For my first ever post on LinkedIn I made 3D in rive work with rive scripting. A-maze-ing_rive a tiny engine for 3D retro style games, with text editable maps, mini-map, shading, CRT scan lines(accidentally 😏 ). And importantly onscreen hover and click controls (so it works inside rive 😎). https://lnkd.in/e86rr-vH

Yar Demidov

pro

• May 1

My entry for the @rive_app Impossible UI challenge ✨

I gave myself an extra challenge: to build a small story around the interface.

So I made an alien planetary catalog.

For them, Earth is an oxygen-water hazard. And some planets that are deadly for humans might actually be viable for them.

Fully built in Rive: data binding, state machines, scripted components, sounds, and much more.

You can play with it live here: https://rive.app/marketplace/27516-52003-alien-planetary-catalog/

Thanks for the challenge, Rive. This was really fun 👽

Rive impossibleuiwithrive

Isabel Feuerstein

pro

• May 1

wow this is incredible

Emrah OZBAY

• May 1

Hey everyone, Emrah here, with one last entry for #ImpossibleUIwithRive in Contra, before we leave for the weekend. Just to mention, everything is done in Rive, to explore my limitations with it, this is also my learning process of the software.

This is the final piece I’m adding to my S·PEN. In this part, I explored a live terrain-like data visualization system, built entirely in 2D but driven by three different real-time data sources. By layering and synchronizing these feeds, the system creates a pseudo-3D surface that reacts dynamically on screen.

To achieve this, I built three separate logic systems to control dot-based animations at different scales, each contributing to depth, motion, and distortion. The result is a constantly evolving surface that feels spatial, alive, and slightly unpredictable.

This addition pushes the project further into what I was aiming for from the start:

"something visually precise, but intentionally difficult to implement"

Between: *multi-layered time-based animations *pseudo-3D anatomical visuals *and this live data terrain system The whole experience leans into controlled chaos. Just wanna also thx to whole Rive community, while I'm still learning the software, they help me to solve my issues and answer my questions when I stucked in technical aspects.

🔗 Full project:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/247442001/SPEN-Silent-Predictive-Enforcement-Network-FUI-HUD

Rive challenge impossibleuiwithrive

Madob Acharjya

• May 1

Nice!

Ashley Best

pro

• Apr 30

Cursor Camp, A Real-Time Multiplayer World, Built with Rive

Cursor Camp is a live multiplayer playground where up to 1000 real cursors from around the globe share the same space simultaneously. A beach, lazy river, clubhouse, campfire, soccer pitch, cave, treehouse and more, brought to life through over 40 Rive-powered interactions and animations spanning environments, characters, objects, and interactions.

My role was building the entire Rive layer. Starting from the illustrator’s artwork, I translated everything into interactive systems, rigging and animating scenes, characters, and objects while developing the state machines and behaviours that make the world feel dynamic and alive.

The real challenge was making it data-aware. Using ViewModel data binding and Luau scripting throughout, every animation responds to live runtime input, with cursors picking up objects, triggering states, and reacting to a constantly changing world.

That includes moments like players duetting on a piano in real time, progressively eating an entire cake with each click, adding sticks to a fire to increase its intensity, or dropping ingredients into a cauldron to dynamically change the colour of the broth.

The result is a Rive system ready to be wired into Neal Agarwal’s multiplayer backend, where WebSockets keep thousands of players in sync in real time. It hit the front page of Hacker News on day one, with people asking one question over and over:

How is this running in a browser?

That’s the impossible UI.