Don't Look Away: a candle-lit horror game where the GPU shader is the game.

Something is in the house. It only moves in the dark. Your cursor is a candle. While your light is on the Visitor, it stands still; look at the window, the portrait or the door, and it takes a step closer, in a new pose, somewhere new. In the dark you only see two pale points. When it reaches you, the candle goes out.

Features used: Rive CLI and GPU Canvas, plus Scripting, Data Binding and State Machines.

- GPU Canvas (WGSL): the darkness is a fragment shader: a breathing pool of candlelight around the pointer, smoke in the light, a vignette that closes in with dread, and a tear across the picture every time it steps.

- Rive CLI + RML: the room, the words, the view model and the state machine are plain markup, built and checked with rive --verify, inspect and headless screenshots; the demo video was rendered by replaying a scripted pointer frame by frame.

- Luau scripting: one rule, it only moves while the light misses its head and body; it also draws the Visitor and the candle in your hand.

- Data Binding: its distance drives the step counter and the portrait on the wall, which slowly becomes her. State machine: title, ending, and the flash of the scare.

- Rive Editor: the file was opened in the editor, and the claw marks beside the door were drawn there with the pen tool and pulled back with rive pull.

Play it (lights off): https://dont-look-away-nkdh1b.rive.to

Video with the agent workflow and code: https://youtu.be/Pt_J1wdtQxI

The cursor as a candle and a Visitor that moves only when you look away is a strong mechanic. How did you do the lighting in the shader?

Business: Glasshouse Padel Club Location: Bryanston, Johannesburg, South Africa

Problem solved (one line): A solo owner stops chasing court payments: players pay their own quarter, unpaid holds release themselves, and bookings confirm without a message.

Client brief: Glasshouse is an independent padel club with four glass courts (three indoor, one outdoor panoramic), open 06:00-22:30. The owner runs it alone and fields around [90] booking messages a day. Weekday evenings are packed and mid-mornings sit empty. About [1 in 5] bookings collapse when one friend never pays their share, leaving the court held and unsold.

What I built:

Front door: live availability across all four courts, honest peak, standard and quiet-hour prices, and booking with no account needed.

Follow-through: the court is held for 15 minutes while each friend pays their own quarter from their own link. At 4 of 4 paid, the booking confirms itself. If the squad doesn't fill, the court releases itself and goes back on sale.

Payments run in demo mode (approved and declined flows, receipts). No real money moves, and PayFast or Paystack would plug in for live use.

Owner view shows paid bookings and released holds without the owner sending a message.

Live app (public, no login needed): https://glasshouse-court-connect.lovable.app/ https://lovable.dev/projects/8abd13d8-7d17-4b61-9e9e-8cd9cb80abff?magic_link=mc_e65531e2-e36c-4808-8c5a-181c366db468 @Lovable

Well done