Quick rundown of my contribution to the RIVE / contra HMI challenge, inspired by Teenage Engineering's legendary OP-1 and OP-XY

Well... I made it. Barely. Last minute, as promised. I ended up making an HMI game. Play it here! https://hmi-rive-mouaad-jaaidi.netlify.app/

So if you read my WIP post, you know the original vision was ambitious, 3-5 different HMI eras, a whole driving simulator. That scoped down to two screens: the autonomous driving state and Analog Soul, a retro cluster that looks almost too retro because I originally wanted to replicate some iconic HMIs before the idea mutated. Honestly? I think the project is stronger for it.

Quick recap for anyone new: the idea behind RIVAL comes from a near-future where only EVs exist and autonomous driving is the norm. Someone who misses the old days — the thrill of actually driving, the adrenaline of going fast. In this world, you can take over from the AI and push the car yourself. You get to go faster, arrive earlier... but the responsibility is yours now. In the end, it turned out to be a fun little game.

The dashboard has two modes. Smart Drive is the autonomous state — calm, cyan, pulsing, everything handled for you. Press M and the whole dashboard fractures apart. The background shape literally breaks into six pieces, separates, and snaps back together as individual analog gauges. The cyan turns orange. You're in Analog Soul now — inspired by the essence of 80s sports car clusters, like the R5, Lancia, etc.

Here's where it gets fun. In my WIP I said I wasted too much time on design. That was true. But the thing is, by the time I had both modes and the transition working in Rive, I looked at it and thought... the gauges move, the needles respond, the data bindings update. But it doesn't mean anything yet. It's a demo, not an experience.

So at the last minute, and I mean genuinely last hours, I decided to turn it into an actual driving game. The idea: you're on a 143km trip. The autonomous AI drives you through the first stretch, respecting the speed limit. Then you enter an unrestricted zone, the system invites you to take over, and from that point it's on you. Arrow keys to accelerate, brake, and steer. Every gauge is now connected to a real physics simulation running at 60fps:

Push the speed too high for too long and the motor overheats.

Battery drains based on how aggressively you drive. If run out before the charging station, you're stranded.

There's a speed limit zone, get caught and it's game over.

Your ETA updates live based on your actual speed. so there's a real tension between going fast and survivin.g

The whole thing went from "cool interactive dashboard" to "can you actually make it home alive?" And that tension is exactly what I wanted from the beginning: making you feel the speed, feel the consequences.

I didn't get to build Digital Craze or Smart Beast (the AI co-pilot screen), that's coming next for a more varied playing experience, and I'll work on the design language a little bit more. But what's there is a complete experience from start to finish. Designed in Figma, animated in Rive, driven by JavaScript.

And yes, my first time using Rive. I learned everything during this challenge. The tool is genuinely impressive. Blend States, ViewModels, data binding, multiple state machine layers running concurrently, once you understand the patterns, it clicks fast The Rive tutorials and community resources were a huge help. Of course I was helped by Claude too... There would be no game without it.

Play it and tell me what you thuink! Best played on desktop with a keyboard. Hit M when the system tells you to take over. Try not to die.