About the game
One very round sign
Lollipop is a free browser game about the school crossing patrol, the person in the long coat who stops the traffic outside a primary school. You get the sign, the kerb and a week of school runs.
The idea is simple enough. Hold the sign up and the road stops. Put it down and the road starts again. Everything else is judgement. Step out too late and a driver has to stamp on the brakes. Hold the road too long and the queue starts honking. Leave the children standing and they get restless, and a restless child will eventually try the road on their own.
So the game is really about batching. Every time you stop the traffic it costs you some goodwill, and every child who crosses scores, so the trick is to wait for a good crowd, pick a gap the drivers can stop in, and move as many people as you can in one go. The points reward exactly that, because a big group multiplies its own score.
The crossing is outside Bramley Primary, on a British street where the traffic keeps left. The drivers are a mixed bunch of vans, estates, buses and small cars, and some of them are on their phones. The Headteacher keeps up a commentary on the radio, a surprising amount of it about a boy called Tyler.
A week at a time
A run lasts one week, Monday to Friday. Each day is busier than the last, with more pupils and quicker, closer traffic. Between days the council offers you memos, and you approve one each time, so by Friday you have a small set of rules and gadgets that suit how you play. Your Complaints and Late marks carry over from day to day, halved overnight, so a bad Tuesday is still with you on Wednesday. Friday is always something special, and the week you get decides which.
The daily rota
Every day there is a numbered rota, and everyone playing on the same date starts the same week. When you finish you can share a short result with your score, how many people you got across, your near misses and a row of coloured squares, one for each day. Green is a day with no near misses or shunts, yellow is a day with some, and red is the day it all went wrong. If you would rather not wait for tomorrow, Random week gives you a fresh one.
Officers and terms
Maureen is on the rota from the start. She knows every child by name, so they wait longer before they get restless. Other patrol officers join once you pull off their feat, each with a knack of their own. Winning a week opens a harder term, where the traffic is quicker and the children have less patience.
How it is made
The game runs in your browser, with no download and no sign-up. The street is a small 3D toy diorama seen through a tilt-shift lens, built from the same terrace houses as Tight Spot. Each driver has a reaction time and a limit on how hard they can brake, and the coloured ring under each car is worked out from the same numbers the game uses to decide whether a stop was a near miss.
Your scores and unlocks stay in your browser. There are no accounts. The game may show an advert between some days, and you can choose to watch one for the Headteacher's Word. The privacy page explains what adverts involve.
Get in touch
Found a bug, a driver who behaves oddly, or a line the Headteacher should say? Send a note to arbaz00@gmail.com.