# Lemonade for Good — Game Design Doc _A charity lemonade-stand game for kids, built with Lily (mascot) as the spokesperson_ **Status:** Concept / pre-production **Owner:** [daughter's name] + Dad **Last updated:** Aug 2, 2026 --- ## 1. Concept A mobile game where a kid runs a lemonade stand to raise real donations for charity. The game has two loops that reinforce each other: - **In-game loop:** make lemonade → open the stand → serve customers. Purely for fun, no real money involved. - **Real-world loop:** invite friends & family to donate to a real charity. Confirmed donations unlock new stages, decorations, and content in the game. This is the core hook: **the game is unlocked by real kindness, not by purchases.** Mascot: **Lily**, an 8-year-old girl with braided pigtails, striped apron, the face of the app. Warm, cheerful, always smiling — she's the one who "runs" the stand alongside the player. **Catchphrase:** "Get your lemonade!" — Lily's signature shout, delivered via speech bubble at key moments (game open, finishing a prep step, serving customers). This is her brand line — use it consistently across loading screens, app store screenshots, and marketing. --- ## 2. Core Gameplay Loop (from Lily's — the designer's — own handwritten notes) This is the actual step-by-step design the game's target player (age 8) wrote by hand. It splits naturally into two phases: ### Phase 1 — Make the Lemonade (prep mini-game) Tap/drag interactions, one per step, each with its own little animation: 1. Squeeze lemons (tap/squeeze gesture, juice squirts into pitcher) 2. Add water (pour animation) 3. Add sugar ("shoger" — sprinkle/shake animation, sparkle effect) 4. Get ice from the fridge (drag ice cubes in, clink sound) 5. Pour into pitcher (swirl/mix animation, lemonade color settles) ### Phase 2 — Open the Stand (serving loop) 6. Get cups 7. Clean and ready (wipe down the stand — quick tidy-up animation) 8. Start the lemonade stand (stand "opens," awning unfurls) 9. Smile + make a sign (customize a hand-drawn sign — fun personalization moment) 10. Pour lemonade for customers (serve queue of cute customer characters — this is the main repeatable gameplay beat) **Design note:** Phase 1 happens once per session/day as a short warm-up ritual (30-60 sec). Phase 2 is the repeatable "gameplay" — customers show up, you serve them, you earn in-game coins/points (cosmetic only, not real-money-linked). --- ## 3. The Donation-Unlock Mechanic - The player has a **goal**: e.g. "10 donations to unlock the Mega Stand." - Player taps **Invite a Friend or Family Member**, which generates a shareable link/code tied to their profile. - The invite points to an **external, verified donation platform** (see Compliance below) — NOT an in-app payment flow. - When a donation is confirmed (via webhook from the donation platform), the app updates the player's progress bar and unlocks the next milestone. - Milestones = new stand decorations, new customer characters, new sign designs, new backgrounds — all cosmetic, never pay-to-win. ### UI references (already sketched) Three explored directions, saved at `~/lemonade-game-sketches/`: - `001-cozy-storybook/` — warm, handmade, milestone icons (recommended for younger kids) - `002-bold-arcade/` — neon "quest" framing, unlockable chips - `003-soft-pastel/` — calm circular progress ring, most "trustworthy to donors" feel - `004-squeeze-lemons-minigame/` — **built and verified working.** Full 10-step Phase 1 + Phase 2 chain (squeeze lemons → add water → add sugar → add ice → pour → get cups → clean → open stand → make sign → serve customers), ending on a "stand is open" screen that links to the donation goal. Currently tap-to-advance; **being rebuilt as swipe-based** per design decision below. Mascot Lily is embedded as a circular avatar badge in the header of all three progress-screen mockups, and as an animated cheering character (with speech bubble, catchphrase "Get your lemonade!") throughout the mini-game. --- ## 3.5 UI/UX Direction: Swipe-First (locked design decision) Feedback from the target player: tap-to-advance buttons feel flat. The game should feel **swipe-first**, closer to Stories/Tinder-style card decks than a form with "Next" buttons. - **Prep steps → horizontal swipe deck.** Each prep step (squeeze, add water, add sugar, add ice, pour) is a full-screen card; swipe left when a step is done instead of tapping a button. Cards should have spring/ momentum physics, not an instant snap. - **Serving customers → swipe right to serve, swipe left to skip.** Flick gesture per customer card instead of tap-to-serve. - **Donation goal / supporters list → swipe up as a bottom sheet** from the main stand screen, instead of a separate page/button. - **Charity picker (if multiple charities) → swipeable carousel** of charity cards. This is a locked direction — build all future screens swipe-first by default; only fall back to tap targets for the actual moment-of-decision actions (confirm invite, confirm serve) where a swipe would be ambiguous. --- ## 4. Fundraising Mechanics, Onboarding & Virality ### Fundraising mechanics - Each kid picks (or a parent assigns) **a charity + a goal** (e.g. "10 donations" or a dollar target). - Donations happen **off-app**, on an established donation platform (Classy, GoFundMe Charity, or the charity's own Stripe-hosted checkout). The app never touches payment data — see Compliance section. - App receives a **webhook/confirmation** when a donation lands, ties it to the kid's campaign, updates progress in real time. - **Break the big goal into micro-milestones** with fast payoff (1st donation unlocks a cup design, 3rd unlocks a sign, 5th unlocks a stand upgrade...) rather than one distant finish line — kids need frequent wins. - Consider a **matching mechanic**: "the first 5 donations get doubled by [sponsor]" — proven real-world fundraising lever, gives donors urgency. ### Onboarding - **Parent sets up the account first** — picks/verifies the charity, sets contact/sharing limits. Satisfies COPPA and keeps the legal setup clean. - **The tutorial IS the first playable loop** — a kid's first session is the Phase 1 prep mini-game itself (squeeze lemons → open stand). No separate "how to play" screen to skip past. - **First invite is scaffolded, not blank.** After the tutorial, suggest specific parent-approved contacts with a pre-written, editable message in Lily's voice ("Get your lemonade! Help me reach my goal!"). Removes the blank-page problem that kills most invite flows. ### Virality (kid-safe, not growth-hacky) - **Shareable milestone cards** — every unlock auto-generates a cute graphic (Lily + stats: "Lily raised $40 for Riverside Animal Shelter!") for parents to post on their own social media. Best organic growth lever for charity campaigns — wholesome content people actually want to share. - **Team/group challenges** — siblings, classrooms, scout troops running stands together toward a shared team goal. Mirrors how real-world lemonade-stand fundraisers already spread and pulls in multiple families at once. - **Seasonal campaigns** — "Summer Lemonade Challenge," back-to-school charity week, etc. Gives a reason to return and re-share instead of a one-time novelty. - **No public leaderboards with real identity.** If there's competition, keep it team-based or anonymized (first name + avatar, opt-in only). Public kid leaderboards are a safety risk and an easy store-review rejection. - **Charity cross-promotion** — get the charity to promote the app to its own donor list. Existing trust/reach beats organic growth tricks; pitch it as "we bring you new donors, you help us get featured." - **App Store storytelling** — a legitimately kid-run charity app is the kind of feel-good story Apple/Google editorial teams like to feature. Worth a short pitch for "New Apps We Love" / charity spotlight placement once live. --- ## 4. Compliance Notes (read before building payment flow) This is the part that needs to be right from day one, not bolted on later: - **No in-app payment collection for donations.** Route all actual money through an established donation platform (e.g. a nonprofit's own donation page, Classy, GoFundMe Charity, or Stripe Checkout hosted *outside* the app shell). The app only reads back a **confirmed donation status** via webhook/API — it never touches card data or processes the transaction itself. - **COPPA:** a parent/guardian should set up the invite/sharing step, not the child unsupervised — e.g. parent taps "send" after reviewing who it goes to, or the invite flow requires a parent gate (simple math check or similar) before it opens native share sheets. - **App Store / Play Store review risk:** apps that solicit money from a user's contacts get extra scrutiny, especially kid-facing ones. Being explicit in the app description and store listing that "100% of donations go directly to [named charity] via [named platform], the app itself charges nothing" reduces rejection risk. - **Charity percentage claims must be accurate and auditable** — if you say "X% goes to charity," be able to show the math (e.g. show it live in the app from the charity's own confirmation, not a number you make up). --- ## 5. Proposed Tech Stack - **Frontend/game:** Flutter (single codebase, iOS + Android) for UI-heavy parts; consider Godot if the serving mini-game needs more game-engine feel (physics, particle effects for juice/sparkles). - **Backend:** Supabase or Firebase — handles player profiles, donation progress tracking, milestone state. Avoid rolling a custom server for a project this size. - **Donations:** External platform (see Compliance) + webhook into Supabase/Firebase to flip "confirmed" status and trigger the unlock. - **Art assets:** Mascot + stand/customer illustrations generated via image-gen (FLUX), refined with a human illustrator pass if going to app stores for real. --- ## 6. Open Questions / Next Steps - [ ] Pick the real charity (or a rotating list) and the actual donation platform/link mechanism. - [ ] Decide the parent-gate flow for sending invites (how much control does mom/dad have over who gets invited). - [ ] Pick final UI direction (storybook / arcade / pastel) — recommend showing all three to [daughter] and letting her choose. - [ ] Build the "Squeeze Lemons" mini-game prototype — **done**, see `~/lemonade-game-sketches/004-squeeze-lemons-minigame/`. Next: build the remaining Phase 1 steps (add water, add sugar, add ice, pour into pitcher) as the same tap-interaction pattern, then chain them into one flow. - [ ] Decide engine: Flutter vs. Godot, based on how game-like Phase 2 (serving customers) needs to feel.