Cat Cat Run — why I made the obstacles purple instead of the obvious red

Tiny design choice, big behavioral change.

First build: obstacles were red. The dominant gameplay color was red. Players kept telling me the game felt "stressful." Not in a fun way — in a "I'll stop after one run" way.

Switched to purple. Same exact game, same exact difficulty, same exact obstacle placement. Average run length went up noticeably (no analytics yet, this is just from friends I sent it to). Two people said "wait this is actually kinda chill."

My theory: red is so over-coded as DANGER that the brain reads every frame as alarm even when the gameplay isn't actually punishing you. Purple is more ambient. Your eye still sees "thing to avoid" but your nervous system doesn't go into fight-or-flight.

If your game feels harder than it actually is, try desaturating or shifting the threat color. Same mechanic, different feel.