Parking Sort Jam is an original puzzle game developed from scratch by LaloGames. It combines the familiar challenge of parking and traffic puzzles with a color-sorting mechanic in which players must organize cars into matching groups.
Developing the game involved much more than moving cars between parking spaces. We had to create reliable vehicle movement, prevent cars from colliding, control traffic priorities and ensure that every action remained understandable to the player.
In this article, we will explain how the idea began, how the main systems work, which problems we encountered and what we learned while developing the game.
What Is Parking Sort Jam?
Parking Sort Jam is a puzzle game where the player moves cars between parking spaces and the road. The main objective is to place three cars of the same color together.
The road is not simply a visual background. It remains an active part of the puzzle. Cars can leave their spaces, join the road, move around the parking area and return to an available slot.
This creates a combination of sorting, traffic management and planning. Players must consider not only which car to move, but also where it will travel and which parking space it can safely enter.
You can play Parking Sort Jam online directly through LaloGames.
Where Did the Idea Come From?
The idea came from combining two popular types of puzzle gameplay: parking puzzles and color-sorting games.
Many parking games focus entirely on freeing vehicles from a crowded area. Sorting games usually ask players to organize objects by color or type. We wanted to connect these two ideas while making the road itself part of the puzzle.
Instead of removing a car permanently after it leaves a parking space, the car can continue moving around the road and enter another suitable slot. This creates additional possibilities and makes each decision more meaningful.
Why We Decided to Develop the Game
The most interesting part of the concept was the interaction between the cars, the road and the parking slots.
A simple sorting mechanic can become repetitive if every object follows the same predictable movement. In Parking Sort Jam, moving one car can affect several others. A parking space may become reserved, another car may need to wait and the traffic order may change.
We believed this system could create a relaxing puzzle game while still providing enough strategy to keep later levels challenging.
Technology Used to Build Parking Sort Jam
Parking Sort Jam was developed with the following technology:
- Unity 2022.3.62f2
- C#
- Unity Splines
- TextMeshPro
- Particle Systems
- AudioSource
- Custom progression systems
- Prefab-based level construction
- Shader-based interface effects
- WebGL and mobile support
Unity Splines were particularly useful for creating controlled road paths. Instead of allowing cars to move freely in unpredictable directions, we could guide them through defined routes and adjust their entry and exit positions.
The game’s systems, programming and gameplay implementation were created by LaloGames.
How the Main Gameplay System Works
When the player selects a car, the game checks whether that vehicle can move safely.
The system considers several conditions:
- Is the road clear?
- Is there an available parking slot?
- Has another car already reserved that slot?
- Can the selected car enter without crossing another vehicle?
- Will the movement interfere with the current traffic order?
If all the necessary conditions are satisfied, the car follows its assigned path. Cars moving on the road use staged paths and specific approach points when entering parking spaces.
The game also remembers the slot a car recently left. This prevents it from immediately returning to the same position and creating an unhelpful movement loop.
When three compatible cars are placed together, the matching system recognizes the group and completes the relevant action.
Building the Parking and Traffic System
The traffic system was the most technically challenging part of development.
Each car needs to know when it can join the road, which path it should follow and whether its destination remains available. These decisions must also be coordinated with every other moving car.
We created a reservation system so that a parking slot cannot be selected by multiple vehicles simultaneously. Once a car begins moving toward a space, that position is temporarily reserved until the movement finishes or is cancelled.
Traffic priorities were also added to stop cars from entering the same section of road at the same time. This made the movement more reliable and reduced visual collisions.
Important Bugs We Solved
Testing revealed several problems that were not always noticeable while building individual systems.
Some of the most meaningful bugs included:
- Two cars occasionally attempted to reserve or enter the same parking slot.
- Cars sometimes returned too quickly to the slot they had just left.
- Vehicles could overlap while joining the main road.
- Some cars entered parking too early and cut through parked vehicles.
- Road spline entry positions produced unnatural movement in certain layouts.
- Visual feedback, contrast and haptic responses required additional refinement.
We addressed these issues by improving slot reservations, remembering previous parking positions and separating the movement into clearer stages.
The spline entry points were also adjusted manually where necessary. This allowed cars to approach their destinations more naturally instead of turning sharply or moving through nearby objects.
Creating Levels Efficiently
Each level is constructed using reusable prefabs and configurable gameplay components.
This approach allows us to create new road layouts and parking arrangements without rebuilding the entire system. We can change:
- The number and position of parking spaces
- The initial arrangement of cars
- Car colors
- Road layouts
- Matching requirements
- Available movement paths
- The complexity of the traffic situation
Earlier levels introduce the basic rules with simpler configurations. Later layouts can contain more vehicles, tighter spaces and more complicated movement decisions.
The objective is to increase the difficulty gradually without making the game feel unfair.
Visual Design and Player Feedback
We wanted Parking Sort Jam to feel colorful, readable and comfortable to play.
Each parking position uses visual information to help players understand where cars can move. Vehicle colors, parking areas and movement feedback must remain visible across different screen sizes.
During testing, we learned that a system can function correctly from a technical perspective while still being confusing to the player. If players cannot predict where a car will go, the action may feel random even when the underlying logic is working properly.
We therefore improved the colored parking spaces, vehicle paths, traffic priorities and movement feedback. Particle effects, sound and interface responses were also used to make successful actions more satisfying.
Preparing the Game for WebGL
Parking Sort Jam was designed for mobile devices, but we also wanted it to be playable directly in a browser.
We created a Unity WebGL version and optimized its presentation for the LaloGames website. This required checking loading behavior, game scaling and compatibility with the surrounding game player.
The WebGL build was tested directly on LaloGames using:
- Safari
- Google Chrome
- iPhone 13 Pro
During these tests, the game loaded and played correctly. We also adjusted the game presentation so that it remains properly contained within the website’s player on supported screen sizes.
Browser performance may still differ depending on the device, available memory and browser version, so continued testing remains part of our development process.
What We Learned During Development
The biggest lesson we learned was that a mechanic does not only need to work technically—it must also be understandable to the player.
Some systems initially worked as programmed, but players could not always predict where a car would park or why it behaved in a particular way.
Improving the colored parking slots, traffic priorities, movement paths and visual feedback made the gameplay much clearer.
We also learned how important repeated playtesting is. Many of the most useful improvements came from small problems that only became visible while playing complete levels. Testing individual systems was useful, but playing the entire experience revealed how those systems interacted.
Future Improvements
Parking Sort Jam will continue to evolve. Some of the improvements we would like to introduce include:
- More levels and varied layouts
- Smoother difficulty progression
- Additional parking configurations
- New environments and visual themes
- More challenges in advanced levels
- Further traffic-system improvements
- Improved sounds and mobile haptic feedback
- More satisfying matching and reward effects
- Additional progression and reward systems
- Clearer indicators showing where cars are heading
- Continued balancing based on player feedback
We want to expand the game carefully while preserving the simple rules that make it easy to understand.
Play Parking Sort Jam
Parking Sort Jam represents an important step for LaloGames because it is one of our own original games, developed from the initial concept through programming, testing and browser publication.
You can play Parking Sort Jam for free on LaloGames.
The mobile version is also available through the Parking Sort Jam App Store page.
We plan to continue testing the game, improving its systems and creating additional original experiences for players on lalo.games.
