Do Rabbits Really Love Carrots? — And What Carrots Actually Do in the Game

Rabbits make you think of carrots, and carrots make you think of rabbits.
In this game, too, Mocha scoops up carrots as she tumbles downward.
But the idea that carrots are a rabbit's main food is actually closer to a made-up image than the truth.

The cartoon character Bugs Bunny is often blamed for this impression.
That scene of Bugs crunching a carrot while wisecracking was a parody of an actor biting into a carrot in a famous 1930s film.
As the cartoon became a worldwide hit, the equation "rabbit = carrot" got cemented in everyone's heads.

A real rabbit's staple isn't carrots at all, but hay and grass.
Constantly chewing on fiber-rich dried grass is essential for a rabbit's digestion and dental health.
So what about carrots?
Rabbits do like them, but as a root vegetable they're pretty high in sugar.
That's why a carrot is better as an occasional treat than a daily heap.

In other words, a carrot is less of a "main course" for a rabbit and more of a "dessert."

I used carrots anyway

Knowing all that, carrots went into the game regardless, because the image is already too strong to pass up.

A collectible has to read as "that's the thing you pick up" with no explanation at all.
Someone seeing the screen for the first time should be able to tell immediately.
A carrot does that job without a word.
With a rabbit as the protagonist, the carrot saves you a line of tutorial text.
I chose the thing that reads instantly over the thing that's biologically accurate.

In the game, a carrot is a path, not food

Once it was built, it turned out the carrot's real job wasn't being food.
It was showing the way.

Carrots aren't scattered individually; they're laid out in lines.
Those lines curve around the tunnel's circumference, or rise into the air and come back down.
A player chasing carrots ends up tracing that route without being told to.
So a line of carrots is really an arrow saying come this way.

This isn't something I invented — it's a technique collect-'em-up games have used forever.
Lay down things worth points and players follow the trail unprompted.
It means you never have to put "jump here" on the screen.

The airborne carrot rows above trampolines do exactly that.
The moment you see one, "I should bounce there" arrives on its own.
It's a way to teach jumping without explaining a button.

Generous hitboxes

Carrots have a fairly generous pickup radius.
Obstacles like rocks, by contrast, are given large ones.

That's deliberate.
With a collectible, "I thought I had that and missed" feels unfair; with an obstacle, "I don't think that touched me and I got hit" feels unfair.
So the radii differ: forgiving on what you collect, clearly readable on what hurts you.
Even with the same sphere check, one number completely changes the impression.

The golden carrot really is dessert

If ordinary carrots are signposts, golden carrots are the occasional reward.
Eat one and a magnet switches on briefly, pulling nearby carrots in on their own.

Just as a real carrot is a treat for a rabbit, only the special carrot gets special treatment in the game too.
So the carrots Mocha gathers down in her burrow are probably best thought of as an adventurer's sweet little fuel, rather than her everyday meals.

Next up: Rabbits in culture, and the origin of "rabbit hole" →