Case study 08 of 08

Safari Game Portfolio

A game-style WordPress portfolio theme where visitors explore projects as wildlife sightings, earn XP and unlock achievements.

01The Problem

Most developer portfolios look the same, and visitors skim them in seconds.

I wanted a portfolio people would explore, that still stays fully editable in WordPress.

I split it into a classic theme for presentation and a bundled core plugin for content, so projects, skills and testimonials survive a theme change.

Content lives in custom post types, and a small vanilla JS engine turns it into a game. No JS framework, and ACF is optional.

The front page is a single safari console built from blocks.

Seven custom post types, including projects, skills, testimonials, achievements and easter eggs, with one global settings option.
Twelve server-rendered blocks under safari/*, with live previews in the block editor.
A vanilla JS game layer: a boot screen, a HUD, project encounters that award XP, five ranks from Day Tripper to Master Ranger, and achievement toasts. Progress saves in the browser.
Seed content from an admin page or wp safari WP-CLI commands, so a fresh install looks complete in minutes.
A static demo build that runs from plain HTML with fallback data.

Server-rendered blocks keep the content crawlable and editable, with the game layered on top.

Content in a plugin means the work is not lost if the theme changes.

WP-CLI seeding makes the theme quick to install and easy to test.

The full theme and plugin are public on GitHub.