Project 01 · Game

Super Hacka Kids

A colorful water-balloon MOBA for everyone.

Genre:: Party Action Game, MOBA Inspired
Scope:: Core System Design · Level Design · Visual Direction · Game Vision & Experience
Development Time:: 1 Month
Team Size:: 3
Tools:: Unity (C#) · FEEL (More Mountains) · Blender · Figma · Miro · Photoshop

PlaceholderSuper Hacka Kids — key art16:10

Project Resume

Overview

A non-violent MOBA with local 4v4 co-op, set in a DIY playground of cardboard, paint and crayon. Everyone plays the same character — what sets players apart is where they stand and what they carry.

Platform PC (Local Multiplayer)
Team Size 3
Duration 1 Month
Engine Unity (C#)

Key Features

Local 4v4 co-op on one shared screen
Non-violent, kid-friendly play
Shared resource system
Two win conditions, objective-driven matches
Simple and readable controls
Emergent roles and teamwork

My Role

Lead Game Designer

Owned the systems, the map and the visual direction on a three-person team, and stayed close enough to the build to change them.

Full responsibilities

Read chapter 01

Core Loop

PlaceholderCore Loop diagram16:10

Respawn, position, contest objectives, adapt, repeat. There is no class-selection step: the role is chosen in the player's head, every respawn.

7Steps in the loop
0Class-selection steps
1Choice made in the player's head

Seven steps, one of them invisible
Role choice changes mid-round
Feedback closes every cycle

Read chapter 02

Map Design

PlaceholderMap Overview16:10

A mirrored map with a dominant central objective and ten landmarks, each with a stated function. Symmetry keeps it fair; the landmarks keep it interesting.

10Landmarks, each with a job
1Dominant central objective
2Routes to every objective
2Mirrored bases

The best resource sits in the worst position
Two routes to everything that matters
Material and colour teach the rules

Read chapter 03

Characters & Roles

PlaceholderCharacter concepts16:10

One base character and no class system — and six distinct roles emerged anyway, named by the players themselves.

1Base character
0Classes
6Roles that emerged in playtests

Feeder
Sentinel
Carrier
Fighter

Read chapter 04

Systems

PlaceholderDynamic Inventory16:10

A small, visible inventory where capacity is the decision, and three resources that everyone shares.

3Shared balloon types
1Visible, fixed-capacity inventory
2Meanings of one throw: hit or pass

Dynamic inventory
Standard, heavy and healing balloons
Balloon pass: one verb, two meanings

Read chapter 05

Visuals & World

PlaceholderPlayground environment16:10

A world built out of what children build with. The visual language does design work: if the ground is painted, you can walk it.

3Materials: cardboard, paint, crayon
3Colours that carry function
8Characters legible on one screen

Materials say what they do
Colour carries function
Silhouettes legible for eight players

Read chapter 06

Development

PlaceholderGreybox blockout16:10

The first playable existed before the art did. Distances, throw arcs and respawn timing were tuned in greybox.

1Month from brief to event
3People on the team
2Map layouts: first pass and shipped

Sketches, then greybox
Layout iteration: rewards split between centre and sides

Read chapter 07

Playtesting

PlaceholderHeavy Water Balloon16:10

Every one of these changes came out of watching someone play, not out of a meeting.

6Changes that came out of watching play
8Players in client sessions
0Tutorial screens — onboarding by observation

Balloon Pass
Wetness
The Short Map
Repositioning the Healing

Read chapter 08

Results & Learnings

PlaceholderSuper Hacka Kids — key art16:10

Shipped in a month for a public event, and the systems proved generous enough that players did the designing.

1Month to a live public event
6Emergent roles, no class system
8Players per client playtest

Read chapter 09

Media

The work, up close

Project gallery · 24

PlaceholderSuper Hacka Kids — key art16:10

Super Hacka Kids — key art

A colorful water-balloon MOBA for everyone.

Roles

Roles & Responsibilities

I led design on a three-person team, which means I owned the systems and stayed close enough to the build to change them.

Game Design

Core loop, from respawn to feedback
Objective structure and both win conditions
Resource economy: three resources, one shared toolset
Dynamic inventory and carrying capacity
Wetness as the non-violent failure state
Balloon pass as a cooperation mechanic
Jetpack pickup and controlled descent
Balancing across 4v4 and reduced player counts

Level Design

Map layout, symmetry axis and base placement
Ten landmarks, each with a stated function
Rotation routes and the tunnel network
Cover placement and crossfire pockets
Sightline control between bases
The short-map variant for smaller matches

Systems & Technical

System specification handed to a three-person team
Feedback and game feel, implemented with FEEL (More Mountains)
Unity scene setup and iteration in greybox
Balancing passes driven by playtest data

Visual Direction

The DIY playground identity: cardboard, paint, crayon
Colour as a functional language for resources
Silhouette rules to keep eight characters legible
Environment art direction and material logic

UI/UX

On-character inventory readability instead of HUD dependence
State communication for wetness
Controls simple enough to explain in one sentence
Onboarding by observation — no tutorial screen

Playtesting & Research

Client playtests with 8 players
Sessions with children who do not play games
Observation notes turned into system changes
Iteration log tied to specific design problems

Production & Coordination

One-month scope defended against feature creep
Task coordination across design, art and development
Build readiness for a live public event
Communication of design intent to non-designers

What I did

Defined the game vision and the target experience, and held them through a one-month scope
Designed the core loop, from respawn to objective contest to feedback
Designed the shared resource system that turned ammo into a team decision
Designed the map, its symmetry, its landmarks and its rotation paths
Designed the objective structure and both win conditions
Directed the visual identity so the playground reads instantly as handmade
Specified feedback and game feel, implemented with FEEL
Ran playtests with clients, teammates and children, and rewrote systems from what they did
Coordinated the team across design, art and development

Full Case Study

9 chapters

Overview

The target feeling was a water-balloon fight in a backyard: loud, fast, and nobody gets hurt.

Design Brief

Design Problem

PlaceholderPlayground environment16:9

The brief asked for a competitive multiplayer game for a public event, playable by children, with no violence, on a single screen, ready in one month. Competitive games teach players through repetition and defeat; this one had to teach them in the thirty seconds a stranger would give it before walking away.

Constraints

One month, three people, one engine
No violence — the failure state could not be death
Local 4v4 on a single shared screen
Players from four years old to adults, most of them non-gamers
No tutorial: the event had no time for one
A controller layout simple enough to be explained in one sentence

Design Goal

Design Goal & Player Experience

I wanted a MOBA that a child could understand by watching one round of it, and that an adult would still find deep enough to argue about afterwards. The target feeling was a water-balloon fight in a backyard: loud, fast, and nobody gets hurt.

Player Experience Pillars

Readable at a glance — position, threat and objective legible from across the room
Harmless stakes — losing a fight is a wet shirt, not a death
Everyone is the same — no classes, so nobody picks wrong
Depth from the map, not from the character sheet
Cooperation should feel like the smart play, not the nice one

Overview

Game Overview

A non-violent MOBA with local 4v4 co-op, set in a DIY playground of cardboard, paint and crayon. Every player controls the same base character and throws water balloons. Teams win by soaking the opposing players or by destroying their base. Because nobody has a special ability, everything that distinguishes one player from another comes from where they stand and what they carry.

Key Design Choices

One shared base character, so the interesting choice is positional, not pre-match
Ammo is a finite, shared, visible resource — scarcity is the pressure
Two win conditions, so a losing team always has a second plan
A symmetrical map with asymmetrical routes, so both teams read the same space differently
Getting wet is a state change, not a removal — failure keeps you in the round
Simple and readable controls: move, aim, throw, pick up

PlaceholderSuper Hacka Kids — key art4:3

Core Loop

The loop has no class-selection step by design. "Choose role" happens in the player's head, every single respawn, and it can change mid-round.

Core Loop

01 Respawn
02 Choose role
03 Position on map
04 Contest objectives & engage
05 Outcome & feedback
06 Adapt
07 Repeat

PlaceholderCore Loop diagram16:9

Map Design

Symmetry keeps the match fair; the landmarks keep it interesting.

Map Overview

PlaceholderMap Overview16:9

Purpose

The map is mirror-symmetrical along one axis, with a dominant central objective and side routes that let a team rotate without crossing the middle. Symmetry keeps the match fair; the landmarks keep it interesting.

Design Goal

Give every player a shared reference point they can name out loud
Make the centre valuable enough to fight over and dangerous enough to leave
Offer at least two ways to reach any objective
Keep both bases out of each other's sightline

Key areas

01 Core Layout & SymmetryStrategic Foundation & Structural Balance
02 Ground Flow and PathVisual Guidance, Tactics and Directions
03 Central TreePrimary Objective & Landmark
04 Orange Balloon Drop ZonePrimary Resource & Conflict Zone
05 Central WallsTactical Cover & Crossfire Creation
06 Giant RockMidfield Pressure & High-Ground Control
07 Sentinel PlateausVertical Influence & Vision Control
08 Healing Tree MountainsSustain Side Objectives
09 Tunnel NetworkRotation & Ambush Paths
10 BasesDefense, Recovery & Win Condition

Landmarks

Map Breakdown & Landmarks

1 / 10

PlaceholderCore Layout & Symmetry4:3

Core Layout & Symmetry

Strategic Foundation & Structural Balance

The mirrored skeleton the whole map is built on.

Design Approach

Mirrored along a single axis so neither side inherits an advantage
Distances from each base to the centre kept identical
Lanes widened toward the middle to concentrate conflict
Spawn orientation set so players face the objective on respawn

Player Impact

Trust that a loss came from play, not from the map
Learn one half of the space and know the other
Read the enemy's options by looking at their own side
Plan rotations in terms of a shared, predictable geometry

What the map is actually doing

Orientation
A dominant central landmark every player can name
Fairness
Mirrored geometry, so outcomes are attributed to play
Pressure
The best resource sits in the worst position
Choice
At least two routes to everything that matters
Recovery
Sustain exists, but only off the critical path
Teaching
Material and colour explain the rules without text

Characters & Roles

There is no class system in this game. Every player controls the same character with the same three resources. These six roles appeared anyway, in playtests, and players named most of them themselves. This is the result I care most about: the systems were generous enough that the players did the designing.

Emergent Roles

Role 01

Feeder

Base Support & Defense

Players who stayed near the base to manage ammo flow.

Core Behaviour

Recharged ammo and distributed balloons to allies
Kept the base covered while the team pushed

Sub-playstyles

Guardian — prioritises base defense and tunnel monitoring
Supplier — runs resources out to the front line and returns

Emerged from: Shared ammo system, balloon pass mechanic, and the base being a win condition.

Role 02

Sentinel

Vision & Area Denial

Players who held the plateaus and traded action for information.

Core Behaviour

Occupied high ground to watch rotation routes
Called enemy movement before it arrived

Sub-playstyles

Watcher — pure information, rarely engages
Sniper — uses the height for long throws into the drop zone

Emerged from: Sentinel Plateaus offering sight but no resource, plus tunnel mouths being scoutable.

Role 03

Carrier

Resource Logistics

Players who specialised in moving heavy balloons out of the contested centre.

Core Behaviour

Grabbed heavy resources and immediately passed or repositioned
Avoided fights while holding value

Sub-playstyles

Runner — fast extraction through the tunnels
Broker — holds position just outside the fight and redistributes

Emerged from: Inventory capacity limits and the ability to pass resources to an ally.

Role 04

Fighter

Front Line Pressure

Players who lived at the centre and spent resources as fast as they got them.

Core Behaviour

Contested the drop zone directly
Used cover pockets to sustain pressure

Sub-playstyles

Duelist — seeks one-on-one exchanges in the wall pockets
Anchor — holds a single pocket and refuses to yield it

Emerged from: Central Walls creating crossfire pockets, and wetness making losing a fight survivable.

Role 05

Breacher

Base Assault

Players who ignored the players and went for the second win condition.

Core Behaviour

Pushed the enemy base while the teams fought
Coordinated rotations through the tunnels

Sub-playstyles

Flanker — solo tunnel pressure to force a defender home
Demolition — stacks heavy balloons for a single committed push

Emerged from: Destructible bases as an alternative win condition, plus tunnels bypassing the centre.

Role 06

Jetpack Opportunist

Aerial Disruption

Players who built their round around a pickup nobody was guaranteed to get.

Core Behaviour

Tracked jetpack respawns
Used altitude to enter contested space from an unwatched angle

Sub-playstyles

Diver — drops directly into the drop zone
Skipper — uses the air purely to cross the map faster

Emerged from: Temporary jetpack pickup and controlled descent giving the air real agency.

Systems

Nobody has an ability the others do not.

System

Dynamic Inventory

Core idea

Players carry a small, visible number of balloons, and different balloons occupy different amounts of that space.

Design goal

Make carrying a decision. If capacity were generous, players would hold one of everything and never choose.

How it works

Capacity is fixed and low. A heavy balloon costs more space than a standard one, so a full-power loadout means no sustain, and a safe loadout means no punch. Because the inventory is visible on the character, teammates can see what someone is carrying and act on it — which is what later made passing resources readable at all.

PlaceholderDynamic Inventory4:3

Resources

Resource System & Shared Toolset

Core idea

Everyone has access to the same three resources. Nobody has an ability the others do not.

Design goal

Push differentiation out of the character sheet and into behaviour, so players invent roles instead of picking them.

Resource	Colour	Attributes	Availability
Standard Water Balloon	Blue	Small · Fast · Low damage	Baseline — refilled at base
Heavy Water Balloon	Orange	Large · Slow · High damage	Main resource — central drop zone only
Healing Balloon	Purple	Small · Fast · Base healing	Situational — lateral healing trees

Visuals & World

If the ground is painted, you can walk it, and nobody had to read that in a tooltip.

Visual Direction

World & Visual Identity

The whole world is built out of the things children build with. Cardboard walls, crayon lines on the ground, paint where a shortcut is. The visual language is doing design work: if the ground is painted, you can walk it, and nobody had to read that in a tooltip.

Visual Principles

Materials say what they do — cardboard blocks, paint guides, water marks
Color carries function: orange is the heavy resource, purple is healing, blue is baseline
Silhouettes stay simple so eight characters stay legible on one screen
Scale exaggerated toward toys, never toward realism

PlaceholderPlayground environment4:3

PlaceholderCharacter concepts4:3

Development

One month meant the first playable had to exist before the art did.

Process

Design Process & Early Prototypes

One month meant the first playable had to exist before the art did. Distances, throw arcs and respawn timing were all tuned in greybox, which is why the final map needed almost no spatial rework once it was dressed.

PlaceholderEarly sketches4:3

PlaceholderGreybox blockout4:3

PlaceholderCore Loop diagram4:3

Before / After

Level Layout Iteration

The first layout put every valuable thing in the middle. It played as one long stalemate at the centre, and whoever won it first won the round. Splitting the rewards — objective at the centre, sustain on the sides — is what turned a single fight into a map.

First pass

PlaceholderLayout — before4:3

Shipped layout

PlaceholderLayout — after4:3

Playtesting

Every one of these came out of watching someone play, not out of a meeting.

Iteration 01

Balloon Pass — Objective Control, Resource Flow & Cooperation

PlaceholderHeavy Water Balloon16:9

Observation

Play was repetitive, and dying was overly punishing.

Problem

Resources were bound to individuals, with no way to transfer them.

Change

Players transfer resources by shooting them at an ally, if the ally has space. A pass works as a normal shot, so the target defines the system effect — one verb, two meanings, nothing new to learn.

Result

Players started making high-risk plays, redirecting resources before dying
Cooperative strategies emerged around positioning and preservation
Central engagements gained depth, because progress could be sustained

Iteration 02

Wetness — Failure Without Death

Observation

A competitive game needed a failure state, and death was not available.

Problem

The brief forbade violence, but the first prototype still used a health bar that ran out.

Change

Being hit makes a character progressively wetter. Wetness is a visible state that degrades performance and eventually sends the player home to dry — a transition, not a removal. The state is legible on the character from across the room.

Result

The no-violence constraint was met without weakening competition
Losing a fight stopped removing players from the round
Children kept playing after losing, instead of putting the controller down

Iteration 03

The Short Map — Scaling Below Eight Players

PlaceholderMap Overview16:9

Observation

With fewer players, the map felt empty and rounds dragged.

Problem

Distances had been tuned for 4v4 traffic, which smaller matches never produced.

Change

A shortened variant of the same layout, with the lateral routes closed and the centre brought in. Same landmarks, same rules, less space — so nobody had to learn a second map.

Result

The game stayed playable when the event had four players instead of eight
Match pace held up instead of turning into two people walking
One layout covered the whole range of attendance

Iteration 04

Repositioning the Healing

PlaceholderHealing Tree Mountains16:9

Observation

Teams that held the centre could not be dislodged.

Problem

Healing sat in the middle, so the reward for winning the centre included the means to keep holding it.

Change

Healing moved out to the lateral mountains. Sustain still exists, but reaching it costs central presence — the two strongest things on the map are now in different places.

Result

Fights at the centre became decisive again
Healing became a choice to leave the fight, not a way to win it
Lateral routes gained a reason to exist

Iteration 05

Jetpack — Temporary Mobility

Observation

Map control settled into predictable ground routes.

Problem

Every approach was horizontal, so defenders only had to watch known entrances.

Change

A temporary jetpack pickup granting limited aerial movement. It is a pickup, not a loadout — anyone can get it, nobody keeps it, and it disappears when the round pressure resets.

Result

A third axis of play appeared without adding a class
Contested zones could be entered from above, briefly
Players who found the pickup invented a playstyle around it

Iteration 06

Controlled Descent

Observation

Players in the air had no agency over where they came down.

Problem

Falling used pure physics, so the jetpack gave altitude but took away control.

Change

Partial aerial control during descent. Enough influence to choose a landing, not enough to hover a fight out — the air is a route, not a position.

Result

Aerial play became a skill instead of a gamble
Landing position turned into a deliberate decision
The jetpack stopped feeling like a coin flip

Results & Learnings

I would rather ship a system I rewrote three times than a document I defended once.

Results

What it produced

Shipped in one month for a public event, where many players tried local multiplayer for the first time
Six distinct player roles emerged with no class system in the game
Held up in 8-player client playtests and with children who do not play games

Learnings

Conclusion & Design Takeaways

The constraint that looked hardest turned out to be the most useful one. Removing death forced me to design a failure state that keeps the player in the round, and wetness ended up being better for the game than health would have been — it is legible from across a room, it is funny, and it never takes anyone's turn away.

Depth did not need to come from characters. Six roles emerged out of one base character, three resources and a map with real geography. Every time I was tempted to add an ability, the honest fix was somewhere in the level or in the resource economy instead.

Almost every good decision in this project came from watching a stranger play. The balloon pass, the wetness state, the healing relocation and the short map were all written after a playtest, not before one. I would rather ship a system I rewrote three times than a document I defended once.

“Games are a way to turn ideas into feelings.”— Unir Reis

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Key Features

My Role

Game Design

Level Design

Systems & Technical

Visual Direction

UI/UX

Playtesting & Research

Production & Coordination

Core Layout & Symmetry

Ground Flow and Path

Central Tree

Orange Balloon Drop Zone

Central Walls

Giant Rock

Sentinel Plateaus

Healing Tree Mountains

Tunnel Network

Bases

Feeder

Sentinel

Carrier

Fighter

Breacher

Jetpack Opportunist