Keep everything a kid already knows
The park, the kids, the controls, the computer levels and the camera came across from Soccer Kids unchanged. Only the rules and the sticks were new.
Case study
Hockey Kids
A second sport on a proven engine, tuned over six play-test rounds
Floor hockey proved the Soccer Kids engine could carry a second sport, and six rounds of play-testing gave it quick shots, smooth motion and a rink that's easy to read.
- Sport
- Floor hockey, 4 v 4
- Play it
- Free on this site and in the Ziggy Games arcade
- Play-test rounds
- 6
- Plays on
- iPads, Chromebooks, phones, laptops
The brief
Ziggy's family asked for floor hockey built from the Soccer Kids engine, as a demo first: the same park and the same eight kids, with sticks, a puck and boards so the puck never goes out.
Our team built it, the family played it through six rounds, and it went live on ziggy.games, where it plays today.
What it gives the kid playing it
- Control jumps to the kid they're watching, so they're almost never steering the wrong player.
- A tap shoots from close in, and holding the button winds up a bigger shot.
- The black puck stands out on a light gray blacktop, even on a phone.
What we decided, and why
Boards all the way around
A rounded rink means the puck never goes out, so there are no throw-ins, corners or goal kicks to learn. Play stops for goals and restarts with a faceoff at center.
A crease nobody can score from
Kids can run into the crease in front of each goal, but nobody can play the puck in there. A puck carried in slows right down so nobody can walk it into the net, and a slow puck slides back out.
Sticks that look right
Both hands stay on the stick through every swing, and holding Shoot draws it back for a bigger hit. Away from the puck, kids carry the stick in one hand the way real kids run with one.
Play-test rounds
Each round started with the family playing the latest build and asking for what came next, and our team built it. Words in quotation marks are the family's own, as recorded in the build notes.
- 1
The ask
A puck that's easy to follow on any screen.
What we built
The blacktop went light gray so the black puck stands out, and the grass dust from Soccer Kids became a faint scuff.
- 2
The ask
Kids who move as freely on the blacktop as they do on the soccer field.
What we built
The kids now run the way real kids run with a stick: one hand on it and the other arm pumping. The blacktop got stripes and cracks so you can see the speed, and the camera pulled back for a wide rink.
- 3
The family's note
“Faster, fast action, super smooth.”
What we built
Kids got quicker, passes crisper and shots harder, motion is drawn smoothly between the game's steps, and hard shots leave a smear behind the puck.
- 4
The ask
Quick shots from close in.
What we built
A tap now shoots from up to about 40 feet out when you're facing the goal, and winding up as you reach the crease fires the shot.
- 5
The family's note
“Switch faster to the kid near the puck.”
What we built
Control now looks a moment ahead to where the puck is going, so it's on the player nearest the puck 93% of the time.
- 6
The ask
A calmer game, with control on the kid in the play.
What we built
Control stays with the kids in the play instead of one chasing from behind, the pace settled a step, and the computer winds up its shots a beat slower than you do.
What it teaches
- Moving the puck with passes instead of carrying it alone
- The crease: nobody can play the puck in front of the net
- Snapping off a quick shot near the goal, and winding up from farther out
- Spreading out, with one defender staying home
Under the hood How it works, and how it is built. For the curious.
Speed you can see
A kid holding a stick runs with one hand on it and the other arm pumping, and the blacktop carries stripes and cracks, so the speed reads on screen as clearly as it does in the physics.
Control that reads the play
Auto-switch predicts where the puck will be a fraction of a second ahead, so control is on the kid nearest the puck 93% of the time and never sits anywhere else for longer than 0.91 seconds. A kid more than about 10 feet past the puck doesn't take control, so it stays with the play.
A rink that always holds the puck
The boards are checked again after every bump between a kid and the puck, so even a scramble against the end boards keeps the puck in play.
How it is built
Hockey Kids is built on the Soccer Kids engine, with the rules swapped underneath. The rink is a rounded rectangle of boards with corners rounded off about 10 feet in, the goals sit against the end boards so nothing gets stuck behind them, and each crease is about 5 by 12 feet.
Small probe scripts measured what play-testers felt: movement across the rink, how often control was on the right kid, and what a shot does by distance and angle. The same simulation tests and phone touch checks as Soccer Kids run before every update.
- JavaScript modules
- Canvas 2D
- Web Audio
- Soccer Kids engine
- Measurement probes
- Node simulation tests
From the finished game
The result
- 93%of the time, control is on the player nearest the puck
- 40 ftis about how far out a quick tap shoots when your kid faces the goal, with no wind-up
- 6play-test rounds on the family iPad, each one building on the last
Free to play on this site and in the Ziggy Games arcade.
Control is on the player nearest the puck 93% of the time, and the motion stays smooth on phones.
It was built the same week as Soccer Kids, because the park, the kids and the controls came straight across.
What this means for your game
A new sport starts from working parts. The park, the kids, the controls and the computer opponents already exist, so the work goes into the sport itself and the details that make it yours.
Want a game like this?
We build games around one kid, one team or one school, the same way we built this one: with the people who will play it in the loop. Start with your player.