Start from a game that already worked
The Sports Arena already had a camera, a ball, sound and Ziggy's drawings, so Soccer Kids started with a field that worked and kids who could already run.
Case study
Soccer Kids
Real youth soccer, with a coach who waits for your kid
A four-on-four park soccer game that teaches restarts and positions while kids play. It's built on the Sports Arena engine, and its Learn mode, touch controls and three levels took shape over six rounds of play-testing on an iPad at home.
- Sport
- Soccer, 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 wanted a soccer game that plays like real youth soccer: outdoors, small goals, no goalies, four a side with one defender, and the restarts every new player has to learn, the throw-ins, corners and goal kicks. The kids should be a mix of seven-year-olds drawn in Ziggy's style, Red against Blue, with no slide tackles, and it had to work on a phone.
Before any code, the brief became twelve questions, from who controls which kid to how long a half lasts. Ziggy's dad answered each one and chose the simpler option for a young player every time.
What it gives the kid playing it
- A coach in Learn mode walks them through every throw-in, corner and goal kick, and the game waits until they're in the right spot.
- Restarts are quick, so nobody stands around waiting for the ball to come back in.
- Easy lets a beginner win, and Medium and Hard are there when they're ready.
What we decided, and why
Your kid is always the one near the ball
The game hands you the kid closest to the ball by itself. A young player runs one kid at a time and never has to switch players by hand.
Computer teams that play like real kids
On Easy they all chase the ball, just like a real game of six-year-olds. On Hard they hold their spots and pass. Medium is in between.
One defender who stays home
Each team has a defender who takes every throw-in and goal kick and then gets back, the habit coaches spend a whole season teaching.
A sideline worth watching
Families sit in folding chairs under their team's tent holding signs for their kids, and Pam the pug watches on her leash. Halftime is a water break.
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 box in front of each goal that anyone can play in.
What we built
It became a plain white box anyone can enter, and a faint blue build-out line went in each half: on a goal kick the other team waits behind it until the ball crosses. Sideline tips like "Cover somebody!" and an announcer arrived in the same round.
- 2
The ask
Give every kid their own speed and kick, and add a way to learn the rules.
What we built
Each kid got their own speed, kick and passing. Learn mode arrived with 13 lessons, field guides and stars, and a friendly coach voice separate from the announcer.
- 3
The ask
A Learn mode pace that a new player can follow.
What we built
Learn mode runs every kid at 80% speed, the coach speaks one line at a time, and the other team's restarts wait until your kid reaches the ring.
- 4
The ask
A thumb stick that feels natural on the family iPad.
What we built
Any new touch on the left side takes the stick, lifting every finger frees every control, and a quick double tap never zooms the page.
- 5
The ask
Quick restarts, so play keeps moving.
What we built
A throw-in now comes about 1.8 seconds after the whistle for a team's first restart of each kind and in under 1.5 seconds after that, and outside Learn mode the announcer calls the game without holding up play.
- 6
The ask
A Medium level that's a fair fight.
What we built
Medium sits squarely between Easy and Hard: the computer wins the ball a little less often and gives it away a little more. Taps pass harder, and control jumps straight to your kid nearest a pass.
What it teaches
- Throw-ins, corners and goal kicks, and who takes each one
- Waiting behind the build-out line while the other team takes a goal kick
- Passing to a teammate instead of everybody chasing the ball
- Positions: one defender stays home, two play wide, one plays up the middle
- Covering somebody when the other team has the ball
Under the hood How it works, and how it is built. For the curious.
Levels set by the numbers
A test bot plays dozens of matches to put the three levels in order, and two dials set how each one feels: how often the computer wins the ball and how often it gives it away. Easy runs at 0.55 and 0.12, Medium at 0.7 and 0.08, and Hard at 1 and 0.
A lesson that holds for your kid
While a restart waits for your kid to reach the ring, control stays on them, the player they should cover stays put, and their teammates leave that player alone. Every lesson ends with your kid doing the job.
Voices checked before they ship
Every announcer and coach line runs through speech-to-text before it goes into the game, so each one says exactly what it should, down to a full-length "GOOOAAAL."
How it is built
Soccer Kids is plain JavaScript drawn on a canvas, with no app to install. The match itself is a simulation (rules, restarts, team tactics and the lesson scripts) that runs in Node, so whole matches can be tested without a browser. The camera can sit at the side of the field or straight overhead.
The announcer and the coach are recorded voice files, played through a small queue so they never talk over each other. The game folder carries its own copies of every shared file, so work on another game can never break it.
- JavaScript modules
- Canvas 2D
- Web Audio
- Recorded voices
- Node simulation tests
- Touch tests on iPad sizes
From the finished game
The result
- 13coached lessons in Learn mode, each about one job on the field
- 1.8 sfrom whistle to throw-in, so nobody stands around waiting for the ball
- 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, with 13 coached lessons in Learn mode.
Easy lets a beginner win, Medium is a fair fight and Hard is a real challenge, checked with a test bot over dozens of matches.
The same engine carried Hockey Kids that week and Pickle Kids three days later.
What this means for your game
For a league or a coach, this is the template: your format, your rules turned into Learn mode lessons, your colors, and one link for every family on the roster.
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.