2025
(Summary)
SEI Baller is an arcade head-ball soccer game built natively on SEI Network — one of the fastest Layer 1 EVM blockchains, with 400ms finality and ultra-low fees. The game is designed for short, high-energy sessions: pick up and play against AI or challenge a friend, power up your character's skills, and score to win.
The product philosophy matches the chain it's built on: fast, lean, and frictionless. SEI Baller isn't trying to be a full football simulation — it's an arcade experience that puts fun first and uses SEI's speed advantage to make Web3 integration invisible to the player.
Building a sports game on blockchain means solving a specific UX challenge: most Web3 games feel slow, wallet-heavy, and intimidating. SEI Baller needed to feel like a game first — with Web3 rewards and ownership running quietly underneath.
SEI Network ecosystem project
Web3 · Arcade Sports · Casual Gaming · SEI Blockchain
(Role & Team)
Full design ownership — from brand to game UI
Visual Identity: Created the SEI Baller brand from scratch — logo, color system, typography, and overall visual language that feels energetic and sporty without relying on generic Web3 aesthetics
Game UI Design: Designed the in-game interface — scoreboard, timer, skill indicators, health/power display, and match result screens — optimized for instant readability during fast-paced gameplay
Character & Skill UI: Designed the power-up and skill progression system — giving players clear visual feedback on which abilities are active, cooling down, or ready to use
Website Design: Designed seiballer.com — the marketing and landing experience that communicates the game's energy, explains the Web3 integration, and drives players to connect wallet and start playing
Web3 Onboarding Flow: Designed the wallet connection and reward display experience — keeping it lightweight and non-intrusive so it doesn't break the arcade feel
(Approach)
Why the UI looks the way it does
The visual language was deliberately pulled away from typical Web3 design tropes — dark gradients, hexagons, and token iconography. SEI Baller needed to feel like a game studio product first, with Web3 as an infrastructure layer, not the headline.
I drew from arcade cabinet aesthetics — bold colors, high-contrast score displays, satisfying hit feedback — and adapted them for browser play. The result is something that reads as a sports game to a non-crypto user and as a Web3-native product to someone who knows what SEI is.
The skill and power-up UI was designed with a single rule: a player should understand their current game state without taking their eyes off the ball for more than half a second.
(Challenges)
Designing a game that feels instant on a fast chain
SEI Network's core technical advantage is speed — 400ms finality, 200K+ TPS, near-zero fees. The design had to match that promise. A sluggish, over-designed game UI would immediately undercut the 'fast chain' positioning.
Three core tensions shaped the design:
Speed vs. clarity: Arcade games live and die on instant readability — score, timer, health, skill cooldowns all need to be processed in a split second. Cluttered UI kills the feel.
Web3 visibility: Wallet connection, on-chain rewards, and asset ownership needed to exist without interrupting the game loop. Players shouldn't feel like they're using a crypto product when they're trying to score a goal.
Casual vs. competitive: The game supports both AI play (casual, solo) and friends (competitive, social). The UI had to work equally well for a 2-minute solo session and a competitive match with real stakes.
(Results & Impact)
✅ Complete visual identity — logo, brand system, color palette — establishes SEI Baller as a distinct product within the SEI ecosystem
✅ Game UI designed for instant readability — score, timer, and skill status all processable in under a second during fast-paced play
✅ Web3 integration designed to be invisible during gameplay — wallet and reward features accessible but never in the way
✅ Website converts visitors by communicating the game's energy immediately — no lengthy explanation required
✅ The arcade-first visual language successfully differentiates SEI Baller from heavier, token-centric Web3 sports games
(Next Step)
With the core arcade experience live, the natural next frontier is expanding the skill system and introducing tournament modes — competitive brackets where on-chain stakes and leaderboard rewards can drive deeper community engagement. The UI system was designed to scale: new skills, game modes, and reward tiers can be added without rebuilding the visual architecture.
