Sid Mehta Works
Alpha Stockathon

Alpha Stockathon

Pixel-art game teaching options, shorting, and market cap through consequences. Built in three days.

  • Role Solo
  • Duration 3 days
  • Year 2021

Project highlights

3 days

research to prototype

Pixel art

financial learning system

Solo

product concept & UI

Overview

Designed a pixel-art desktop game that teaches options, shorting and market cap through consequence rather than instruction, taken from research to working prototype in three days.

UI · GamificationSolo · Self Initiated

The brief: design a gamified desktop application that teaches people to trade and learn about the stock market, in four days
A stock market simulator game for people who want to learn about investing in a fun manner
Competitive landscape, plotted from simulating to learning and from gamified to earnest

Brand positioning.

Early concept sketches: factions, a stock price race, choose your fighter
Working notes on rules, hurdles and how a stock market simulator differs from the real market

Ideation for gamification.

Name your hero, and begin the adventure
The three characters: Stock Baba the guide, the Dragon, and the Hero
The four places in the world: the racecourse of stallions, the tavern of legend, the garden of optimism, the library of eternal knowledge

Characters.

The screen set at a glance
The city map, with Stock Baba introducing himself outside the library
The dragon arrives on the city map
Inside the library of eternal knowledge, unlocking stock market strategies
Situational trading, taught as the cheetah: quick, agile, volatile
Stock market indicators, as a chaptered module with unemployment and interest rates
Positional trading, taught as the eagle: quick to enter and exit, sharp eye
Growth investing, taught as the horse: stamina, long game, durable
A side-scrolling section where the hero finds a sword
The city map with the route to the racecourse marked
Entering the racecourse: bet on a horse, where each company is a horse
The stock browser, sorted by category, with the most popular stallions
Buying a stock: quantity, duration and risk, with the price chart behind
Your bet has been placed
The portfolio dashboard: account value, best and worst stock, and holdings by breed
The garden of optimism, where the portfolio is managed as a garden
The tavern, where you can view the leaderboard, talk to other students and read news
The leaderboard, showing the top five contestants
Alpha Thoners 2022, the in-game discussion group
Power-up cards: double trouble, three day streak, bottoms up
More power-up cards: rare shot, three musketeers, angel investor
Reaching level two
Finishing the first quest and being given a magic key
A castle level, with a shield to pick up
Facing the dragon, who asks when a day trader sells his stock
A wrong answer, and the dragon breathes fire
A correct answer, and the dragon goes down

Advertisement idea.

Posters for the game: fun, and for everyone, and easy
Reflection

Three days to understand the stock market and turn it into a game. I had to start teaching it before I’d finished learning it myself. Simplification is not dumbing down: every financial concept has a core mechanic, and finding that mechanic was the real design problem. Pixel art made commitment unavoidable. Each shape landed and stayed.

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