A hockey vision-training tool for players learning the game, wrapped in a roguelike action-RPG run structure — and, when it gets chaotic, exploding pucks, breakable ice, and boss fights.
Hero art
above is a concept mock-up from the Art Bible (ingame_art1.png), not an actual
in-engine screenshot — current in-game meshes are still placeholder capsules/spheres, see
Character Customization below.
This is a solo indie passion project, built in the open. This page is the honest pitch: what the game actually is, why it exists, what's really done versus planned, and the real market research behind betting on it.
Chaos Hockey didn't start as one thing — it grew into two complementary halves aimed at two different audiences, meant to fit inside the same game rather than compete with each other.
The project's original idea: an on-ice overlay that highlights good and bad shooting and passing options in real time — like a VR-assist coach, but for anyone learning to read the ice. This is a genuine, standalone hook aimed at hockey players of any age who want to build hockey IQ, not just kids. It's built on systems already in the codebase (shot-lane and passing-lane evaluation, tactical heat maps) that were originally written as AI debugging tools and turn out to double as the real player-facing feature.
Layered on top: a roguelike, run-based progression system inspired by Diablo and EverQuest — objectives and challenges that earn points, credits, and unlockable skills, carrying meaningful choices from one run into the next. This is where the chaos lives: hazards, abilities, multiple pucks, and eventually bosses and non-standard rinks, aimed at players who want the arcade-chaos sports experience on top of the hockey fundamentals.
The chaos layer is what happens when "what if the puck exploded" and "what if the ice broke apart" stop being jokes and start being systems. Breakable walls, spring launch pads, electromagnets, boomerang and ghost pucks — all of it sits on top of the same core hockey simulation the vision trainer teaches. The honest state of things: the individual chaos pieces (hazards, abilities, the event engine) are further along than the loop that ties them together with the vision-training core into one satisfying run — see the dashboard for exactly which systems are ahead of their own roadmap docs and which still need that reconciliation pass.
A one-person project's schedule, built for streaming and playtesting along the way rather than a silent build-up to launch. Aggressive, and openly dependent on staying disciplined about scope — see the risk note below. The summary below is the shape; every remaining milestone is now assigned to one of these phases, or explicitly excluded, on the Schedule page.
Five and a half months to Early Access on a solo project is tight, especially given this project's own history of scope creep. Phase 1 is the load-bearing phase — if scope isn't genuinely locked there, the rest of the schedule slips. This date is a target to build toward and stream against, not a guarantee.
Gathered in September 2026 to answer that question honestly before committing to the schedule above.
A real, currently-used product that trains hockey IQ and decision-making visually, adopted by five NHL teams and named pro goalies. This is direct external validation that "teach hockey vision through visual overlays" is a genuinely valuable idea — Chaos Hockey's original premise — though Sense Arena targets competitive/pro players on VR hardware, not a broad, accessible audience. A cheaper, game-ified, non-VR version is a different, more accessible lane, not a head-on competitor.
1.91 million units sold in under a month — the best-selling Mario Sports launch ever — proving "sports + power-ups/chaos" is commercially strong, not niche. Its most consistent criticism (Metacritic 75, mixed-positive): thin single-player content. That's the exact area this project is prioritizing first, which is the right call for a genre that even AAA budgets get wrong.
Roughly 10,000 wishlists at launch typically converts to $40K–$100K first-month revenue; under 5,000 usually means under $15K. As a one-person project without a marketing budget, a modest-indie-scale outcome is the realistic target unless community-building (streams, Discord) genuinely takes off — which the Phase 3 schedule above is explicitly built to give room for.
Estimated at $4.19B in 2022, projected to reach $20.58B by 2030 (a ~22.6% annual growth rate) by one estimate; kids already make up roughly 30% of all gaming users. A genuinely large and fast-growing macro trend behind the vision-trainer's family/beginner-friendly framing, even though the RPG progression layer skews to an older audience within that same game.
There's no existing game that combines "teach real hockey vision" with "roguelike RPG progression" — that pairing is genuine differentiation, but it also means nobody has proven kids and beginners actually want the lesson (reading a passing lane correctly) as the core skill test inside a fast chaos game, rather than just wanting the chaos and skipping the teaching part. That tension is the single biggest design risk in the whole concept — it's exactly what Phase 2/3 playtesting exists to answer, not something to assume away.
Explicitly sequenced behind a solid single-player core — not competing with it for the next five months of work.
Every player currently renders as a placeholder capsule-and-sphere mesh. The plan is a cosmetic gear/appearance system kids (and adults) unlock and equip through the RPG progression loop — visually rewarding progress, not just numbers going up. See the Blender placeholder pipeline for where the current art stands.
A co-op RPG mode where players work together to find passing and scoring opportunities as a team, and a separate head-to-head "smash-em-up" mode built around competitive chaos — bouncing mega-balls, electrocution pucks, moving walls. Both are real plans, both wait until single-player is solid.
If the vision-training concept proves out — genuinely teaching spatial decision-making in a way players value — the same idea (highlighting good and bad options in real time) could extend to other sports: basketball passing lanes and shot selection, racing lines and braking points, and beyond. A long-term ambition, not a current commitment — hockey first.
This is a one-person project, developed in the open. The plan is to build a community through developer livestreams and a Discord server as Phase 3 above begins — playtesting, showcasing progress, and building toward the Early Access wishlist goal together rather than announcing a finished game out of nowhere. Channels and links will show up here once they exist — no placeholder links yet, on purpose.