// 01 Context
A quiz with an audience, and no reason to stay
KickBrain is a real-time football quiz in Arabic and English, inspired by The Thirty Challenge, a YouTube show. Most players are fans in the Middle East and the Gulf.
By October 2024 it had 40K downloads, few players coming back and almost no revenue. I audited it in a day and sent the founder a new direction, unasked. He brought me on as the product designer.
// 02 Problem
Players downloaded it, then found nothing to come back for
The audit found an app working against its players: dated, hard-to-read screens, a menu button that opened Instagram, a progress counter nobody could read, and no clear way into a game.
The bigger gap was underneath. Players spent tokens with no way to earn more, saw no progress, and found nothing that felt like football. A quiz like that gets played once.
- 40K
- downloads when I joined
- ~3K
- daily active players
- 1 day
- to audit it, unasked
Both stores · Oct 2024
Before the redesign
Before I joined
- 01
Open the app
- 02
First screens
Dated colours, hard to read, misaligned
- 03
Find your way
A menu button opens Instagram
- 04
Read the home screen
A “7/13” counter nobody understood
- 05
Pick a game
Tick boxes that only let you pick one
- 06
Play
- 07
Run out of tokens
No way to earn more, no next step
- 08
Tomorrow
No progress, no reason to return
- Success meant
- More players back every day, and a store that earns without pay-to-win.
- Constraints
- Part time, one developer, a live app, and a game that always needed new questions.
// 03 Turning point
It wasn’t a usability problem. It was a reason-to-care problem.
The principle
“Clear flows get people playing. Progress, identity and ownership keep them.”
I saw it in the audit: fixing the patterns would make the app usable, not loved. Quiz apps, competitive games, store reviews and players all pointed the same way: early progress, frequent rewards, an identity to show.
// 04 Decisions
Five calls, from the foundation to the economy
Fix the foundation before adding features?
Foundation firstover New features first
One visual language (one typeface, gold on charcoal, even spacing), navigation that goes where it says, and a home that leads with the four ways to play.
- Gave up
- Early releases looked like polish, not progress.
- What happened
- The founder agreed straight away; every later feature was built on it.
Layers · Home
One visual language, rebuilt as layers: each band of the new home does one job. Pick a layer to enlarge it.
What brings a player back tomorrow?
Progress, competition, identityover More game modes
Levels and XP after every match, rank tiers, a daily question and rewards, leagues and knockout tournaments, country avatars and moment stickers.
- Gave up
- Art for every country and moment, kept fresh as football moves on.
- What happened
- Every match ends with how far you are from the next level.
How does a free game earn without breaking trust?
Two currenciesover Sell advantages
Tokens come from playing and buy question packs, so the game stays free. Diamonds are bought and only buy things you show. Nothing buys a win.
- Gave up
- Revenue depends on players wanting to show off.
- What happened
- About 300 App Store purchases a month by mid-2025; revenue up 10% the month stickers launched.
Who writes questions for a game that always needs more?
Players, with reviewover Only hired writers
Players submit questions or whole packs. A professional writer reviews them, and creators earn tokens from every sale.
- Gave up
- Every submission waits for a review.
- What happened
- Packs show ratings and subscriptions, so the best ones rise.
Should a match end when the game ends?
Friends and chatover Strangers only
Friend requests, chat inside the match, quick replies and stickers, so there’s always someone to play again.
- Gave up
- More to moderate, so we moderated chat.
- What happened
- Shipped in 2025, with stickers players send each other.
What shipped12 parts
- 01One visual language
- 02New navigation and game flows
- 03A home built on four ways to play
- 04Levels, XP and rank tiers
- 05Daily question and rewards
- 06Leagues and knockout tournaments
- 07Country avatars and stickers
- 08Tokens and diamonds
- 09Player-made questions and packs
- 10Friends and in-game chat
- 11Premium tier
- 125-second matchmaking
// 05 Shipped
A game that reads clearly, and gives players something to keep
The new home leads with four ways to play. Around it: progress after every match, leagues, a two-currency store, player-made packs, friends and chat.
// 06 Impact
From 40K to +550K downloads, and five times the daily players
- +550K
- downloads
- 5×
- daily active players
- ~300
- store purchases a month
- 4.0+
- rating on both stores
Up from 40K
About 3K a day → 8K–20K
App Store alone · mid-2025
Both stores · 2024–25
After the redesign, downloads grew from 40K to +550K and daily players rose about five times. The show’s audience and the founder’s marketing brought people in; the redesign gave them reasons to stay, so I don’t claim the whole curve.
Source · Play Console, App Store Connect and KickBrain’s dashboards, since Oct 2024.
// 07 Reflection
What the growth taught me
- 01An audit sent unasked is a better interview than a portfolio.
- 02Agree the numbers to watch before the first release. Tracking who stayed after each feature would have shown which change kept players.
- 03Letting players write the game solved content and built a community at once.
“Clear flows get people playing. Something to keep brings them back.”
// 08 Credits
Credits: the people who made it with me
- The founder
- The developer
- The question writers
Next · 03 · nOps
From fans asking each other football questions to anyone asking their cloud bill a question: next, an AI agent.
From digging in dashboards to asking a question →
