Case Study · Product Design · UX · Gamification

Bomb Shelter Game

What happens when you redesign an experience you can't control?

⚠ Wartime Project UI/UX Design Product Thinking Gamification Solo Build · Claude Code 46 Rounds · 13 Players
Iron Dome intercepting rockets over Israel
The Context

A REAL UX LAB — IN A BOMB SHELTER

During the ongoing war, every descent to the shelter carried the same shared feeling: tension, uncertainty, and the one unanswerable question — when is the next siren coming?

Sitting with neighbors in that space, I started thinking like a designer. This was an experience no one could control or skip. But could it be redesigned?

"I built a small game for the neighbors in the shelter — but in practice, it was a real UX experiment."

The game turned passive, anxious waiting into active participation: guess the time of the next alarm, earn points, compete on a leaderboard, track rounds. A simple mechanic — that created something genuinely unexpected.

The Product

BUILT FOR
THE SHELTER

Mobile-first browser game — no install required. Three core views: leaderboard (weekly / monthly / all-time), active betting round, and a full statistics dashboard — tracking 13 neighbors across 46 rounds.

All-time leaderboard showing 13 players ranked
All-Time Leaderboard 13 neighbors ranked by wins, guess accuracy & total bets
Monthly leaderboard — top 4 players
Monthly Rankings Wins · accuracy · player badges
Statistics dashboard
Statistics Dashboard Participants per round, accuracy chart & full data table
By The Numbers

REAL USAGE,
REAL DATA

Not projections. Actual data pulled directly from the leaderboard — one building, one war, one shelter.

46
Rounds played
13
Active neighbors on the leaderboard
17
Most wins — single player (Yosi)
±314
Average guess accuracy in minutes
In Action

THE GAME,
LIVE

Real recordings from shelter visits — placing guesses, checking leaderboards, seeing round results after the siren sounds.

Placing a guess before the alarm

Round results & leaderboard update

Live game flow in the shelter

The Insight

ONE SYSTEM,
TWO KINDS
OF VALUE

What started as a fun distraction revealed something deeper: the game was generating two distinct types of value simultaneously.

Emotional · Social

Changed How People Felt

Anxiety became anticipation. Neighbors started talking, joking, comparing guesses. The shelter became a social space. Humor and competition replaced fear and silence.

A shared system created a shared experience — connection that made the situation genuinely easier to bear.

Functional · Informational

Made the Experience Clearer

A new round opens when the safety window ends — so the game inadvertently surfaced when it was actually safe to leave the shelter. A real information gap, solved through play.

What looked like entertainment was also producing structured, useful information about timing and exit windows.

Design & Build

HOW I
BUILT IT

01
Insight

Observe the real experience — from inside it

The research wasn't in a lab. I watched neighbors, felt the tension, noticed what was missing. The problem statement came directly from living the experience under pressure.

02
Concept

Reframe waiting as participation

Core design decision: shift from passive to active. Guessing, competing, and tracking changes the emotional frame from helpless to engaged. I mapped the loop — guess → wait → reveal → score → next round — against real shelter patterns.

03
Design

Mobile-first, zero friction, dark UI

No install, any phone, readable in low light. Navigation reduced to essentials: bet, leaderboard, stats. High-contrast, emoji-forward design helped non-tech neighbors onboard immediately.

04
Build

Developed solo with Claude Code — idea to live product

I built the full product myself, end-to-end. This deepened my understanding of design decisions vs. technical constraints — reinforcing my value as a designer who thinks in systems, not just screens.

05
Impact

Real users, real feedback, real behavior change

By round 47, 13 neighbors were on the leaderboard. People checked results after every siren, debated strategies, and waited for the next round not just with dread — but with anticipation. That behavioral shift was the validation.

Takeaway
"This is exactly where product design meets reality: when a good interface doesn't just look good — it changes behavior and human experience."

I don't design things to make them beautiful. I design them to change how people feel, act, and connect with each other.

The best UX isn't always the most polished UI. Sometimes it's a betting game in a bomb shelter — that turns 13 neighbors into a community.

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