The Making of HomeRun Heroes: Starstrikers
The craft, the team, and the mission behind our most ambitious sports game yet
One Monday evening, I came home late. My wife was already getting ready for bed. I asked her the first thing on my mind:
“Did our younger one play the baseball game on her own?”
She looked a bit puzzled but said, “Yes, she did.”
The next morning, my daughter beamed with pride:
“I’m already Rank C! I hit five critical home runs and scored over 40,000 points in one game!”
Looks like we might have a home run on our hands.
Just a few days earlier, we were testing the game together for the first time. My daughter had never played baseball before. I brought home a foam bat, loaded up the unreleased game on Nex Playground—and we just started hitting.
We played for hours on Saturday, then picked it up again on Sunday. Sometimes we took turns. Sometimes we played together.
We got better. The controls began to click. We started strategizing. We lost track of time. There’s this magic moment in games when you hit “flow”—and we were there. That satisfying swing of the bat, the thrill of launching a ball into the bonus zone—it had us hooked.
Why Sports Games
Sports are one of the genres that Nex Playground excels at. Our system tracks full-body movement using just a front-facing camera. That opens up possibilities no traditional console can match.
Sports are special. They have a low floor and a high ceiling. That means they’re easy to pick up but have nearly endless room to improve. Some of the greatest games in the world are sports—real, physical sports. Anyone can swing a bat, but only a few become Shohei Ohtani.
The problem is, most sports video games today aren’t physical. What should be a deeply coordinated motion is reduced to thumb-taps and button-mashing. Something gets lost.
Nex Playground is built to change that. We’re not interested in disconnected simulations. We want to help players build confidence to actually play—on the field, in the backyard, wherever the moment strikes.
HomeRun Heroes: StarStrikers
This one began with a persistent community member who requested a baseball game at every opportunity—and a quiet conviction on our team that we could build something truly special.
The Fun: Brett, our principal game designer (and Kinect Adventures alum), led the prototyping. That’s where we found the fun.
The Magic: Mole, our lead engineer, tuned every detail of the swing mechanics to perfection. I remember walking into the office one weekend to find Mole fine-tuning motion detection down to the frame. Ray and Kelvin brought the backend to life. That’s where we found the magic.
The Style: Inspired by MLB’s recent anime crossover, we opted for a bold anime style as well. More kids watch anime than sports these days, so why not speak their language? King led concept art. Karl built 3D characters. Stephanie handled environments. Chiaya made the sound and music. Yin lit it all up with effects. Jon, Kenny, Richard, and Susanna crafted the UI. That’s where we found the style.
The result? A game that feels fresh, expressive, and endlessly replayable.
Let’s take a quick tour:
Customize your character. (I made one that looks like me.)
The detection and gameplay feel amazing—especially with a foam bat in hand.
Unlock new gear and avatar options through a collectible reward system.
The Metaverse Cell
I’m just the cheerleader. The real credit goes to the Metaverse Cell—led by Reggie Chan, our co-founder and head of content. I’ve leaned on Reggie more times than I can count. His leadership, trust, and friendship have shaped far more than this game.
The team poured countless late nights and weekends into this release. We knew summer break was coming, and we wanted to launch in early July so kids could jump right in. It meant a tight schedule—but this team rarely compromises. The result? Surprisingly delightful. They bent reality.
Why “Metaverse”? Not because we drank the Zuckerberg Kool-Aid. We almost called it the “Sports Cell.” But we stuck with Metaverse Cell—because we believe in the deeper promise of a connected world where digital active play leads to real movement, real mastery, and real connection.
Not escapism, but empowerment.
Over time, the Metaverse Cell has quietly built one of the strongest sports game libraries anywhere. Their creations include:
GoKeeper
Basketball Knockout
Tennis Smash: Racketville
Miniacs: Steering Madness
Brick Buster
Luminous
Connect4
Bowling Strike
BoxFlow Fitness
Arrow Party
Nex Lab: QB Math
Nex Lab: Hoops
Nex Lab: Geo Darts
Hype cycles come and go. We stay focused on the mission. Building something truly great takes time. We stay the course.
The gravity of what they’ve built is attracting some of the biggest names in sports. With what we’ve learned—and the doors this effort is opening—the future feels almost surreal.
Looking Ahead
We invest for the long run. We prototype, we test, we learn. And when something works, we double down.
HomeRun Heroes: StarStrikers is just the latest step in our journey—but there’s much more ahead. The future of sports on Nex Playground is bright.
And the Metaverse Cell? They’ll keep swinging big—going for the next home run.