System Design Arcade
Practice System Design Daily
Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Free. Offline. No subscription. 60-second arcade games drill caching, sharding, and rate limiting until they finally click for your next interview.
Most system design prep is paid and online. System Design Arcade is free, works offline, and keeps your progress on your device.
The system design interview is the one where the whiteboard goes blank. You've read the books. You've watched the videos. But when the interviewer says "design Instagram," you freeze — because reading about consistent hashing at 2am is not the same as knowing it cold.
System Design Arcade is the fix. It turns every building block — caching, sharding, load balancing, rate limiting, CAP theorem, consistent hashing — into 60-second arcade levels you can actually finish. On the subway. In line for coffee. While waiting for CI. On a plane with no Wi-Fi.
WHY ARCADE BEATS EXPENSIVE COURSES
5-minute mini-games beat 5-hour video courses you never finish. Active recall beats highlighting. And nothing beats free.
THREE TRACKS, ONE CURRICULUM
Concepts — master one building block at a time. Caches, databases, queues, replication, sharding, load balancing. Everything that shows up in the first thirty minutes of the interview.
Problems — design complete systems end-to-end. URL Shortener, Rate Limiter, News Feed, Chat, Ride Sharing. The classics, played out like boss fights.
Tools — hands-on drills with the infrastructure you'll actually use on the job. Redis. Kafka. Docker. Kubernetes.
Story Mode — narrative capstones that show WHY Netflix shards by user_id, WHY Twitter chose Redis for the timeline, WHY Discord built their own pub/sub.
CHALLENGE TYPES THAT DON'T FEEL LIKE FLASHCARDS
Multiple choice, ordering puzzles, fill-in-the-blank, API Builder, Architecture Builder, and Scenario-Why drills — each level mixes formats so your brain has to actually engage. The Scenario-Why drills are the secret weapon: they train the reasoning behind the answer, not just the answer.
DAILY CHALLENGE
A fresh challenge every day, picked deterministically so you and your study buddy see the same one. Streak counter. Optional reminder notifications (opt in from Settings) so you don't break the streak.
BUILT FOR YOUR EYES
Retro arcade aesthetic by default. Pixel fonts. Neon glow. If that's not your thing, switch to the playful sticker-card vibe or open the Theme Lab and tune background, glow, gradient, and font until it feels right. Read Aloud narrates every explanation — learn while you walk.
YOUR PROGRESS STAYS YOURS
By default, everything saves on-device with no account required. No tracking pixels in your answers. Sign in with Apple anytime from Settings to back up your progress and sync it across your iPhone and iPad. We use privacy-friendly product analytics to see which levels need work — never the content of your answers.
FREE TO PLAY, FULL CONTENT INCLUDED
No ads. No paywalls. No gated levels. No subscription. New games ship every sprint.
Start with Level 1.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app has not received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Your Daily Challenge, Front and Center
The daily puzzle now leads your home screen as the top "Up Next" pick until you finish it. Build a streak — and a streak freeze keeps it alive the day you miss.
Challenge a Friend
Finish a level, share your score, and your friend taps the link to land on the exact same challenge with your score to beat.
Weekly Recap
A new card on Home shows what you pulled off in the last 7 days — levels cleared, points earned, topics mastered.
Smoother Learning
Tighter pacing between challenges, clearer explanations, and a batch of polish from a full UX pass.
The developer, Harsha Hassan Somashekara, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
- Contact Info
- User Content
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Provider
- Harsha Hassan Somashekara
- Size
- 39.3 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 15.1 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 15.1 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 15.1 or later. - iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.1 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Hyperfocused Engineer