World of Haiku

Learning by Doing, Without the Bill

Cybersecurity is learned by doing, and doing has always been expensive. Lectures do not stick. Cloud ranges cost money per seat and assume you already know your way around a command line. Haiku wanted to reach the people who would never open a range in the first place.

A Hacker’s Desktop

I joined Haiku in July 2021 as Software Developer Lead and led World of Haiku from its first build to its Steam release, coordinating its audio and making 3D art along the way. It is a game set inside a simulated Linux desktop, with windowed apps, a file explorer, notes, a skill tree, and a terminal. The terminal runs emulated versions of real tools—ping, nmap, ssh, curl, John the Ripper, Hydra, sqlmap, dirb, and the aircrack-ng suite—against fictional company networks. Devices and file systems persist between sessions. You crack a password, then pivot by SSH from machine to machine.

I directed the whole experience, and kept one product vision across music, UX/UI, illustration, writing, programming, 3D, VFX, and management.

The first build came in October 2021. Early access opened in May 2022, and version 1.0 launched on July 21, 2022. Over the next year, the game grew from a mission-based story into a full simulated desktop, with randomized practice dojos, a free-roam Explore mode, and the setting of The Grid. As Director of Engineering, I moved it to a web-based subscription. On play.haikuinc.io, it is simply called Haiku, organized into learning paths that run from Linux Fundamentals to a CompTIA Security+ aligned course. Later builds added a Kusto Query Language console for analyst work, running on a KQL engine we built by hand, and multiplayer launched on March 17, 2025.

The platform that grew up around the game—the Forge mission editor, the Haiku Pro ranges, and eventually HADES—has a page of its own.

What Happened

World of Haiku holds a Very Positive rating on Steam, over 80 percent positive, and it won Fast Company’s 2023 Innovation by Design Award in the Security category. Everything Haiku went on to win, from DARPA’s tools competition to Fast Company’s 2025 list, is on the Haiku page.

on Steam

Very Positive

Fast Company Innovation by Design

2023

July 21, 2022

1.0

March 17, 2025

Multiplayer

The game also taught me the idea HADES is built on: once a network is a place, anyone can be dropped inside it—including the adversary.