The cheapest phone first
Every build is tested on a 2019 budget device before it touches a flagship. If it will not hold 60fps there, the feature is wrong, not the phone.
Approach
One title at a time, on purpose.
Four people, one project, four stages. Below is the whole method, including the parts that are inconvenient to admit.
The four stages
- I
Spark
One week
One idea, one verb, no documents longer than a page. We build the smallest thing that can prove the idea is fun or useful.
- II
Prototype
Two to six weeks
A playable build on a real device in the first week, then iterate against people who are not us. Most ideas die here, which is the point.
- III
Production
Three to seven months
Content, polish, store assets, closed testing tracks. Weekly builds to the same testers so regressions surface while they are still cheap.
- IV
Tend
Ongoing
Staged rollout, then the long part: crash triage, content rotation, and reading the retention curve instead of the install count.
Six rules we do not bend
Constraints, written down, so nobody has to relitigate them mid-production.
One verb per title
A game is one thing you do, repeated and complicated. We write it on a single line before production starts and cut anything that does not serve it.
Playtest with strangers
Internal opinion is worth very little. We run closed testing tracks from the first playable build and keep the same testers for the whole cycle.
No dark patterns
No energy timers, no progress locked behind ads, no confusing purchase flows. Cosmetics, premium, or honest one-time unlocks.
Instrument what matters
Run completion, day-one and day-seven retention, crash-free sessions. Install counts are a vanity number and we treat them like one.
Ship staged, always
Every release goes out at 5%, then 20%, then 50%. It has saved us twice, which is exactly twice more than it has cost us.
Who you work with
Four people. The ones you meet are the ones who build it.
There is no account layer between you and the team. You get the engineer in the call, which occasionally means an unvarnished answer about scope.
Elen Markarian
Creative director
Twelve years in games, six of them on mobile puzzle design. Decides what a title is about and then defends it from everyone, including us.
Tomás Ruel
Lead engineer
Unity and Kotlin. Keeps an unreasonable collection of budget Android devices on a shelf and tests every build on the worst one first.
Ngozi Abara
Art & animation
Paints in layers, composites at runtime. Responsible for the lantern light in Lantern Hollow looking like it weighs something.
Jonas Vik
Production & liveops
Runs the testing tracks, the rollout, and the weekly rotation. The person who reads every one-star review, on purpose.
2.04M
Lifetime installs across the roster
4.67
Mean Play rating, weighted by installs
11
Titles shipped since 2021
0
Energy timers we have ever shipped
What we can take on
- 01
Game design & production
PrototypingSystems & economyLevel authoringPlaytest programmes - 02
Android engineering
Unity / C#Kotlin / ComposePlay Asset DeliveryOffline-first sync - 03
Play Store launch
Listing & assetsClosed & open testingStaged rolloutPolicy review - 04
Liveops & tending
Content rotationCrash & ANR triageRetention analysisStore experiments