NEXT (HARD) STEP

small games that are mostly machinery: deep systems, plain surfaces

On the App Store

Shape Evade: Survivors

A survivors game made of nothing but geometry. Six weapons that evolve into something new, ten kinds of enemies in armor, blasts that clear the screen, and a floor that remembers every kill. Five-minute laps, made for a phone held upright.

Games

In the making

Wrong Way

A turn-based road-trip roguelite. Everybody is fleeing the outbreak; one ambulance is driving into it, with a patient in the back that everybody wants. Nothing is on a timer, and anyone in the car can die.

In the making

Fireworks

A turn-based roguelike about a fireworks show. Pick charges from your hand, choose the order, press FIRE, and watch hype multiply. The exact total is on screen before you fire; nothing is on a timer.

In the making

spore

An idle game about a mycelium. It grows at the tips across a map of crumbs, paper, grease and iron; a material with no enzyme for it is a wall and not a slow number. You decide what it can dissolve and where it reaches.

Finished

The Debt Ledger

An economic roguelike about debt at compound interest. The first game, the only finished one so far, and the source of most of the studio's rules.

Toy

Button

A button and nothing else: no decisions, no losing, everything unlocks on its own. Made in one evening as a rest from four strategy games in a row.

Unfinished

Outpost

Hex map on a phone, one tile a turn, raider waves every fifth turn. A day's prototype, playable and stalled.

Unfinished

The Long Haul

The map is black, a test hole costs $22,000, and an empty one still tells you how far the nearest deposit is. Closed after four days; stays up.

How it is made

One person designs the games and playtests them until they break; an LLM writes the code. There are no art assets: everything on screen is geometry, text and layout; every sound effect is synthesized, and the music is a chiptune soundtrack. Phone only, portrait only, because these are games for the subway and the plane.

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