UK game development for focused indie projects

What we bring to your game

Games are the hardest kind of software: part engineering, part art, part feel. We've shipped game systems in production - The Forge, our fitness RPG, runs character progression, XP economies, competitive leaderboards, seasons, and collectible cards for real users every day.

Start small, ship something playable

The biggest mistake in game development is trying to build everything at once. We'll help you find the smallest version of your game that is actually fun - the core loop - and ship that first. Then we grow it: new content, new modes, new systems, guided by real players.

AI-assisted pipelines help us move quickly on content, placeholder art, and testing, while the design decisions, the feel, and the final art direction stay firmly human. It's how a game studio experience becomes affordable for individuals and small teams, not just funded studios.

The size of project we're right for

Being specific about this saves everyone time. We are a good fit for a focused mobile or PC game with a strong core loop, a prototype you want built and tested before committing further, a small game with progression and leaderboards behind it, or an existing project that needs senior engineering to reach release.

We are the wrong choice for a large open-world title, a AAA production, anything needing a full in-house art and audio department, or a live-service game expecting hundreds of thousands of concurrent players at launch. If that's your project, you need a studio several times our size, and we'll say so at the first conversation rather than take a deposit.

Where AI is used, and where it is not

Games are the one place where the question of AI-generated content genuinely matters to players, so here is our position plainly. We use AI tooling for engineering work: scaffolding, boilerplate, test writing, and the repetitive parts of building systems. That is where the speed comes from, and every line is reviewed and owned by a human engineer.

Shipped art and audio are a different matter. Anything that reaches players is either commissioned from a human artist, licensed with a clear provenance trail, or made by you. We use generated placeholders during development so the game is playable early, and they are replaced before release, not quietly kept. If you would rather we used no generated content at any stage, say so and we won't; it costs a little more time and nothing else.

From prototype to release, in stages

Focused games start from £6,000, and the sensible way to spend it is in stages with a decision point between each. First a prototype: the core loop only, no art direction, no menus, built in two to four weeks so you can feel whether the game is fun before funding the rest. Most ideas change here, and finding that out for the price of a prototype is the entire point.

Then the vertical slice, one polished level or mode that shows what the finished game looks and feels like, followed by content build-out and systems work. Then release: store submission, age ratings, screenshots and listings, which for games carry more requirements than for ordinary apps. Then live operations if the game needs them, which is where hosting and maintenance takes over.

You get a fixed quote per stage and can stop between any two. A game that stops after a prototype nobody enjoyed has cost you a prototype, which is a far better outcome than a finished game nobody plays.

An honest word about scope

If your idea is a sprawling open-world epic, we'll tell you what that really costs rather than pretend otherwise. Most great first games are focused ones - and a focused game by Northbytes, in players' hands, beats an epic that never leaves a notebook.