Atlas
This is the library behind the studio: the eight-stage process, engines, the 2026 AI stack, MCP servers that give a model hands, and the places a first game can live.
01
Every game begins as a feeling you want someone else to have. Capture the high concept, the logline, and the constraint that will keep the project honest.
You leave with: A working title, a one-sentence pitch, and a reason this game should exist.
Tracy Fullerton calls this conceptualize: a playable idea small enough to prototype. Jesse Schell would ask: what is the essential experience?
02
Design pillars are the three truths the team can use to cut ideas. Audience, platform, tone, and non-goals stop a solo project from becoming every game at once.
You leave with: Three pillars, a player fantasy, comparables, and an explicit not-list.
Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and most mid-size studios hang pillars on the wall so every feature can be asked: does this serve the fantasy?
03
The core loop is the minute-to-minute activity the player will do a thousand times. Verbs first, then failure, then the feeling (MDA aesthetics) those verbs produce.
You leave with: Player verbs, a written core loop, failure, session length, and target aesthetics.
MDA (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek, 2004): designers build Mechanics → Dynamics → Aesthetics; players feel it in reverse. Name the aesthetic first.
04
Setting, characters, and art direction are not decoration — they tell the player why the verbs matter. Keep lore load-bearing. Cut anything the loop does not touch.
You leave with: Setting, premise, cast, story beats, and art/audio direction notes.
Environmental storytelling (Bioshock, Dark Souls) beats cutscene dumps. If a fact never changes a decision, it does not belong in a first slice.
05
A modern GDD is an index, not a novel: systems, levels, economy, controls, UX, risks, and a cut list. Rosa Carbo-Mascarell's shape — Summary, Core, Features, Content — still holds.
You leave with: A buildable feature list, a scope cut list, and a control scheme.
Stone Librande (GDC 2010) argued one-page designs people will actually hang up beat hundred-page docs nobody reads.
06
A vertical slice is worth more than a perfect document. Forge a prototype from the design — geometric, juicy, honest about what the loop feels like in the hands.
You leave with: A running game you can play, share, and iterate.
Iterate: conceptualize → prototype → playtest → evaluate (Fullerton). Ship the ugliest thing that tests the fantasy, then keep the parts that are fun.
07
Juice is the gap between a prototype and a toy people want to touch: hit-stop, squash, particles, audio ticks, readable failure. Accessibility and difficulty are polish too.
You leave with: A feel checklist, audio plan, accessibility notes, and a difficulty curve.
Steve Swink's Game Feel and Martin Jonasson's juice talks: the same mechanic with better response reads as a different game.
08
A game that lives on your machine is a sketch. Write the listing, the trailer script, the tags, and a share plan. Export a file a stranger can open.
You leave with: Store copy, tags, a press blurb, and a shareable build.
Itch, Steam Next Fest, and web portals (Poki, CrazyGames) reward a clear one-sentence promise and a GIF of the loop — not a lore dump.
A game idea is not a plot. It is a feeling you can defend under a constraint: solo, 2D, a week, a browser. The constraint is a gift. It tells you what the game is allowed to be.
If a feature does not serve a pillar, it is a different game pretending to live in this one. Write three sentences a tired future-you can use as a knife.
Players will do the core action a thousand times. If that action is not interesting on the third repeat, no story, art, or soundtrack will save it. Prototype the verb first.
One complete moment — start, play, fail, retry, a hint of the fantasy — beats five disconnected systems. Production is copying that moment until it is a game.
Sit behind someone. Do not explain. The first place they hesitate is the design. Ask what they thought the game wanted, not whether they liked it.
A language model without tools writes design fiction. Wired to Blender, Unity, Godot, Figma, and GitHub it becomes a junior who can move the actual files. Pair a knowledge server (how to design) with an engine server (how to act).
In 2026 the stack split into four jobs: prompt-to-playable (Rosebud, Chatforce), in-engine agents (Summer, Unity AI, Godot MCP), asset generators (Meshy, Scenario), and code copilots (Cursor). MCP is how the last three grow hands.
The default 2D/3D production engine. C#, massive asset store, ships everywhere.
Use when You need 3D, mobile, or a large marketplace of plugins.
Free personal; seats for teams · Player builds for every major store
Photoreal 3D, Nanite, Blueprints plus C++. The AAA look, with a royalty after revenue.
Use when Cinematic 3D, large worlds, or you already think in Blueprints.
Free; 5% royalty after $1M · Console, PC, and high-end 3D
Open-source, scene-tree mental model, GDScript that reads like Python. No royalties.
Use when You want to own the stack and ship 2D or modest 3D without a license worry.
Free, MIT · Desktop, web, mobile exports
The 2D specialist behind a generation of indie hits. Visual plus GML.
Use when Pixel 2D you actually want on Steam and consoles.
Free to start; paid for export · Steam, console, desktop
Event-sheet 2D in the browser. No traditional code required.
Use when You think in events, not classes, and want HTML5 yesterday.
Subscription · HTML5, wrappers
Open-source event engine with a growing AI assistant and gd.games hosting.
Use when You want free, visual, and a one-click web page for the build.
Free; credits for AI · Web, desktop, mobile
The HTML5 2D framework. If the game should live on a URL, start here.
Use when You already write JavaScript and want arcade, platformers, or puzzles in-browser.
Free · Any static host
Lua, tiny runtime, blessed by a lot of mobile and web arcade teams.
Use when Performance on phones and a Lua-sized brain.
Free · Mobile and HTML5
Rust ECS engine. Fast, code-first, still growing its editor story.
Use when You like Rust and want the game to be a real crate, not a hidden binary.
Free, MIT/Apache · Desktop; web via wasm
Luau, a built-in audience, and 2026's prompt-native Build flow expanding beyond NZ.
Use when Distribution is the hard part and you are willing to live inside their platform.
Free; platform split · Roblox, with web play rolling out
Unreal for Fortnite islands. Verse language, a gigantic installed base.
Use when You want Fortnite's players more than your own launcher.
Free; island revenue share · Fortnite
WebGL editor in the browser. Collaborate like a Google Doc for 3D.
Use when 3D that must load on a link with no install.
Free tier; paid seats · Web
Prompt-to-playable browser games with a remix culture. Fastest way to see a loop.
Use when You want a playable concept this afternoon, not an engine project.
Free tier; credit plans · Playable web game, JS export
AI-native engine compatible with Godot 4. The agent creates scenes, writes GDScript, runs the game, reads errors, and fixes itself.
Use when You want to own the project and still let an agent drive the live editor.
Free; Pro around $20/mo · A real Godot project
Multi-agent studio (director, coder, artist, sound) that aims for a complete 2D browser game in minutes.
Use when You want art, audio, and a loop from one conversation.
Free + $20/mo · Polished 2D web game
Text/image to game-ready 3D: remesh, PBR, auto-rig. The broadest 3D asset API.
Use when You need a prop or character in the engine before lunch.
Free credits; paid plans · FBX/GLB with textures
Fast image-to-3D with cleaner topology and part segmentation.
Use when Hero assets that have to survive a sculpt pass.
Free; Pro ~$20/mo · Quad-friendly meshes
Train a style on your own art, then generate consistent 2D sprites and concept sheets.
Use when The game has a look and you cannot afford drift between characters.
From ~$15–20/mo · Consistent 2D sheets
Runtime characters with memory, voice, and unscripted dialogue.
Use when NPCs should talk back without a dialogue tree the size of a novel.
Usage; indie tiers · In-engine character brain
Conversational NPCs with vision and gesture, Unity and Unreal SDKs.
Use when You want talking characters inside an existing engine project.
Free limited; Indie ~$29/mo · SDK characters
Ideation, market research, and asset exploration — a pre-production toolkit, not a builder.
Use when You are still asking whether the idea has a player.
Trial; paid seats · Briefs, references, prototypes
The AI IDE most people writing real game code actually open. Whole-project context.
Use when The game is a repo, not a prompt.
Free; Pro $20/mo · Engine source
In-editor assistant (the Muse line, now Unity AI) for C#, sprites, and project context.
Use when You already live in the Unity Editor.
Bundled / seat add-on · Editor-native help
ahujasid/blender-mcp — the most-starred creative MCP server. The model models, lights, and exports from Blender.
Use when Your pipeline has a DCC step and you want the agent in the viewport.
Open source · Live Blender control
CoplayDev/unity-mcp. Highest-adoption Unity server: hierarchy, components, play mode, scripts.
Use when Cursor or Claude should press buttons inside the Unity Editor.
Open source · Editor + play-mode tools
Coding-Solo/godot-mcp. File-level Godot control, headless runs, editor launch. The reference Godot server.
Use when You want an agent to write scenes and GDScript and then run the project.
Open source · Project files + debug output
IvanMurzak's engine-agnostic host. One server, plugins for Unity, Godot, and Unreal over SignalR.
Use when You bounce between engines and want one MCP client config.
Open source · Dynamic tools from the connected plugin
Deep Unreal toolkit: Blueprints, Niagara, landscape, Sequencer, plus Epic's native 5.8 tool registry.
Use when The project is Unreal 5.8+ and you want the agent in the outliner.
Open source · Editor actions
sbenson2/gamedev-mcp-server — 140+ curated docs: genre systems, ECS, feel, engine guides. Knowledge, not buttons.
Use when The assistant keeps forgetting how a camera or a state machine should be built.
Open source · Searchable design/architecture guidance
Official Figma server plus Framelink's get_figma_data. HUD, menus, and store art as source of truth.
Use when UI chrome is designed in Figma and the game or site should match it.
Figma plan · Layout JSON and assets
Official TTS, cloning, and SFX from inside the assistant.
Use when Characters need voices and you do not have a booth.
Usage · Audio files
Issues, PRs, and the repo itself. Treat the game as software, because it is.
Use when Scope lives in tickets and the agent should open PRs, not pastebins.
Free with GitHub · Repo operations
The public-domain pack library every jam uses. CC0.
Use when You need a readable prototype that does not look like colored squares.
Free (donations) · Sprites, tiles, models
Community 2D/3D/audio with mixed licenses. Read the deed.
Use when You are hunting a specific tileset and can live with license hygiene.
Free · Mixed media
Auto-rig and mocap clips for humanoids. Still the fastest 3D character start.
Use when You have a biped mesh and need walk/run/idle without a graph.
Free with Adobe account · FBX animations
CC0 HDRIs, textures, and models good enough for lighting studies.
Use when The scene needs real light or PBR ground, not a flat color.
Free · Textures and meshes
Paid and PWYW packs from working artists. Often the right style for an indie.
Use when You want a look with a person behind it, and a license you can quote.
Free to paid · Themed packs
The classic 8-bit SFX generator. Thirty seconds to a jump tick.
Use when You need placeholder juice today.
Free · WAV
Field recordings and one-shots. Check Creative Commons on each file.
Use when You want a door, a crow, a room tone that is not a synth.
Free · WAV/MP3
Adaptive score generation with commercial licensing on paid tiers.
Use when You need a bed that can loop without a composer on payroll.
Free; paid for commercial · Stems and MIDI
Prompted songs. Useful for trailers and diegetic radios; watch the license.
Use when A trailer needs a hook before you hire a musician.
Credits · Full tracks
The talk archive. Librande on one-page designs, Swink on feel, every postmortem that matters.
Use when You are stuck on a craft question a thousand people have already answered.
Many free; Vault pass for the rest · Videos and slides
Mark Brown's video essays. The best public curriculum for systems literacy.
Use when You need to see why a loop works, not just that it does.
Free · Design intuition
A deck of lenses. Still the book to keep on the desk.
Use when You have an idea and no questions. The lenses are the questions.
Book · A way of seeing
The iterative loop taught in schools: conceptualize, prototype, playtest, evaluate.
Use when You need a process you can run on a Tuesday night.
Book · Playtest discipline
Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek (2004). Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics. Designers build one way; players feel the other.
Use when Someone says 'fun' and you need a more precise word.
Free PDF · Shared vocabulary
The real-time spatial illusion: input, response, camera, juice.
Use when The prototype is correct and somehow still dead in the hands.
Book · A feel checklist
The first honest audience. Pay-what-you-want, jams, no certification gauntlet.
Use when You have a build and need strangers this week.
Free; optional share · A public page
The PC store. Next Fest is still the launch program that moves copies.
Use when The slice is real and you can afford a page, a trailer, and a wishlists campaign.
App fee; revenue share · Store page + builds
Web portals that pay for HTML5 games people replay. Strict on quality, kind on distribution.
Use when The game is a short loop that loads on a phone.
Rev share · Embedded play + revenue