From Embers
A survival city-builder where population is not a number but a town of named settlers, each with a family and a history. I built it solo in Godot and shipped it end-to-end on Steam under my own studio CindieForge, covering gameplay, systems, art pipeline, audio, store page, and Steamworks. From Embers is where the SELOdev systems started: I wrote the reusable pieces for this game first, then pulled them out, hardened them, and turned them into the drop-in packs sold here.
Client: CindieForge · Timeline: 2026-04-20 · Role: Solo developer, design, code, art, audio, Steamworks
Stack: Godot, GDScript, GodotSteam, Steamworks SDK, Where the systems began, Godot, solo build, Shipped through Valve cert
Problem
- Build a survival city-builder where losing a settler actually lands, instead of a headcount that ticks down.
- Finish and ship it alone, through Steamworks setup, depots, and Valve certification, with nobody to delegate to.
Approach
- Scoped the game tight enough to finish, then held the release date through scope cuts and triage.
- Wrote the systems the game needed as reusable pieces rather than one-off scripts, which is what made pulling them out later possible.
- Handled design, engineering, art pipeline, audio, store copy, capsules, and trailer in-house, then set up Steamworks: app configuration, depots, build branches, achievements, and review submission.
Results
- On Steam since April 20, 2026, built and shipped by one person from prototype through Valve certification.
- The reusable systems written for this game were extracted, documented, and turned into the no-code packs sold here.
- Proof the approach survives a real release, not just a demo: closed scope, held the date, and shipped.
What you can verify
- A public Steam store page with a trailer, capsule art, and real players, not a prototype.
- Post-launch patches delivered through Steam default and beta branches.
- The origin of the catalog: these systems earned their keep in a shipped game before any of them went on sale.