ShadowRuneJournal.blog is a small London studio crafting handmade RPGs, custom engine tooling, and full-cycle production for creators who care about feel over hype.
We started ShadowRuneJournal.blog in a converted print workshop on Waterson Street, wedged between the Columbia Road flower market and a very good coffee roaster. Everything we make begins as a paper prototype on the studio wall before a single line of code is written.
We take on four projects a year — no more. That constraint keeps us hands-on: the person who designs your combat loop is the same person tuning the hit-stop and the controller rumble at 2am. We build in Unity, Godot, and our own in-house pixel engine, Runeforge.
You see a playable build every fortnight. Fixed weekly rate, cancel any sprint.
A free 45-minute call, then a one-page pitch: core loop, scope, target platforms, and a blunt budget range. Delivered within 5 working days.
Two-week sprint to a playable vertical slice. If the core loop is not fun, we tell you before you spend real money.
Pixel style frames, animation tests, and a music mood reel. We lock the look before mass-producing assets.
Fortnightly builds, a shared Trello, and a live devlog. You approve every milestone before we invoice it.
Store pages, ratings submissions, day-one patch, and three months of bug support baked into every contract.
All rates in GBP. Studio hours: Mon–Fri, 10:00–18:00 GMT.
A complete top-down or side-scrolling RPG on Runeforge or Godot: combat, dialogue trees, save systems, and a Steam page. Includes original art and score.
6–14 month project
A complete top-down or side-scrolling RPG on Runeforge or Godot: combat, dialogue trees, save systems, and a Steam page. Includes original art and score.
from £48,000
A polished, playable 10-minute slice to take to publishers or crowdfunding. Perfect for pitching before you commit to a full budget.
3–5 week sprint
A polished, playable 10-minute slice to take to publishers or crowdfunding. Perfect for pitching before you commit to a full budget.
from £9,500
Performance passes, custom editor tooling, shader work, and porting to Switch or mobile. Bring us in for a week or keep us on tap.
Retainer or day-rate
Performance passes, custom editor tooling, shader work, and porting to Switch or mobile. Bring us in for a week or keep us on tap.
£680 / day
They killed our combat idea in week two and pitched a better one. That honesty saved us about £30k and a year of denial. Emberhollow hit 92% positive on launch.
The fortnightly playable builds meant zero surprises. Every milestone was exactly what the devlog promised, and the chiptune score still lives in my head.
We hired them for a one-week Switch port and they found a memory leak our own team had chased for months. Frame rate went from stuttery to locked 60.
Runeforge let us ship on a shoestring. The tooling they built for our writers meant our narrative designer stopped filing bug tickets and started shipping quests.
Pitch us your idea, or just ask a question. We reply to every message within two working days.