01
Prototype & Vertical Slice
A playable proof of your core loop in 4–6 weeks: one polished level, real controls and a build you can put in front of publishers.
4–6 weeks · free discovery call
from £9,500Start a project
Game Design & Development · London
We forge retro worlds with modern craft.
RetroMysticForge is a Shoreditch studio building pixel-perfect games from first sketch to shipped build — tight mechanics, hand-tuned feel, and art that remembers the 16-bit era while running on today’s hardware.
- 48+
- Titles shipped
- 11
- Years crafting games
- 4
- Platforms supported
Who we are
A small studio obsessed with how games feel
Founded on Redchurch Street in 2015, we are eleven designers, engineers and pixel artists who believe a game lives or dies in its first thirty seconds of play. Every project we take on is measured against feel, readability and the joy of mastery — not feature checklists.
Feel-first design
We tune input latency, camera and game feel frame-by-frame until controls disappear and only play remains.
Handcrafted pixels
Original sprite work, palette-limited art and CRT-aware lighting drawn in-house, never asset-flipped.
Ship-ready code
Clean Unity and Godot codebases with automated builds, so your team can keep shipping after we hand off.
Player-tested loops
We playtest weekly with real players in our Shoreditch space and let the data reshape the core loop.
What we do
Services built for the whole journey
Engage us for a single sprint or the full production. Rates are quoted in GBP and scoped after a free 45-minute discovery call.
02
Full Game Production
End-to-end development across design, engineering, pixel art and audio integration, delivered in milestone sprints with weekly builds.
4–12 months · milestone billing
from £48,000Start a project
03
Pixel Art & Animation
Character sprites, tilesets, VFX and UI drawn to a fixed palette, exported as clean atlases ready to drop into your engine.
per asset pack · 2-week turnaround
from £1,800Start a project
04
Porting & Optimisation
We take your PC build to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation or mobile — profiling, memory budgets and certification support included.
per platform · cert support
from £14,000Start a project
Selected work
From grey-box to gold master
Drag the handle to compare an early prototype frame with the shipped, art-complete scene from our dungeon-crawler “Emberlight Keep”.
Shipped
PrototypeEmberlight Keep
Action roguelike · PC & Switch · 2023
Kind words
Trusted by studios and solo devs
A few notes from the teams we have partnered with across the UK and beyond.
“The vertical slice they built landed us our publishing deal in one meeting. The game finally felt like the one in my head.”
Priya M.
Hackney, London · Prototype & Vertical Slice · March 2024
“Their pixel artists nailed our palette on the first pass. Animations have a weight and snap we could never get in-house.”
Tomasz K.
Bristol · Pixel Art & Animation · November 2023
“They ported our Steam build to Switch under a tight deadline and still hit a locked 60fps. Certification passed first try.”
Sarah D.
Manchester · Porting & Optimisation · July 2024
“Weekly playtests in their Shoreditch studio completely reshaped our combat loop. Reviews now praise exactly what they fixed.”
Léo R.
Camden, London · Full Game Production · January 2025
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Everything about working with the forge. Still curious? Send us a note and we’ll reply within one business day.
We work primarily in Unity and Godot, with lightweight custom C++ tooling when a project needs it. If you already have a codebase, we can slot into your engine and follow your existing conventions rather than forcing a rewrite.
No. You own 100% of the IP, source code and art we produce for you. Ownership transfers on final invoice, and we hand over clean repositories, project files and layered art so your team can keep building.
Prototypes are billed 50% up front and 50% on delivery. Full productions are split into monthly milestones you approve before we invoice. We usually book new projects four to six weeks out, so it is worth reaching out early.
Absolutely. Roughly half our clients are outside London. We run async updates, shared build links every week, and overlap a few hours daily for calls. Our studio on Redchurch Street is also open for on-site workshops whenever you visit.
In 45 minutes we pin down your core loop, target platforms, budget range and timeline, then send a written scope within two days. There is no obligation and no charge — it simply helps us both decide if we are the right fit.
Yes. We offer post-launch support retainers covering patches, platform updates and content drops. Many teams keep us on a light monthly retainer so there is always someone who knows the codebase on hand.
Start here
Let’s build your next game
Tell us about your project and we’ll get back within one business day to schedule your free discovery call.
Studio
56 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London E2 7DP
Studio hours
Mon–Fri, 9:30am–6:00pm GMT