Ember & Vow

Ember & Vow is a two-hour puzzle platformer: you carry a candle through a drowned monastery, and the flame is both your light source and your health. Every mechanic in the game is a variation on one idea — what do you spend light on?

Why it exists

I wanted to make something where engineering discipline and art direction had to be the same conversation. A game is the only medium I know where a frame-rate drop is also an emotional problem.

Craft notes

• The ink pipeline. Every frame is hand-drawn at 320×180 and upscaled with a custom pixel-perfect camera. The constraint (one line weight, two grays, one accent color) became the game’s identity and cut asset production time by half.
• Feel engineering. The candle flame responds to movement with a 120ms lag and procedural flicker — a detail reviewers repeatedly mentioned. It’s a physics toy, a readability aid and a mood device at once.
• Narrative economy. Dialogue lives in Ink and totals fewer than 3,000 words. The story is told by level composition and lighting instead.
• Honest marketing. I ran a public devlog for 18 months. Wishlists grew through shared process, not paid ads.

Reception

Launched with 92% positive reviews; several outlets cited the art direction. The project broke even within five weeks and funded my next year of independent work. More than the numbers: it taught me how to scope, cut, and finish — the skills every client project quietly depends on.