An Aura Mation Experience
AURAMATION
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The Studio

Notes from the process — games half-built, sounds in progress, thoughts mid-thought. Pull up a chair.

Tender V3 is done and I need to talk about it

Three versions. Somewhere between V1 and V3 the whole idea of what this game was supposed to be shifted completely. V1 was a checklist with prettier graphics. V3 is something that actually feels like rest. Here's what changed, and why the call stack error at 2am was almost a gift.

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Tender V3
sprite sheet
Why I called it Aura Mation

It started as a joke. Then it became the truest name I had for what I was making — things that move, things that linger, things that leave a feeling behind. The whole origin story, unfiltered.

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How I produce music the same way I build games

Slow, iterative, obsessive about atmosphere. I don't start with a hook. I start with a feeling I want to be inside for a while. Turns out that's the same thing I do when I open a code editor.

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The video that broke 10k views — and what I think happened

I posted it at 11pm expecting nothing. It was just a screen recording with a voiceover. By morning it had 10k views and a bunch of people asking if the game was real. Here's what I think the algorithm saw that I didn't.

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Dragon Mines was built as a gift. Here's why that made it better.

Building something for one specific person changes everything about how you make decisions. No analytics. No target audience. Just: would this make them smile? Turns out that's a very clean creative brief.

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What I want 2026 to feel like

Not goals. Not a vision board. Just a few sentences about the texture I want my days to have. Slower mornings. More things finished. Less explaining myself. Cozy games for cozy people.

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