From Ashes.

You play Kayo, who escaped when a private army burned his village, and now works a scrapyard in Port Sable while searching for his lost sister. The game is built from scratch on three.js: a living town with a day and night cycle, weather, cars, animals and a fully voiced cast.

I designed it the way I design product: a core loop that teaches itself, progression that rewards curiosity, and the systems around it (accounts, cloud saves, a real shop, an admin dashboard) that make it something people can actually play and a team can actually run.

How it plays.

Core loop and economy

Copper coils are scattered across the yard, and some sit on piles and roofs only a climber can reach. Collect them, carry them, then sell to Mama Efe at her table for shillings.
Shillings fund everything: outfits, vehicle repairs at Tobi's workshop and a pocket that gets lighter if Kayo is knocked out.
A rival, Dayo, races Kayo for the most copper. Whoever delivers more gets paid first, and beating him earns a secret bonus. He can be fought too.
Side hustles feed the same economy: catch chickens by creeping up on them (sprinting scares them off), then roast, eat or sell them. Up to four birds show in Kayo's hands.

Missions and guidance

Every chapter is a list of steps that read live game state. The first unfinished step becomes the current objective, so the story reacts to what the player has actually done.
An objective card shows the chapter, the goal, a contextual hint and the distance to the target, and flashes when a new objective starts.
Guidance is layered: a minimap and full map, waypoints, route arrows painted on the ground and on-screen markers. Each can be switched off.
Prompts adapt to the input device. Keyboard players see key hints, touch players get a thumb stick and action buttons.
A mission-complete banner shows what was earned. Checkpoints save progress, and getting caught by a patrol sends you back to the last one.

Body and progression

Health and stamina bars with real consequences. Running, jumping and fighting drain stamina, and at zero Kayo is spent and breathing hard. Food heals, and a knockout costs shillings.
A local gym, the Iron Yard, has a cement barbell and iron dumbbells. Each session costs stamina and the muscles need rest before the next one. Strength levels 1 to 5 make punches and the machete hit harder.
Weapons are unlocked by the story, not bought: a machete for catching the thief, then a Dane gun in Chapter 3. A weapon wheel (Tab, the mouse wheel or 1 to 3) swaps between hands, machete and gun, and H holsters.
Aiming is a skill. Right click to aim over the shoulder, hold Shift to steady your breath, and the damage you deal is shown on every hit.

Challenge systems

Stealth at the Harbour Gate: guards patrol with torches whose light shows on the ground, crouching halves how far you are seen, and a stealth meter tracks suspicion. Running is loud and a caught counter tracks your mistakes.
Fist fights with punch, block and dodge. Crowds gather around a brawl.
Cars can be driven, hotwired or have their locks picked, and owners chase you down. A mechanic's workshop repairs dents and broken glass for a price.
Chases are tuned so they stay fair: the thief tires after a few seconds, so he is catchable but never easy.

A world that reacts

Townspeople have jobs, moods, rumours, routines and a three-step relationship meter with Kayo. Befriend someone and they start sharing rumours.
Each stranger speaks in the accent of where they are from (Nigerian, Kenyan, Tanzanian and South African), keeps one voice through a whole conversation, and is voiced from a generated cast of 24 voices.
Day and night run on a configurable clock from 10 to 80 minutes, with rain, thunder and wet skin. The radio, music and ambience change with the time.
Dogs, cats and goats are single sculpted bodies with a lighter version used at a distance, and lizards and birds share the yard.

Meta game and live ops

Accounts, saves and friends work offline in the browser or on Supabase, behind one shared API. Progress made as a guest moves to the account on first sign-in, and guests get a free-roam taste of the game with a prompt to sign up.
A shop sells outfits, vehicles and shilling packs. Real-money purchases go through Stripe checkout, and prices are looked up on the server by item id so they cannot be changed from the browser.
An admin dashboard shows who is playing right now, money coming in and bug reports sent from the pause menu, with separate dev and live databases and a demo mode.
A built-in story tab holds the chapter outline, the cast and the status of every system, so the writing and the game live in one place.

Engineering and accessibility

Performance is a feature: LODs for people and animals, a frame-rate cap, render-scale and shadow settings, an FPS and draw-call overlay, and a real loading bar. Asset work cut about 11 MB from the first load, for example a 6.7 MB character file shrank to 0.3 MB.
Models are built in Blender, driven by an AI assistant over MCP, and exported as compressed GLB files.
Accessibility is built in: ARIA meters for health and stamina, live regions for objectives and toasts, subtitles for all dialogue, keyboard and touch controls and a full controls reference in the pause menu.

Fist fights

A fist fight with an area boy: punches, blocks, damage numbers on every hit and a vignette when you are hurt.

Collecting copper in the scrapyard: shillings and copper counter, health and stamina bars, an objective card with distance, and a minimap.

Climbing a shipping container for a coil only a climber can reach.

On the roof with a coil in hand, ready to carry it back to Mama Efe's table to sell.

Talking to Mama Efe. Every townsperson has a portrait, a job, a mood and a relationship meter, and finishing a step fires a mission banner.

Another townsperson, with their own job, history and replies.

A chicken caught by creeping up on it, held in Kayo's arms.

Roasting the chicken on a spit over the fire barrel, as a short cutscene.

Then Kayo sits down and eats it, in a close-up scene.

Next project

Footy Teams

How it plays.

Core loop and economy

Copper coils are scattered across the yard, and some sit on piles and roofs only a climber can reach. Collect them, carry them, then sell to Mama Efe at her table for shillings.
Shillings fund everything: outfits, vehicle repairs at Tobi's workshop and a pocket that gets lighter if Kayo is knocked out.
A rival, Dayo, races Kayo for the most copper. Whoever delivers more gets paid first, and beating him earns a secret bonus. He can be fought too.
Side hustles feed the same economy: catch chickens by creeping up on them (sprinting scares them off), then roast, eat or sell them. Up to four birds show in Kayo's hands.

Missions and guidance

Every chapter is a list of steps that read live game state. The first unfinished step becomes the current objective, so the story reacts to what the player has actually done.
An objective card shows the chapter, the goal, a contextual hint and the distance to the target, and flashes when a new objective starts.
Guidance is layered: a minimap and full map, waypoints, route arrows painted on the ground and on-screen markers. Each can be switched off.
Prompts adapt to the input device. Keyboard players see key hints, touch players get a thumb stick and action buttons.
A mission-complete banner shows what was earned. Checkpoints save progress, and getting caught by a patrol sends you back to the last one.

Body and progression

Health and stamina bars with real consequences. Running, jumping and fighting drain stamina, and at zero Kayo is spent and breathing hard. Food heals, and a knockout costs shillings.
A local gym, the Iron Yard, has a cement barbell and iron dumbbells. Each session costs stamina and the muscles need rest before the next one. Strength levels 1 to 5 make punches and the machete hit harder.
Weapons are unlocked by the story, not bought: a machete for catching the thief, then a Dane gun in Chapter 3. A weapon wheel (Tab, the mouse wheel or 1 to 3) swaps between hands, machete and gun, and H holsters.
Aiming is a skill. Right click to aim over the shoulder, hold Shift to steady your breath, and the damage you deal is shown on every hit.

Challenge systems

Stealth at the Harbour Gate: guards patrol with torches whose light shows on the ground, crouching halves how far you are seen, and a stealth meter tracks suspicion. Running is loud and a caught counter tracks your mistakes.
Fist fights with punch, block and dodge. Crowds gather around a brawl.
Cars can be driven, hotwired or have their locks picked, and owners chase you down. A mechanic's workshop repairs dents and broken glass for a price.
Chases are tuned so they stay fair: the thief tires after a few seconds, so he is catchable but never easy.

A world that reacts

Townspeople have jobs, moods, rumours, routines and a three-step relationship meter with Kayo. Befriend someone and they start sharing rumours.
Each stranger speaks in the accent of where they are from (Nigerian, Kenyan, Tanzanian and South African), keeps one voice through a whole conversation, and is voiced from a generated cast of 24 voices.
Day and night run on a configurable clock from 10 to 80 minutes, with rain, thunder and wet skin. The radio, music and ambience change with the time.
Dogs, cats and goats are single sculpted bodies with a lighter version used at a distance, and lizards and birds share the yard.

Meta game and live ops

Accounts, saves and friends work offline in the browser or on Supabase, behind one shared API. Progress made as a guest moves to the account on first sign-in, and guests get a free-roam taste of the game with a prompt to sign up.
A shop sells outfits, vehicles and shilling packs. Real-money purchases go through Stripe checkout, and prices are looked up on the server by item id so they cannot be changed from the browser.
An admin dashboard shows who is playing right now, money coming in and bug reports sent from the pause menu, with separate dev and live databases and a demo mode.
A built-in story tab holds the chapter outline, the cast and the status of every system, so the writing and the game live in one place.

Engineering and accessibility

Performance is a feature: LODs for people and animals, a frame-rate cap, render-scale and shadow settings, an FPS and draw-call overlay, and a real loading bar. Asset work cut about 11 MB from the first load, for example a 6.7 MB character file shrank to 0.3 MB.
Models are built in Blender, driven by an AI assistant over MCP, and exported as compressed GLB files.
Accessibility is built in: ARIA meters for health and stamina, live regions for objectives and toasts, subtitles for all dialogue, keyboard and touch controls and a full controls reference in the pause menu.