What is BrainDodge Studios?
BrainDodge is an independent studio where a wide variety of projects share the same workshop. The underlying theme is that complex problems are worth solving and that the solutions should bring us joy.
Games with something to discover
Our games are built around systems that reveal themselves through play. In Aces of the Western Front, pilots react to a new reality every turn. In the award-winning tabletop prototype Shepherding Cats, players collectively build a movement engine that becomes increasingly chaotic every round. Our 1930's retro sci-fi games, Robot Propectors and the Ring of Saturn and For The Glory of Mars, evoke a universe where tactical decisions compete with moral ones.
Tools Made for Creativity
BrainDodge also builds focused software for creative work. Basstab Pro turns recordings into editable bass tablature, separated stems, and song-specific practice materials. Holiday Prop Lab provides a visual way to program lights, motors, servos, sound, and sensors (yes, it's actually about robotics programming!), generating prop-ready code that can be easily loaded onto a user's hardware controller.
These tools follow the same design principle as our games: make a complicated system understandable and make joy more accessible.
How we work
A project starts with either a smile-inducing story or a novel solution to a tactical problem. The strongest projects have both: the story makes the choices matter, and the mechanics allow the story to unfold.
- Find the reason to care. A project needs a theme that pulls players into its world.
- Find the action inside it. Players and users should have consequential things to do. Dice chuckin' and spreadsheet management do not make a good game and a tool that does not allow for experimentation stifles creativity.
- Make complexity approachable. Depth is only valuable when people can understand and act on it.
AI Policy
Yes, we use AI to help with the gruntwork. It is a tireless workhorse. It is not a creative genius.
How we use AI →