The little studio at the end of the float-home dock

Orcacovearcade started with one game, a merging puzzle we built for ourselves during a long run of grey, rainy weeks. We kept adding pieces of the harbour to the ladder until a sea star could raft all the way up to an orca crest, and the idea of a whole cove of games grew from there.

Today there are six, each written in plain code by our own hands and drawn in the same soft, glossy style. Oakum, our orca dock-master in his yellow rain hat and cream sweater, turned up early in the sketches and never left. Now he greets you on the start screens, keeps an eye on everyone’s bests and insists on coiling every rope properly.

We work from Canada’s west coast, and we design for the way people really play: on the ferry, in a spare ten minutes before supper, curled up with a child on a wet Sunday. Every game opens instantly, adapts to a phone or a big monitor, and keeps your progress on your own device.

Above all we care about fairness and calm. Scores come from skill, challenge rises in clear steps, and nothing interrupts you between rounds. If you leave the cove feeling a little lighter than when you tied up, we have done our job.