Victoria, British ColumbiaIssue 01Updated 20 July 2026Metric: Hands
Some games have credits you can read in eleven seconds.
feldspire is a bench for those games. One question per title: how many people built it, and what proves that number. That is the whole desk.
Hands is a headcount. It is not a rating, not a recommendation engine, and not a claim that fewer people means better. A crew of one ships different flaws than a crew of two hundred, and both kinds are on this page.
Store screenshots, shown at the size they were published. The number is the confirmed headcount, not a score.
Every number on this site was pulled from the Canadian App Store and the Canadian Google Play listing on 20 July 2026, and every one names its store. No developer paid to be here. Where a headcount could not be verified, it says so.
01 / Who keeps the bench
Editor
Colin Mahaffy
Bench
A spare room in Fernwood, Victoria BC
Started
March 2026
Test phone
Pixel 7a, and a 2021 iPad for the paid iOS builds
I spent nine years writing invoicing software, and nobody ever knew my name.
That is not a complaint. It is the normal condition of software. You use a thing every day and you have no idea whose Tuesday evening produced it. Games are the rare exception: they still roll credits. And on a phone, those credits are sometimes four lines long.
I started feldspire because I kept installing something small and strange, wondering who made it, and finding out it was one person with a day job. That fact changed how the game read to me. The odd menu was not laziness. It was one person deciding where their weekend went.
So the desk does one job: it names the crew and shows the receipt. Whether the game is any good is a separate argument, and other people are better at it.
One thing you should hold against me: I do not finish these games. I have never beaten Shattered Pixel Dungeon and probably never will. I am here for the credits, not the ending, and if you want a completion review this is the wrong bench.
A headcount is a claim. These are the four places we get it from.
S1The developer page in the store. How many apps sit under that account, and whether the name is a person or a company. One app under a personal name is weak on its own and strong next to anything else.
S2The App Store seller field. Apple prints the legal seller. "Evan Debenham" is an individual. "Sirvo LLC" is a registered company, which tells you a company exists, not how many people are in it.
S3The developer's own words. An about page, a devlog, a press kit. Shattered Pixel's about page states plainly that the studio name is a trade name for one person. That is the strongest evidence available.
S4Independent interviews. Two or more separate outlets, published at different times, describing the same crew. One interview is a press release with a byline.
Where this method stops. Almost nobody publishes a full team list for a mobile game. Contract artists, a composer hired for four tracks, a partner doing QA on the couch: none of that shows up in a store listing. So "1" on this site means one credited, verified builder, not a monastic vow.
When the evidence conflicts or runs out, the card says not confirmed and stays there. We do not average two guesses into a third one.
03 / The builds
Four games, four credit rolls, four receipts.
Ratings are the store's, not ours, and the sample size is printed beside each one because Canadian rating counts are small. Install sizes are iOS only: Google Play does not publish a size on its web listing, so we do not invent one.
Build 01
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Shattered Pixel / roguelike / Android and iOS
A two-month rebalance mod that took seven years to reach version 1.0, and is now somebody's entire career.
1
pair of hands confirmed
Evidence: the developer's own about page states that Shattered Pixel is the trade name for Evan Debenham (S3). The Google Play developer account carries a single app (S1), and the App Store seller field is a person, not a company (S2).
Credits, in full
Evan DebenhamDesign, code, art, updates
He started in late 2014, a few days after the original Pixel Dungeon went open source. By his own account he had looked at his career, seen an ordinary programming job stretching ahead, and wanted games instead. The plan was a balance mod, maybe two months of evenings. Version 1.0 landed in August 2021. Seven years.
The code is still open, and content still arrives roughly quarterly. It is now his main project and his main income, which is a genuinely rare landing for a hobby mod.
Where it will annoy you
English only on iOS, permadeath with no mercy setting, and a deliberately dated pixel interface that a lot of people simply find ugly. None of that is getting fixed, because none of it is considered broken.
The talent screen. Seven years of quarterly updates, by one person, look like this: systems piled on systems. Store screenshot, Shattered Pixel.
Build 02
Threes!
Sirvo / number puzzle / Android and iOS
Three people, fourteen months, and the most thoroughly cloned puzzle idea of the decade.
3
pairs of hands confirmed
Evidence: the credit roll fits on one screen and names all three (S3). The Google Play developer account is literally called Asher Vollmer and carries two apps (S1). Independent interviews from 2014 onward describe the same trio (S4). The App Store seller is Sirvo LLC, which confirms a company exists, not a headcount.
Credits, in full
Asher VollmerDesign
Greg WohlwendArt
Jimmy HinsonMusic
The core mechanic got prototyped in a single night. Then came fourteen months of not shipping it. They spent roughly half a year trying to dress it as something friendlier than arithmetic, including a sushi version and a chess version, before admitting the numbers were the point and putting them back.
It is premium and it stays premium: no in-app purchases, no ads, no energy timer. The listing says so directly, and it is still true twelve years later.
Two things worth knowing
This is the lowest-rated game on the bench: 4.27 on the Canadian App Store from 390 ratings. Part of that is historical grudge. Threes! was cloned into 2048 within weeks of release, millions of people met the free copy first, and a share of the reviews are still arguing about it.
The price does not agree with itself. On 20 July 2026 the Canadian App Store listed it at $7.99 CAD while Google Play showed $1.29 CAD. That is a gap of more than six dollars for the same game on the same day. It looks like a Play promotion rather than a permanent cut, but we cannot confirm that, so both figures are printed with the date and you should check before you buy.
Checked 20 July 2026
Google Play
$1.29 CAD on 20 Jul 2026, no ads, no IAP, 4.5 stars, 100K+ installs, updated 27 Oct 2025
App Store (CA)
$7.99 CAD, 4.27 stars from 390 ratings, updated 3 Jun 2025
Sixteen squares and one queued tile. Everything three people made is on this screen. Store screenshot, Sirvo LLC.
Build 03
You Must Build A Boat
EightyEight Games / match-three roguelike / Android and iOS
Written by a financial-software programmer who had never made a game, in the hours left over from a full-time job and a young family.
1
pair of hands confirmed
Evidence: multiple independent interviews across several years name Luca Redwood as sole developer behind EightyEight Games (S4). The Play developer account holds four apps, all his (S1). Note the App Store seller is "EightyEight Games LTD", a registered company: that is a business structure, not a second employee.
Credits, in full
Luca RedwoodEverything, under the name EightyEight Games
The story worth telling is the one before this game. His breakout, 10000000, took about a year of nights and weekends while he held down a full-time job writing financial software and raised a family. It sold well enough to let him quit. You Must Build A Boat, in June 2015, is what he did with the freedom.
This one is in maintenance
The iOS build has not been updated since 11 November 2019. It still installs and still runs, but the version number has not moved in over six years and it only requires iOS 9.0, which tells you when it was last thought about. Android is healthier: last update 24 February 2026. The author has moved on to other projects, and nobody has claimed otherwise.
Checked 20 July 2026
Google Play
$3.99 CAD, no ads, no IAP, 4.8 stars, 100K+ installs, updated 24 Feb 2026
App Store (CA)
$3.99 CAD, 4.69 stars from 230 ratings, updated 11 Nov 2019
Two games stacked on one screen, matching below and a boat filling up above. One person wired both halves together. Store screenshot, EightyEight Games.
Build 04
Tiny Bubbles
Pine Street Codeworks / physics puzzle / Android and iOS
Twenty years of building console engines, then one game about soap foam, inspired by the developer's grandfather.
1to2
pairs of hands partly confirmed
Evidence: Pine Street Codeworks is Stuart and Paulette Denman of Seattle (S3, S4). Stuart describes Tiny Bubbles as his first solo project, which is why this reads as one and a half rather than a clean number. The Play developer account holds one app (S1). We are not going to pretend a two-person household divides neatly.
Credits, in full
Stuart DenmanDesign and code, described by him as a solo project
Paulette DenmanPine Street Codeworks, exact role not confirmed
Before this he spent roughly two decades on engines and technology for PlayStation and Xbox, the kind of work that never has your name on the box. The bubble mechanic came out of actual soap foam physics, and he has said the interest traces back to his grandfather, a scientist at MIT. It shipped in 2018 and collected more than sixteen industry awards.
The free version is not the good version
On Android it is free, which means ad breaks between puzzles, and two worlds plus about fifty of the harder levels sit behind an in-app purchase. The clean version is the iOS one at $4.99 CAD with no ads. That is a real difference between the two builds and we are not going to smooth it over: if you install the Android one expecting the reviewed experience, you will not get it.
Look at where the bubbles touch: the walls flatten instead of overlapping. That is the soap foam physics, and it is the reason the game exists. Store screenshot, Pine Street Codeworks.
04 / The credits board
Four builds, side by side. Blank means blank.
Filled squares are confirmed people. A dashed square is a person we can name but whose role we cannot pin down. Dashed bars are time we could not verify: the developer never published a start date, so there is nothing to draw.
BuildHandsStart to version 1.0Apps on account
Shattered Pixel Dungeon1~7 yr1
Threes!314 mo2
You Must Build A Boat1not confirmed4
Tiny Bubbles1 to 2not confirmed1
The bar scale is anchored to the longest verified span on the bench, Shattered Pixel Dungeon's seven years. Next to it, fourteen months for Threes! looks like almost nothing, which is the honest shape of the comparison and the reason we drew it this way.
05 / Bench pick
If you take one thing off this bench, take
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Not because it is the best game here. Threes! is a cleaner object and Tiny Bubbles is prettier. It wins the pick because it is the clearest answer to the question this desk asks.
Someone opened a released game's source code in 2014, decided the balance was wrong, and then kept going for seven years until the thing had become his job. You can install it for free, read every line of the code that produced it, and see a patch land roughly every quarter. There is no other build on this page where the evidence is that complete.
Fair warning, repeated: permadeath, English only on iOS, and an interface that looks like 2013 because he wants it to.
06 / Shavings
Offcuts from counting this issue.
An LLC is not a headcount
Two of these four sell through a registered company. Sirvo LLC. EightyEight Games LTD. It is tempting to read that as a team, and it usually means the opposite: one person who wanted a business bank account and some liability separation. The seller field tells you a legal entity exists. It never tells you how many chairs are in the room.
The best evidence is boring
I spent a while chasing interviews and forum posts before noticing that the strongest proof on this page is a plain sentence on a developer's own about page, and a store account with one app under it. No drama. Just a person writing down who they are, in a place that nobody optimises.
A rumour I refused to print
Search summaries kept telling me the Shattered Pixel developer is Canadian, which would have been a lovely local hook for a desk in Victoria. I could not find it in his own words or in any reference I trust, only in aggregated snippets quoting each other. So it is not on the card. A nice detail is not worth a wrong one.
07 / What pays for this
Nobody paid for a place on this page.
The site is free and there is no paywall
No subscription, no members area, no article limit. Running it costs a domain and hosting, which comes out of the same account that pays for the internet connection.
Store links are plain links
Every button here goes to the official Google Play or App Store listing. They carry no affiliate tag and no referral code, and we earn nothing if you install something. If that ever changes, the links will be marked as sponsored and this paragraph will be rewritten before it happens, not after.
Developers cannot buy in
No developer on this page was contacted before publication, sent us money, or saw the write-up in advance. There is no rate card, because there is nothing to sell.
Paid games were bought
The four paid builds here were purchased at Canadian store prices out of pocket. No review codes were requested for this issue. If a code is ever accepted, it will be stated on the card it belongs to.
08 / Follow the bench
New issue, roughly monthly.
When the next set of credits gets counted, we send one note. That is the whole arrangement. If you allow it in your browser, you also get a push notification through OneSignal when an issue goes up. No phone number, ever, because there is no reason for us to have one.
09 / Questions
The awkward ones first.
How do you actually know how many people made a game?
Four sources, listed in full on the method page: the store developer account, the App Store seller field, the developer's own about page or devlog, and independent interviews. Two or more agreeing is a confirmed number. One source alone is a lead, not a fact.
The honest limit is that uncredited help is invisible from the outside. A contract composer, a friend doing art for a weekend, a partner testing on the couch: none of that appears in a listing. "1" here means one credited, verified builder.
Do developers pay you, or can I buy a spot?
No and no. There is no rate card and no sponsored slot. None of the four developers here knew this page existed before it was published. If you want to tell me about a game, the contact page works and costs nothing, but a pitch is not a placement.
Do you take review copies?
Not for this issue. The four paid builds were bought at Canadian prices. If a free copy is ever accepted, it will say so on that game's card, in the same size type as everything else.
Why not the famous indie games? Stardew Valley was one guy.
It was, and that story is worth reading somewhere. But everyone already knows it, and the mobile ports of the very famous solo games are usually handled by studios that have since grown considerably, which muddies the headcount rather than illustrating it. This bench is for games where the crew is small and the fact is still surprising.
You left out an obvious one. Where is Luck be a Landlord?
Deliberately, and it is worth explaining because it is the best solo story I had to drop. It is made by one person, it is well built, and it would have fit the bench perfectly.
The problem is the game itself: the entire mechanic is a slot machine, and the stores classify it accordingly with a simulated gambling advisory. This desk does not cover games with gambling advisories, and it does not carve out exceptions for ones it likes. So it stays off, and you get told why instead of quietly not seeing it.
Is a low Hands number supposed to mean the game is better?
No, and this is the misreading I worry about most. Hands is a headcount. One person shipping alone tends to produce sharper ideas and rougher edges, and both of those are on the cards above: no localisation, a build frozen since 2019, an ad-supported Android version that is not the reviewed one. Small crew explains a game. It does not excuse it.
