Revised September 16, 2026. The first section now tells the origin the way I lived it, the platform list names all six Apple devices instead of three, and the closing section reflects the open alpha and the pre-order. The three principles stand as written in April.
The game I wanted to play didn’t exist
I love idle games. The satisfaction of watching numbers climb, of opening an app and discovering your character grew while you slept. There’s something meditative about it.
I also live in the Apple ecosystem. iPhone in my pocket, Mac on the desk, a watch on my wrist, an Apple TV in the living room. I wanted to play this genre inside that ecosystem, with the interface and the feel that implies: a deep idle RPG that felt native on every Apple device I owned, with the UX and UI taken as seriously as the numbers underneath.
A few other wants were there from the start. I wanted a race: a competitive leaderboard where the players who want one can measure themselves against other people. Game Center’s weekly boards and Challenges carry part of that today. I wanted a fully Apple system, one save on every device I owned, the watch on my wrist included. And I wanted timed notifications, a tap the moment a long trade finishes, so I could put the phone away and trust the game to speak up on my terms.
None of that was as crisp on day one as it reads now. The vision was a cloudy version of this, and two years of building have honed it. The wants haven’t changed; the details have sharpened. So I started building, and I kept going.
What makes Tideward different
Tideward is built around three principles that guide every design decision:
Respect for your time. Offline progression isn’t a feature. It’s the foundation. Your character grows meaningfully whether you’re playing for hours or checking in once a day. No timers designed to bring you back at inconvenient moments. No FOMO.
Respect for your privacy. No analytics. No ad SDKs. No third-party libraries at all. Your game data lives in your iCloud account, encrypted by Apple in transit and at rest. I can’t see your data, and that’s by design.
Respect for your intelligence. Deep RPG systems with real choices. Not just “tap to upgrade.” Actual build diversity, meaningful specializations, and progression that rewards thinking.
Built for Apple, built to last
I chose to build for the Apple ecosystem and nothing else: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Watch, where a real fight runs on your wrist. That is the fully Apple system I wanted from the start, and it came with a practical gift: CloudKit. Your save syncs through your own iCloud, no server of mine ever holds it, and your progress follows you across all six devices with zero accounts to create.
What’s next
When this post first went up, the alpha ran through Discord invites. Today the TestFlight alpha is open to anyone: free, one invite for all six devices, open until launch. Tideward is also on the App Store for pre-order, releasing February 11, 2027. Every day, testers help shape the game by reporting bugs, suggesting features, debating build strategies. If you want to be part of that, join us on Discord.
This devlog is where I share the journey: design decisions, technical challenges, community stories. I’m building in the open because the best games are made with their players, not just for them.
Welcome aboard.