01
Distance is the difficulty curve
Ore richness, hostile density and hostile tier all scale with how far you are from the origin. The map isn't decoration — it's the progression system. Home space is safe and poor, so you have to leave.
Games with
zero filler.
Dopamine Zero Studios is a small independent studio building systems-heavy games for the browser. No energy timers, no loot boxes, no daily-login treadmill — just the decisions worth making.
Now in development
Wreckbound
mine · refit · reclaim your wreck
You start with a bare hull and a mining laser. Cut ore out of asteroids, dock at a station, refit, and push further from home — the rock gets richer and the company gets worse. Die and you lose everything — but your wreck stays exactly where you fell, pinned to the edge of your scanner. Going back for it is the whole game.
02
Your engines decide the fight
Every hostile tier has a pursuit speed, and your thruster level says which ones you can outrun. Fight-or-run is a real decision that changes shape with every upgrade — and the heavy gun is gated behind the space you can only survive by fleeing.
03
An upgrade is a fit, not a purchase
Committing in the refit bay spends the materials and opens the hull; the fit then runs while you fly, up to ten seconds for a deep system, one at a time. You can't stand in a menu and spend your way up a ladder.
04
The galaxy belongs to the room
A lobby is one seed shared by up to twenty pilots for its whole life — dying never reseeds it. Until there are humans in every berth, bots fly your loop, not an enemy's: they mine, they grow, they can kill you, and their wreck has their name on it.
PlatformBrowser — no install
PlayersUp to 20 pilots per galaxy
StatusPlayable build, in development
The studio
Small studio.
Deep systems.
Dopamine Zero Studios is an independent studio built on one idea: a game should be worth playing for the decisions it asks you to make, not the reward schedule wrapped around them.
01
Systems firstHidden information, real trade-offs, emergent strategy. One mechanic that keeps surprising you beats ten that don't.
02
No dark patternsNo energy timers, no loot boxes, no engagement bait. You should be able to put the game down and want to come back anyway.
03
Balance you can measureHeadless simulation harnesses run thousands of hours of play, so tuning decisions come from data instead of taste.
04
Built in the openPrototypes, devlogs and postmortems as we go. When something doesn't work, we say so and show what replaced it.
Contact
Let's talk.
Playtesting, publishing, press, or an early build of Wreckbound — the inbox is open.