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Farthest Light — Real-Time Strategy for iPad and Mac — Analog Elk
Selected work

Farthest Light — Real-Time Strategy for iPad and Mac

Analog Elk · October 2026

An original real-time strategy game for iPad and Mac, designed and built in-house by Analog Elk. Two factions, the Conkored and the Rift, 229 hand-inked units, an AI with four difficulty levels, and online matches by join code, all running on a deterministic lockstep simulation in Unity. We went from first commit to first beta in 18 days, then shipped seven tagged betas through a review-board loop ahead of launch. Free on the App Store from 30 October 2026.

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Inside the build

Project disciplines

The craft, systems, and media that shaped Farthest Light — Real-Time Strategy for iPad and Mac.

App Development

Built in Unity on a deterministic C# lockstep simulation, so every device in a match computes the same game from the same inputs. That foundation is what makes online play by join code work across iPad and Mac. Controls are built twice, once for touch and once for mouse and keyboard, and both are covered by an automated input suite that grew from 318 to more than 1,000 cases during the beta.

Experience

Every build went to a review board before it reached a player, with each reviewer playing a different role: art director, RTS veteran, accessibility, first-time player, iPad touch. Issues were logged by severity, and nothing moved forward until a build had no blocking issues and at most three serious ones. The unit roster alone went through nine board passes, and the HUD is audited in 264 desktop and 274 touch states on every build.

Web Development

We rebuilt farthestlight.gg in the game's own UI language so the site and the game read as one brand: a gameplay trailer, a build list drawn from the game's data, faction art, a launch email list, and cookieless analytics.

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