What is Somerled Creative?

Hi, I’m Rick. I created Somerled Creative back in August of 2023 as a freelance software development and consulting agency. I’ve spent over 15 years working as a software engineer participating in all sorts of software projects big and small. From ecommerce to ad distribution networks and even in massive ERP systems, I’ve seen it all.

The reality of adult life is spending less time on what you love, like reading books and playing video games, and far more time working on other people’s projects. With this venture, I hope to spend more time with the best people in my life and working on projects that excite us.

This new pursuit means a new era for Somerled Creative, a transition away from general software engineering to a focus on becoming a small, family-operated game development studio.

The fact is, my kids, my wife and I love playing video games together and we have some ideas of our own about what family friendly games could be. We hope to be able to bring our ideas to life by creating fun and entertaining interactive experiences.

The Mission

Our mission with Somerled Creative is to provide high-quality, family-friendly, human-made video game experiences - free from subscriptions, microtransactions, and heavy-handed messaging.

Why This Site Exists

Using social media and this website, we hope to share our development journey through development logs, tips and tricks, thoughts and lessons related to game development, and announcements about our work. If you’re interested in learning more about our journey or about our work, we hope you will find value in our content.

What You’ll Find Here

We see this website as a way to connect with our community and to, hopefully, offer valuable insights and resources for fellow game developers and players. You can expect to find any of the following types of content here:

  • Announcements and updates
  • Technical implementations and tutorials
  • Development workflows and best practices
  • Architectural patterns and design decisions
  • Code samples and reproducible documentation
  • Godot Engine tips and tricks

The Tech Stack

We like open and accessible software. In fact, we run Linux-based operating systems on all of our workstations. Each machine represents a collection of personal preferences, workflows, and tooling.

Our games are built upon the wonderful Godot Engine (v4+) using GDScript, GLSL, and C++/GDExtension. We hope to one day contribute back to the Godot Engine but for now we are grateful for its capability and permissive license.

Additionally, we include the following fantastic software in our toolbox:

  • Gitea for version control and source code management.
  • NextCloud for online collaboration and file storage.
  • Blender for creating 3D models and animations.
  • Krita for creating game assets and animations.
  • Penpot for creating game UI and prototypes.

Undoubtedly, we will be adding more tools to our toolbox in the future.

Looking Ahead

As we embark on this journey, we hope to produce video game experiences that you find immersive, engaging, and enjoyable. We intent for our games to be supported entirely by embedded ads. However, we hope that players who prefer an ad-free experience will purchase a small one-time removal fee - no subscriptions, no microtransactions.

We’ve already started on our first planned project called Polliwog Hop, which we intend to release by end of Summer 2026.

Cover image via Pixabay