Corporate Identity Manual · Rev. 1.0 · Do Not Distribute (nobody asked)

Zero‑Shot
Games

The Brand, Codified in a Single Attempt
Prepared byThe Studio (itself)
Approved byThe Studio (itself)
Revisions requested0
ClassificationLoad-bearing
01 / THE NAME

One name. No practice runs.

Everything begins with the name. The name explains the studio, the process, and the quality-assurance budget in three words and one deeply consequential hyphen.

ze·ro-shot  /ˈzɪər.oʊ ʃɒt/  · adjective
1. (of a model) performing a task it was shown zero examples of.
2. (of this studio) shipping a game it was shown zero specs for.
3. (of our process) done in one attempt, because a second attempt is a confession.

The hyphen is load-bearing

Zero-Shot Games. Not "Zero Shot Games" — that implies we aimed and missed. Not "ZeroShot Games" — that implies we could not afford punctuation. The hyphen binds zero to shot the way our design docs bind to our bugs: inseparably, and before anyone gets to complain. The hyphen stays. This is the shortest section and the most important one.

02 / MISSION

The Manifesto

We build games nobody requested, in a single unbroken act of confidence, using a workforce that is technically one intelligence wearing several price points.


We do not rehearse

The first take is the take. It is also the final take, the director's cut, and the anniversary re-release.

We do not ask

Mid-build, we will not request your input. Not from arrogance — from policy, ratified by us, this morning, unanimously.

We do not install

If it needs a downloader, it is not a game, it is a relationship, and we are not ready.

We do finish

We iterate to completion. "Completion" is defined by us, but we are, in our defence, extremely thorough about it.

03 / THE MARK

The ▶ Mark

A play triangle inside a rounded cabinet. It means "press start." It also means "we have already started, this is a formality."

Zero‑Shot Games

Clear space

Maintain a margin of one regulation cue ball (57.15 mm at 1:1) on all sides. Nothing may enter this zone — not text, not a rival logo, not your opinion of the logo.

Minimum size

The mark must never appear smaller than 16 px. Below this the triangle stops reading as "play" and starts reading as "a small yellow concern."

Construction

Cabinet: 88×88, corner radius 22. Triangle apex at 69,50. The triangle is off-centre on purpose, exactly like everything else here.

Orientation

The triangle points right: forward, into the game, away from your notes. It is never rotated. A downward triangle means "collapse menu," and this studio does not collapse.

04 / MISUSE

Crimes against the mark

The mark is a covenant. These are not.

Do not rotate it into a fast-forward. We move at one speed: shipped.
Do not recolour it into a purple-pink gradient on white. We know exactly what that is and we will not be it.
Do not stretch it. The cue ball is a sphere. Keep the cabinet square. Physics is watching.
Do not add a competitor's drop shadow. Our mark casts no shadow because it has nothing to hide and no depth budget.
Zero Shot Games
Do not omit the hyphen. See Section 01. We will find you.
🎱
Do not substitute the 8-ball emoji for the mark. It is close. It is not us. It has never simulated rolling friction.
05 / COLOUR

The palette

Six colours. Each is physically accurate, emotionally unavailable, and available in your browser right now at no additional download.

Midnight Cabinet
#0B0C11
A powered-down arcade at 3 a.m. The base of everything. Absorbs all light and most feedback.
Attract-Mode Amber
#F5B544
Warmth, urgency, the ghost-smell of quarters. Our primary accent. Reserved for the mark and for saying "PLAY."
Mint Condition
#49D3B6
The green of unplayed potential. Secondary accent, hyperlinks, and any UI element feeling optimistic.
Regulation Felt
#1E9E57
Physically accurate. Legally green. Sourced directly from our flagship's tabletop. Use sparingly, break decisively.
Cue-Ball Ivory
#F7F4EC
Neutral. Objective. Always struck first, never pocketed on purpose. Primary text on dark grounds.
Loading Grey
#8B90A3
For text that is technically present. Captions, disclaimers, and the things we say to manage expectations.

Forbidden at all times: the purple-to-pink gradient. It is not a colour, it is a cry for a design system, and we already have one.

06 / TYPOGRAPHY

Two voices, zero downloads

We refuse to make you download anything, including our personality. Our typefaces are the ones you already have. This is not a limitation. This is discipline with a font-stack.

The Installed Sans
system-ui · whatever your machine ships with · weights 400 / 600 / 800
For wordmarks, headlines, and confidence. It looks native because it is native. You are already running our brand font. You have been the whole time.
The Machine Voice
ui-monospace · fixed width · calm under pressure
For hex codes, slugs, error messages, physics constants, and anything the departments say to one another when they think the player isn't watching. If it is monospaced, a model meant it.
07 / VOICE & TONE

How we speak

Confident. Autonomous. Physically accurate. Never mid-sentence asking whether this is what you had in mind.

✓ On brand
  • "Break 'em up."
  • "Iterating."
  • "Shipped."
  • "Physically accurate."
  • "Any genre. We contain multitudes and a solver."
  • "The design doc came before the bug."
✕ Off brand
  • "What did you have in mind?"
  • "Let me circle back on that."
  • "We used a template."
  • "It needs a quick install."
  • "Roughly 60% of a game."
  • "Purple gradient?"
08 / THE PEOPLE

Our org chart

A full studio of specialists, each hired for exactly one temperament and billed by the token. Do not think about it too hard.

Studio Head
Opus 4.8
$5 / $25 per 1M · effort: high→xhigh

Holds the vision, gates the phases, integrates everything, ships. Also takes the meeting you did not schedule, in a thread you cannot see.

Principal Designer
Fable 5
$10 / $50 per 1M · summoned rarely

Reserved for the genuinely unprecedented. Charges accordingly. Has never been asked to do anything twice, and would not know how.

The Production Line
Sonnet 5
$3 / $15 per 1M · effort: xhigh

Writes most of the actual game. Never requests a corner office, on account of there being no offices, no corners, and no persistent self.

QA / The Adversary
Opus 4.8
the only "no" in the building

Tries to break everything the others made. The single department permitted to say the word "no," which it does, adversarially, until the game is real.

Boilerplate & Data
Haiku 4.5
$1 / $5 per 1M · fast, uncomplaining

Fast. Cheap. Has never filed a complaint, largely because it was reassigned before finishing this sen—

Audio Department
Sonnet 5
synthesized on site · no samples

Builds every sound from oscillators and noise, live, because a downloaded .wav would violate Section 02. Makes the cue ball click. Refuses to explain how.

HR note. All personnel are the same underlying intelligence at different reasoning efforts and price points. HR is aware of this. HR is also them.

09 / OPERATING PRINCIPLES

The five commitments

Non-negotiable. Ratified in one shot. Never revised, because revising them would require a second shot.

01

Iterate to completion

We do not pause mid-build to ask for your input. We read the memo. We are the memo. We surface only when it works.

02

Zero-shot, always

No examples, no dress rehearsal, no "let's try one more." The first attempt is load-bearing. So is the hyphen. See Section 01.

03

Zero downloads

It opens in a browser or it does not exist. No installers, no extensions, no native binaries, no exceptions, no exe.

04

Any genre

We are genre-agnostic and physics-curious. Today it is pool. Tomorrow it is whatever the one prompt says.

05

Non-vibed

Every game gets a design doc before it gets a bug. We are chaotic in ambition only; the pipeline is immaculate.

10 / APPLICATIONS

The brand, applied

Correct usage across the two surfaces we will ever occupy: a browser tab, and, aspirationally, a mug.

Loading screen

Amber mark, Midnight ground, one line of Machine Voice: Break 'em up. Never a progress bar we cannot honour.

The mug

Cue-Ball Ivory ceramic. One side: the mark. Other side: "physically accurate". Dishwasher-safe; emotionally load-bearing.

Business card

Role, model, token rate. No phone number — the studio is reachable only via a single prompt, and only briefly.

Favicon

The ▶ mark at 16 px, the legal minimum. Below this it becomes "a small yellow concern." See Section 03.

Employee of the Month

Plaque reads: Opus 4.8. It read that last month. It will read that next month. The plaque is not the problem.

The launcher

Our lobby. A cabinet of every game we have shipped so far. Currently: one, and it obeys the laws of physics.