Patient, deeply systemized indie games for people who like to think — built by hand, native to every Apple device, free of trackers and ads. Maker of Tideward, an idle almanac in TestFlight alpha now.
Two cabinets, illuminated. The works of the studio, set down in order: games on the left hand, lighter cartridges on the right.
A privacy-first idle role-playing game, native to every Apple device. Twenty-three skills, twenty-four hours of offline progression, twin combat and gathering loops, and a small crafted world to explore at your own pace. Saves live only in the player's own iCloud.
A second game is in early design. We will say more when there is more worth saying. Subscribers to the assembly will be told first; the rest of the world will be told eventually.
A small Chrome extension at peanutgallery.live. Built between bigger projects. Open-source under MIT, BYOK by default, no ads, no tracking cookies. It keeps its own privacy policy and terms on its own site.
Manu Games LLC is a single-member LLC, run by one person from a small office in Waynesville, North Carolina, the western mountains of North Carolina. Pure SwiftUI. CloudKit sync only. No analytics. No advertising. No third-party SDKs of any kind.
The studio's posture is patient. Games here are built the way books used to be made: a single hand, a long table, and time enough to get the small things right. The work is meant to last — to be played slowly, kept on a home screen for years, and trusted with one's quiet hours.
A weekly bulletin on factory and idle games — design notes, patch readings, and the occasional dispatch from the studio. Written by a working developer.
A short folio of questions the studio receives most often. For App-specific questions, the longer FAQ lives at tideward.app/faq.
Manu Games LLC is a one-person indie game studio in Waynesville, North Carolina, founded in 2026 by Seth Rininger. The studio makes patient, deeply systemized games for Apple devices — built in pure SwiftUI with CloudKit-only sync, no analytics, no ads, and no third-party SDKs.
Tideward is developed and published by Manu Games LLC. It is built solo by Seth Rininger from Waynesville, NC. The official site for the game is tideward.app.
Tideward is in TestFlight alpha now and ships in February 2027 on the United States App Store, native to iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Watch.
Tideward is a free download with a one-time $9.99 unlock that grants access to the full game on every Apple device you own. There are no subscriptions, no in-game currencies, no ads, and no battle passes. The TestFlight alpha is free to join while the game is in development.
Open https://tideward.app/install/ on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac running a recent OS. Install Apple's free TestFlight app first if you do not already have it; Tideward will install like any other app.
The Assembly Line is the studio's free weekly newsletter on factory and idle games — a long-form Deep Dive on Tuesday and a curated Conveyor Belt digest on Friday. Written by a working developer; subscribe at blog.manugames.com or via the form on this page.
A second cabinet is in early concept; details will be announced when there is more worth saying. Subscribers to The Assembly Line are told first. The studio also maintains Peanut Gallery, a small open-source Chrome extension at peanutgallery.live.
Manu Games LLC is a North Carolina single-member LLC, headquartered at 89 Waynesville Plaza #1028, Waynesville, NC 28786. The studio operates from the western mountains of North Carolina.
