How is co-dev different from hiring contractors?

Contractors bill hours and rotate off. Shipyard engineers embed in your repo, learn your conventions, and carry context into the next milestone. You get a vertical owner, not a timesheet.

Which engines do you work with?

Unreal, Unity, Godot, and custom stacks. Source access and middleware are the deciding factors; the intake asks about both so the Scope & Fit Report is grounded in your actual codebase.

Do you take full-game development?

We take feature verticals and milestones, not greenfield pitches without a team on your side. If you need a studio to own the whole title, we can discuss publishing paths separately; Shipyard is for studios that need capacity inside an existing project.

What do you need to start?

A current build or repo brief (NDA-ready), your milestone plan, and a conversation about who reviews PRs on your side. That is enough for the Scope & Fit Report within 72 hours.

Can you work alongside our existing team?

Yes, that is the default. We join your standups, branch strategy, and review process. The fit report names integration risks (bandwidth, domain experts, tooling) before we commit dates.

What happens after a milestone ships?

You get documented interfaces and an ownership map. Many engagements roll into embedded co-dev for the next cycle so context compounds instead of resetting.

00 / SHIPYARD

Your milestone, staffed and shipping.

Co-development for studios with a date to hit and gaps in the roster. Send a build or repo brief; get a Scope & Fit Report in 72 hours.

Book a 20-minute co-dev call Send a project brief (NDA-ready)

Project-specific references shared on the call.

01 / THE PAIN

When this becomes painful

You have a milestone on the calendar: demo, Next Fest, vertical slice, or launch. The design is clear, but the backlog is not: netcode, progression, editor tools, performance, or a whole feature vertical nobody on the team has shipped before.

Contractors quote hours. Agencies pitch decks. Neither embeds in your repo, learns your conventions, or carries context into the next milestone. Every new vendor is a re-onboarding tax you pay in weeks, not days.

FIRST 72 HOURS

What we do first

Review your build, repo access, and milestone plan
Produce a Scope & Fit Report: verticals we can own, team fit, and risk list
Return a milestone-level timeline estimate and what we need to start

02 / DELIVERABLES

What we ship

BERTH-01

Embedded feature verticals

Gameplay systems, UI/UX implementation, editor and tooling
AI and integration hooks scoped per milestone
Perf and stability passes before the immovable date

BERTH-02

Engineering that matches your stack

Unreal, Unity, Godot, or custom: we work in your branch
Your CI, your naming conventions, your review process
No parallel codebase that diverges from yours

BERTH-03

Milestone delivery

Weekly builds and demo-ready slices
Backlog burn-down tracked against the launch window
Documented handoff or roll into the next cycle

03 / CADENCE

How it works

1
Scope & Fit Report (72 hours)
One build or repo brief → verticals ranked by impact vs effort, team-fit assessment, risk list, timeline estimate.
2
Embed + weekly milestone builds
Engineers in your tools from week one. Playable progress and backlog burn-down every milestone.
3
Handoff or stay embedded
Documented interfaces and ownership map at milestone end, or roll into ongoing co-dev for the next cycle.

04 / PACKAGES

Packages

No public pricing. We scope after the fit call.

Milestone Sprint (4–12 weeks)

One milestone: scoped vertical, weekly drops
Demo-ready build at milestone end
Perf and stability pass before signoff

The fastest path when a single date is non-negotiable.

Embedded Co-Dev Team (monthly)

Dedicated engineers on your backlog
Same standups, same repo, context carries forward
No re-onboarding tax every release cycle

Rescue & Stabilize (2–6 weeks)

Performance, crash, or cert-adjacent firefighting
Scoped triage when a date is already on fire
Handoff plan once the build is stable

05 / PROOF

Built like a partnership, not a purchase order

Shipped co-dev references shared on the fit call when they match your engine and milestone; we'd rather show work that fits your vertical than a generic reel.

Multi-year co-dev

Long engagements where context compounds: franchise systems, editors, multiplatform launch support

Any engine

Unreal, Unity, and custom stacks; we scope from your repo, not a template pitch

Milestone-first

Backlog planned against the immovable date, not hourly utilization

Ops-aware

Live-ops hooks, admin tooling, and platform glue when the game is only half the job

Shipyard is backed by engineers who have embedded in client repos for multi-year co-dev cycles: franchise systems, editors, VR experiences, and live-ops platforms. Not a freelancer marketplace; a team that ships inside your milestone plan.

06 / RISKS WE NAME UP FRONT

Risks / Unknowns / What we validate next

Repo access & IP: Who holds the repo and NDA terms changes how fast we embed. Settled on the fit call, not mid-sprint.
Milestone scope creep: Immovable dates need frozen verticals. The Scope & Fit Report names what is in and what is a follow-on milestone.
Team bandwidth: Co-dev only works if someone on your side can review PRs and answer domain questions. We name that dependency up front.
Middleware & platform deps: Third-party SDKs, platform accounts, and backend services can block verticals. Flagged in the fit report before we commit dates.

07 / FAQ

FAQ

08 / INTAKE

Send your brief. Get a Scope & Fit Report in 72 hours.

Fill out the intake below. We'll reply within one business day with questions, vertical recommendations, and what a milestone timeline looks like for your project.

Start intake

Co-Dev Scope Intake

INTAKE 01 / 0714%

Let's scope your milestone.

This takes about five minutes. We save as you go, so you can step away and pick up where you left off. If forms aren't your thing, we'd rather hop on a short call.

Talk to a person instead →

Prefer a conversation? Book a 20-minute co-dev call and we'll walk through the same questions together. No form required.

Book a co-dev call →