Describe a game.
Play it.
Ship it.
Cinder is an AI-native 2D game engine for mobile and web. Direct any AI tool that speaks MCP, hot reload in under a frame, scenes that merge in Git. Bring your own AI key.
An engine that understands what you're building.
The engines you've used were designed before LLMs existed. Their scenes are binary blobs. Their files don't merge. Their iteration loops take ten seconds. They were not built for the way games will be made in the next decade.
Cinder was. Every file is text. Every system is documented for AI agents to read. Every engine operation is a tool an AI can call. Multiplayer, hot reload, and mobile-first build pipelines from the first commit.
Seven things that should have been fixed by now.
The pain list every 2D mobile dev knows by heart. Cinder is built around fixing it.
Iteration speed
Domain reloads on older engines lock the editor for 10+ seconds on real projects. We're targeting sub-100ms hot reload for TypeScript code. Edit, save, see it.
100msMultiplayer is a tax
Networking is the perpetually-broken layer of 2D engines. Cinder ships deterministic rollback, snapshot sync, lobbies, and cross-play between mobile and web from your first commit.
Day oneScene merge conflicts
Binary and pseudo-binary scene formats turn pull requests into a shouting match. Cinder scenes are line-oriented TOML. Diff them, merge them, review them like real code.
Git-nativeBloated mobile binaries
Web builds at 50MB, Android at 100MB, all to render a few sprites. Cinder is targeting sub-2MB WASM and sub-10MB Android. Rust + LTO + WASM compression done right.
< 10MBBattery drain
Most engines redraw at 60Hz even when nothing changed. Dirty-rect tracking, adaptive frame rate, render-on-demand. Your players' phones will thank you.
AdaptiveAI is bolted on, not built in
Existing engines bolt AI on as a chat panel. Cinder ships an MCP server, project-aware skills, and AI-actionable error messages. Your AI of choice reads your project like a teammate.
MCP-firstTrust is the missing layer
No per-install fees. No surprise per-seat hikes. No royalties. Free during preview. We focus on engine quality, not creative billing.
Open ethos…and the pricing.
You're paying your AI provider already. Bring your own key. We don't mark up tokens. The engine is free during preview.
BYOKThree layers, each tuned for what it has to do.
Most engines pick one language and bend it to do everything. We don't. The core is built for performance. The gameplay layer is built for iteration. The scene format is built for trust. Three pieces, designed together, ours to keep improving.
Cinder Core
The renderer, physics, audio, and net stack. Predictable frames on commodity phones, no garbage-collection hitches.
- →One shader language across iOS, Android, web, and desktop
- →Deterministic 2D physics, rollback-ready
- →Low-latency audio with sample-accurate cues
- →No GC pauses, no frame stutters
- →One codebase compiles to every target
Cinder Runtime
Where you live every day. Hot-swappable, AI-readable, tied into the running engine without an interpreter penalty in production.
- →Sub-100ms hot reload — your edit lands on the next frame
- →Game state preserved across reloads
- →Type system catches AI mistakes at compile time
- →Massive talent pool — TypeScript, not a custom DSL
- →Compiled and bundled at ship time, not interpreted
Cinder Scene
Your project is a folder of plain text. Mergeable in Git. Editable by AI agents. Readable in five years when you come back to it.
- →Line-oriented diffs — pull requests work like normal code review
- →Stable string IDs — no GUID conflicts breaking teams at 3am
- →Reloads only the affected entities in under 50ms
- →Editable by humans, AI, and CI alike
- →Schemas embedded for tooling and validation
The editor that understands what you're building.
One window. Live preview is the canvas. AI is ambient, not a chatbot in a corner. Plain-text scenes. Every action one keystroke away.
From idea to playable game in four steps.
cinder new
One CLI command scaffolds a TypeScript project with example scenes, a SKILL.md for Claude Code, and your dev preview window already open.
Describe
Open Claude Code or Codex. Tell it what you want. Cinder's MCP server lets your AI agent spawn entities, edit scenes, and run tests directly.
Iterate
Save a file, see the change in 100ms. Tweak a value, see the scene reload in 50ms. Hot reload that actually feels instant — like Flutter, but for games.
Ship
cinder build —target=android. Get a signed APK. Or WASM for the web. Or IPA for iOS. One codebase. Three targets. No magic.
Not a chatbot in the corner.
Other engines bolted AI on as a chat panel. Cinder shows AI at the point of intent — six surfaces, one keystroke each. Hover any card to see it work.
The blank canvas is itself the AI prompt.
Selection-scoped Q&A on any entity.
Regenerate variations on the spot — never leave the asset.
Paint by description. Select a region, ask for a tilemap.
The error is the input. Click the red squiggle, ask AI to fix it.
One MCP server. Every AI tool. Bring whichever you already pay for.
Works with the AI you already pay for.
MCP-first. Whatever AI tool you're already paying for, point it at the Cinder MCP server and it works. Your subscription powers your authoring. We charge you nothing for tokens.
Cost flexibility
Switch providers as inference prices fall. Pay for the tier that fits your project; we don't lock you into anyone's pricing curve.
Geographic access
Pick a regional model that works for your billing and latency. We don't gate the engine to any one provider's region or payment processor.
Future-proof
Today's leading model isn't tomorrow's. Ride every provider's improvements without renegotiating contracts.
Each loop ~10× faster than the one above it.
Game development is a stack of feedback loops. The editor's job: never block any of them. Cinder's iteration model is React-Fast-Refresh at the bottom, full project scaffolds at the top, and four equally fluid layers in between.
Edit a TS file, save — change is in the next frame, world state preserved.
Cmd-K on a selection · Plan → Diff applied without a context switch.
AI proposes a multi-file change. You approve it per-file. Single git commit.
Click the device chip · re-renders against iPhone 15 Pro / Pixel 8 / Web.
Drop in a Tilemap, TopDownActor, Minigame.Fishing — full-genre scaffold.
Mergeable scenes. Reviewable AI commits.
Picture two devs touching the same scene at the same time.
On the legacy side, the scene file is a pseudo-binary blob with machine-generated GUIDs in every line. Both edits look identical to git. The merge tool gives up. Someone redoes their work by hand at 3am. Cinder is line-oriented TOML with stable string IDs. The diff reads like normal code. Git auto-merges it. Reviewers leave comments on the actual lines that changed. AI agents commit each run as one audited commit so you can revert any of them in one click.
Every AI run is one git commit. Auditable. Revertable.
Targets you can swap. Multiplayer that ships.
Cinder authors against the device. The composite chip surfaces frame time, draw calls, memory, and APK size for whichever target you've picked. Multiplayer is in the engine from your first commit — rollback netcode, snapshot sync, cross-play mobile↔web.
Free during
preview.
Bring your own AI.
Cinder is free to use while we're in preview — and preview will run for a while. We're focused on getting the engine right; pricing comes later, when there's something worth paying for. For now: download, build, ship. Bring whichever AI tool you already pay for.
Make the game you can describe.
Get early access while we're in preview. Direct line to the engine team. We'll open up the alpha gradually — first names off the list go in first.
The honest FAQ.
Is this another generic engine?
No. We're not chasing AAA-3D, the open-source generalist seat, or the AAA-cinematic crowd. Cinder is a focused 2D engine for mobile and web with AI-native authoring as the killer feature. We win on a different axis.
When will it ship?
Engine core MVP early in preview (rendering, scenes, hot reload, Android + web). MCP server and editor follow shortly after. Multiplayer and iOS later. A flagship F2P game shipped on Cinder by the end of preview — built in the engine, on a real store, monetized. Specifics on the public roadmap as we lock them in.
What does it cost?
Free to use during preview. Optional paid services (cloud builds, hosted multiplayer, marketplace) come later, when they're worth paying for. Never per-install. Never royalties on your game.
Why bring-your-own AI key?
Because you're already paying your AI provider. We're not going to mark up tokens. Your subscription powers your authoring. Our value is the integration depth — the MCP server, the project skills, the engine conventions that let your AI agent work intelligently inside your project.
Do I need to know Rust?
No. You write TypeScript. The core is in Rust under the hood — that's our problem, not yours. You only touch Rust if you want to extend the engine itself or write a hot-path optimization. Most game developers will never need to.
Why should I trust you?
You shouldn't, yet. Trust is earned. Pricing terms will be in writing when there's anything to charge for. The roadmap is public. Get on the waitlist and watch us ship.