Four of us, one room above a shopfront. We build games, and we finish what we start.
Fewer people standing between your idea and a build you can hold.
The people who scope your game are the people who write it. Nothing gets handed to a second studio halfway through, and nobody joins the call to translate.
Most studios open with concept art. We open with a build on the oldest phone in the drawer. Art follows once the thing is fun.
Source, assets, store listings, signing keys — handed over in a repository you control. No licence, no hostage.
We began by taking every job that came in. Ports, plugins, a rota app for a garage in Hinckley. It paid. It also nearly finished us: one quarter where nothing shipped and everything sat half-built.
So we stopped. One flagship build, a couple of small ones, and a shorter list of things we are willing to make.
We don't build gambling mechanics, loot boxes, or anything designed to be hard to put down. It costs us work. We would rather it did.
Gicnode is the studio name. The company behind it is Life Hack Apps Ltd.
Starting figures for a project of ordinary size. Anything unusual gets a written quote after a call — fixed scope, staged payments, no hourly billing.
Concept through to a live store page: design, code, art, audio, submission and the first patch after launch. Mobile or PC as standard; console by arrangement.
Six weeks, one loop, running on a real device. Enough to test the idea properly or put it in front of a publisher.
An existing build onto Steam, Switch, PlayStation or Xbox. Certification passes included.
Internal tools, dashboards, booking systems. The unglamorous work that pays for the games.
Characters, environments, interface and sprite work, supplied as source files rather than flattened exports.
Content updates, seasonal events, server upkeep and store admin once the game is out and people are playing it.
Two weeks inside your build. Frame times, memory, crash logs, and a written list in priority order.
Prices exclude VAT. Nothing is invoiced until a scope is agreed in writing.
A build is finished when somebody else can pick it up and not need us in the room. Gicnode — studio note, pinned by the kettle
Thirty minutes, no charge, no deck. Bring a design document, a sketch on the back of something, or one sentence. We have started from all three.
Calls go to a desk, not a queue. If we are mid-build and slow to answer, email lands faster.
Last updated: 29 August 2026
This website is operated by Life Hack Apps Ltd, a company registered in England & Wales under company number 17242447, whose registered office is at 79 Shilton Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE9 8BP. Life Hack Apps Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.
We do not ask for payment details on this website and we do not collect special category data.
Enquiries that do not become projects are deleted 12 months after the last message. Where you become a client, we keep project correspondence for 6 years after the end of the engagement, in line with the limitation period and our accounting obligations. Your cookie preference stays in your browser until you clear it.
Only the people working at Life Hack Apps Ltd, and our email and hosting providers acting on our instructions as processors. We do not sell your data, we do not share it for anyone else's marketing, and we do not transfer it outside the UK or the European Economic Area except where a provider does so under an approved safeguard such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.
Under the UK GDPR you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where processing relies on it. To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. We reply within one month.
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If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please tell us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF — ico.org.uk, telephone 0303 123 1113.
Last updated: 29 August 2026
This website is operated by Life Hack Apps Ltd, registered in England & Wales under company number 17242447, registered office 79 Shilton Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE9 8BP. Contact: [email protected], 07737 132663. "We" and "us" in these terms mean Life Hack Apps Ltd.
Design and development of games and software: prototypes, full builds, porting to consoles and storefronts, custom software, art and animation, live operations and code audits. Prices shown on this website are starting figures, exclude VAT, and are an invitation to discuss rather than a binding offer. A written quote is valid for 30 days from the date we issue it.
Nothing is bought on this website and no payment is taken here. You send an enquiry by form, email or telephone; we discuss the work; we issue a written proposal setting out scope, deliverables, timetable and price. Work begins only once you accept that proposal in writing. Where the proposal and these terms differ, the proposal governs.
Milestones and dates are set out in the proposal and confirmed in writing before work starts. Where we depend on something from you — assets, store or platform accounts, approvals, access to an existing codebase — a delay on your side moves the dates by the same amount. If a date is going to move for any other reason we tell you in writing as soon as we know, with a revised one.
Fees are invoiced in stages against agreed milestones, unless the proposal says otherwise. Invoices are payable within 14 days. We may charge statutory interest on late payment under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
Either party may end an engagement in writing with 14 days' notice. You pay for work completed and costs committed up to that date; any balance you have paid in advance for work not yet done is refunded within 30 days. Consumers contracting away from our premises have the statutory 14-day right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013; where you ask us to start within that period you remain liable for the work done before you cancel.
On payment in full, ownership of the deliverables built for you — source code, assets, store listings and signing keys — passes to you. We keep ownership of our pre-existing tools and libraries and grant you a perpetual licence to use them within the deliverables. We may name you as a client and show the finished work unless you ask us in writing not to.
Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Otherwise our total liability for an engagement is limited to the fees paid under it, and we are not liable for loss of profit, revenue or data.
Raise any complaint with [email protected] in the first instance; we respond within five working days and aim to resolve matters directly. These terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
