ZPEX is a territorial game studio. We do not build levels; we chart regions, fix datums, and release playable maps. Every title is a surveyed province with contours, margins of error, and a north arrow you can trust.
A walking chart across a continent that shifts by longitude while you sleep. Plant cairns, triangulate ruins, and correct the world’s false easting before the sun disagrees.
Settlement sim on a 1:5000 slope. Terrace the hills, negotiate with the river’s right-of-way, and keep the legend honest when the flood revises every boundary.
Every compass in the game lies by a different amount. Decode declination, trust the stars, and reach a summit that moves when unobserved.
Co-op survey of a retreating ice sheet. Measure, argue, re-measure. Currently in tundra trials; no chart date until the datum holds.
ZPEX started with a broken GPS, a folded Ordnance Survey sheet, and a game about getting lost on purpose. Ten years later we are ten surveyors between Linz, Tromsø, and a trailer we park wherever the next datum needs us.
We treat games like field manuals: gridded, annotated, reproducible. No hand-holding minimap until you have earned the coordinate system. No fast travel until the route exists.
Our engine logs elevation. Our writers file dispatch reports. Our release checklist ends with “does the north arrow point north?”
Owns the legend. Decides which mountains are allowed to exist. Believes a good map is a promise the terrain keeps.
Writes terrain generators that respect watershed logic. Specializes in erosion you can navigate and slopes that remember your footprints.
Turns dispatch logs into narrative. Records place names that only survive one winter and lets the map forget them honestly.