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Press kit

Everything you need to write about Northern Oak Games and its games. All images, logos and videos on this page are free to use in coverage, reviews, previews and videos.

Press contact: hello@northernoakgames.com

Northern Oak Games

Developer
Northern Oak Games
Based in
Canada
Games
Long Shot Motors · High-Top Ballistics · Scrapwright
Technology
HEARTWOOD, an in-house C++20 engine
Platforms
PC (Windows) · Android
Press contact
hello@northernoakgames.com

About

Northern Oak Games is an independent game studio from Canada. It makes games with craft and character, and it builds its own technology to make them: HEARTWOOD, a deterministic C++20 engine that runs the same simulation, bit for bit, on Windows, Linux and Android.

The studio's games are Long Shot Motors, a physics-driven car-launch game for PC and Android built on HEARTWOOD; High-Top Ballistics, a one-thumb circus launcher for Android; and Scrapwright, a pixel-art survivors roguelite for PC.

Short description

Northern Oak Games is an independent studio making Long Shot Motors, High-Top Ballistics and Scrapwright, and HEARTWOOD, its own game engine.

Long Shot Motors

Platforms
PC (Windows) · Android
Release
Coming soon
Genre
Physics launch / action
Engine
HEARTWOOD
Levels
The Gravel Pit · Cottage Lake
Download the trailer MP4 · 720p

Build a junker. Send it over the pit.

You wake up in a quarry trailer and the road out is full of zombies. Fight your way to the car, bolt on whatever the junkyard gives you, and launch yourself over the pit. Land it, drive it out, escape. Then try the lake.

  • Physics-driven launches, crashes and landings on a deterministic simulation
  • Upgrades you can see on the car: rockets, wings, floats and skis
  • The Breakout: fight from the trailer to your car
  • Two levels: the Gravel Pit and Cottage Lake
  • The hatchback in flight over the gravel pit
  • Mid-air over the quarry
  • The run-up to the ramp
  • Through the trailer window
  • The Breakout fight
  • The upgraded car
  • Launching over Cottage Lake
  • Skipping across the lake
  • The marina bait shop
  • Cottage Lake vista
  • A lakeside cabin
  • Flyover of the gravel pit

High-Top Ballistics

Platform
Android
Release
Coming to Google Play
Genre
Arcade distance launcher
Business model
One price · no ads · no in-app purchases
Privacy
Privacy policy

Load the clown. Pull back. Let the big top fly.

A one-thumb circus launcher about distance, timing and very little dignity. Fire a monochrome clown out of the big top, upgrade the act, and see how far the show can go.

  • Title screen
  • Aiming the launch
  • Flying over the town
  • Over the fairground
  • Over the moon

Scrapwright

Platform
PC (Windows)
Genre
Top-down survivors roguelite
Content
84 waves · 6 stages · 35 enemy types · 12 bosses

A junkyard dog against the whole scrapheap.

A top-down survivors roguelite in hand-crafted pixel art: 84 waves across 6 stages, 35 enemy types and 12 bosses, with meta-progression carrying you from run to run.

  • Scrapwright junkyard

HEARTWOOD

Language
C++20
Graphics
SDL3 GPU · D3D12 · Vulkan · Android Vulkan
Physics
Jolt 5.6, double precision, cross-platform deterministic, fixed 120 Hz
Platforms
Windows · Android · Linux (headless server)
Status
In production; early access for developers
Download the engine reel MP4 · 720p

Same inputs. Same bits.

HEARTWOOD is Northern Oak Games' own engine, written in C++20 for games that have to be right. Its simulation is deterministic across platforms: one Gravel Pit replay produced 7,200 of 7,200 identical physics step hashes on Windows x64, Linux x64 and Android arm64.

  • HDR forward renderer on a frame graph: physical sky, image-based light, PBR clear-coat paint, four-cascade shadows, VAT crowds, water
  • 966 unit test cases with 1,425,680 assertions, 93 simulation fixtures, golden-image comparisons and per-device performance budgets
  • Own asset cooker (BC7 / ASTC, packs); Windows builds cross-compile on Linux in 86 s
  • Designed for AI-assisted development: text-first data, a headless command line and reproducible frames
  • Same inputs, same bits: Windows, Linux and Android
  • Clear-coat paint in low sun
  • Frame graph pass timings
  • Six instances on one server GPU
  • The engine's layers as tree rings
  • The HEARTWOOD logo

Logos

The mark is a golden oak triquetra under the north star. Please don't recolour, stretch or crop it. The name is set in Cinzel, in capitals.