Hands-on
I do the architecture, design, and code myself, with industry-standard patterns and principles.
Independent game studio
The games I always
wanted to make.
Blackonix is my independent game studio. I design, build, and ship every game myself, from the first idea to release.
Coming soon to Steam · Windows · macOS · Linux
An economy you can watch run.
An incremental space-industry game set in a simulated star system. Extract resources, fabricate goods, and build automated Space Force fleets to defend your planets from enemy sieges. Ascend to a newly generated star system and keep your permanent upgrades.
- IndustryPer-planet production chains: mine raw ores, refine them, and fabricate everything from copper wire to solar sails.
- Ships that actually flyCargo, extraction, and discovery ships fly curved orbital paths between your worlds.
- The Dyson swarmLaunch solar sails into rings around the star and beam its power to the planets that face it.
- ThreatsEnemy carriers arrive in waves. Automated Space Force fleets hunt them down.
- AscendEarn quantum credits for permanent upgrades, then start over in a newly generated star system.
Alpha captures. Visuals are subject to change.
Eric Burns · Founder & CEOAbout
I’ve always wanted to understand how things work.
Where it started
With electronics, toys, anything with screws in it, I had to see what was inside before I figured out what to do with it. Games were the big one. I was a heavy gamer, and wanting to know how they were made is what pushed me to teach myself to program around 2003, from forum posts, documentation, and a lot of trial and error. It scratched the same itch on a whole new level, and code became the language I think best in.
Before long I was building and publishing small games of my own. One of them was Iconica, an icon trading and building game. It’s still on BYOND, the platform it was built for. After that I studied game and simulation programming in college, still building projects on the side.
The day job
I work full-time as a software consultant, architect, and engineer. Over the past twelve years I’ve designed and shipped platforms across logistics, education, healthcare, insurance, and field sales.
I’m the kind of architect who stays in the code as a main contributor, and I see the work through to production.
Off the clock
I’ve been married 10+ years and have an amazing son. They keep me grounded, and they’re a big part of why I want to build something of my own.
Why Blackonix
That curiosity turned into a method: you can’t solve a problem properly until you understand how the thing really works. I care about craft and depth, and about getting the fundamentals right before anything else.
For as long as I can remember, the goal has been simple: publish games to the world, taking them all the way from the first spark of an idea through design, architecture, code, and release. Blackonix is me finally doing that, with 20+ years of programming experience and 12+ years of professional engineering and architecture behind it. It starts with Idlenaut, an incremental space-industry game, and every game after it gets the same care: the kind of work I want to put my name on.
Eric · Founder & CEO · Chicago
Background
Computer Science degree in Game and Simulation Programming · Full-time software architect
Shipped
Web platforms, business applications, and mobile apps across five industries
Stack
Java · C# · JavaScript/TypeScript · Python · C++ · Godot 3 & 4
Cloud
Cloud-native on AWS · Azure · GCP
How I work
The same standard, every game.
Whatever the game, the approach doesn’t change. I’d rather do a few things well than a lot of things quickly.
Hard problems
I solve hard problems by understanding them first. The trickier a system is to reason about, the more I want to get in and take it apart before I start changing things.
Through to release
Finishing is the part most projects don’t survive. I’ll cut scope before I leave something at ninety percent. It isn’t done until it’s out in the world and holding up.