OngoingProject · Now

Lemon Tree Studio

Build the machine that builds the games.

A small studio designed around rapid iteration, reusable systems, and learning in public.

  • Game development
  • Publishing
  • Analytics
Lemon Tree Studio — Joel Diab project cover

A studio is a compound interest machine.

Lemon Tree Studio is not a logo-and-laptop fantasy. It is the operating system underneath the games: how ideas get tested, how shipping stays habitual, and how each project feeds the next one instead of vanishing into a hard drive.

The name matters less than the loop. Small team energy. Serious systems. An insistence that taste and data can sit at the same table without one bullying the other.

A studio is a compound interest machine. — Joel Diab project illustration
The point is not to ship once. The point is to become the kind of place that can keep shipping.
Studio north star

Reusable systems before disposable heroes.

Every game teaches something about retention, onboarding, monetization texture, or the weird psychology of "one more try." Lemon Tree is built to capture those lessons as tools, not vibes.

Templates for prototypes. Analytics hooks that show up early. Creative testing that does not wait for a launch day. The studio gets smarter when the pipeline gets sharper.

Reusable systems before disposable heroes. — Joel Diab project illustration
Field notes

What the work is teaching so far.

  1. Speed is a creative skill

    A rough prototype in days beats a perfect pitch in months. Reality has opinions. The studio exists to hear them sooner.

  2. Public learning compounds

    Writing the journey in public creates accountability and attracts the right collaborators — people who like unfinished maps.

  3. Publish with eyes open

    Analytics are not the enemy of art. They are headlights. You still choose the road.

  4. Reuse without getting stale

    Shared systems should free imagination, not flatten every game into the same silhouette.

The path

Where Lemon Tree sits on the map.

This is a long road. Markers matter more than mirages.

  1. 01

    Foundation

    Identity, toolbelt, and a publishing rhythm that can survive distraction.

  2. 02

    Live workshop

    Active prototypes and games-in-flight that pressure-test the studio systems.

  3. 03

    Signature catalogue

    A small shelf of titles that feel unmistakably Lemon Tree — playful, sharp, and replayable.

  4. 04

    Self-funding engine

    Enough repeating revenue and craft leverage to fund bolder chapters ahead.

How decisions get made

Three lenses on every idea.

If a concept cannot survive these three questions, it waits in the greenhouse.

01

Feel

Is there a moment players will chase for its own sake — a joke, a tension spike, a tiny miracle of juice?

02

Loop

Can someone understand the core action fast, then rediscover depth across sessions without being lectured?

03

Machine

Does shipping this leave behind something reusable — a system, a metric, a pattern — for the next title?

Games first. Infrastructure later. World-building eventually.

Lemon Tree is chapter one of a longer story: the studio funds the competence; the competence funds the research; the research funds the wilder futures.

But none of that lands if the studio itself is soft. So the daily work stays humble and concrete — make something playable, learn honestly, improve the shop floor.

Games first. Infrastructure later. World-building eventually. — Joel Diab project illustration
Next on the bench

Keep the greenhouse warm.

More prototypes. Cleaner analytics. A clearer house style. The adventure continues in commits, playtests, and notes written while the coffee is still hot.