Press Kit · Updated August 10, 2026

Cover Tideward.

An Idle Almanac for every Apple device.

Everything you need to write about, stream, or feature Tideward, a premium idle RPG built natively for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch.

Quick Facts

Title
Tideward (subtitle: An Idle Almanac)
Developer
Manu Games LLC (solo, one-person studio)
Headquarters
Waynesville, North Carolina, USA
Founded
2026, NC-formed LLC
Genre
Idle RPG / Incremental
Platforms
iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch, single Universal app. Apple only: no Windows, Android, Steam, or web build, and none planned
Languages at launch
Fifteen, in the box: English, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Filipino, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese
Pricing model
Free download with a single one-time $9.99 unlock, Family Sharing on for that unlock. Beyond it, optional cosmetic purchases (profile icons, a card background) that affect nothing in play. Every purchase is direct and one-time. No ads, no subscription, no loot boxes, no premium currency. Every product is a non-consumable, so nothing can be bought twice
Mod support
None. App Store apps cannot load third-party code, and the game will never imply otherwise
Online / multiplayer
None. No servers, no accounts, no presence. Game Center provides opt-in achievements and leaderboards
Engine / language
Pure SwiftUI, SwiftData, CloudKit private database, zero third-party dependencies
Status
TestFlight alpha (open invite, capped at first 1,000 testers per Apple's External Testing limit); 1.0 launch February 11, 2027
Trademark
USPTO Serial 99800434 (TIDEWARD, filed May 2, 2026)
Press contact
support@manugames.com
Review keys / TestFlight
Open public link below until 1,000 spots fill; press requests after that go through support@manugames.com (priority slot reserved). Link remains accessible through launch +30 days.
Website
tideward.app (game) · manugames.com (publisher)
Social
@tidewardgame · Discord

About, short

Tideward is a premium idle RPG for every Apple device (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, Apple Watch) where you tend a small coastal world through 28 trades, even while you sleep, with zero ads and complete privacy.

About, 150 words

Tideward is an unhurried idle RPG built natively for the Apple ecosystem. Players tend a small coastal world through 28 trades (combat, gathering, artisan, wayfaring) that progress in real time and continue training for up to 24 hours of true offline progression, at full speed and with no penalty. Built in pure SwiftUI for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch as a single Universal app, where the Watch is a place to play rather than a place to glance. CloudKit syncs the save with no account and no server. The binary ships zero third-party SDKs, earning Apple's App Privacy Nutrition Label "Data Not Collected." Fifteen languages ship in the box. Free download, one $9.99 unlock, Family Sharing on. Currently in TestFlight alpha; 1.0 launches Thursday, February 11, 2027. Built by a one-person studio in Waynesville, North Carolina.

Key Features

  • True 24-hour offline progression. Close the app, your character keeps training. Full speed for the whole window, no throttle, no ad-watch button, no premium gate, no penalty on return. How it works.
  • The Harbormaster's Forecast. The game answers "can I leave this running" before you walk away: it dry-runs your current fight across the full offline window and reports whether you hold or fall, the haul to expect, and the time to your next combat level. It uses the same code that resolves the real offline fight, so the forecast cannot drift from the game. In most idle RPGs this is a third-party combat simulator; here it is a screen.
  • 28 distinct trades. 8 combat, 7 gathering, 9 artisan, 4 wayfaring. RuneScape-rooted skill design with modern indie sensibility. Full list.
  • Six Apple platforms, and the Watch plays. One Universal app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch. The watchOS build runs a real fight, both swing timers, the familiar, and the heal, plus a watch-only hunt that works with the phone in another room. One purchase, one character, CloudKit sync. The Watch build.
  • Fifteen languages in the box at launch. Not a post-launch patch and not community language packs. Every string reads from a translation catalog, so a language is a pass rather than a rewrite.
  • Accessibility taken seriously in a genre that mostly does not. VoiceOver with a speech budget so a busy fight does not talk over itself, Dynamic Type to the largest sizes, no state signalled by colour alone, Reduce Motion, Increase Contrast, and Smart Invert respected, one-finger play, no timed input.
  • Zero third-party SDKs in the binary. No analytics, no crash reporters, no advertising networks. Apple App Privacy Label: "Data Not Collected." Privacy stance.
  • Native SwiftUI everywhere. Not a Catalyst port, not a web wrapper, not a Unity build. Pure Apple-framework architecture top to bottom.
  • Free to try, then one $9.99 unlock, Family Sharing on. No subscription, no premium currency, no FOMO mechanics.
  • Community-driven development. Active Discord with weekly TestFlight builds shaping the game pre-launch.

What Tideward does not do

Three limits, stated plainly so no one has to discover them in a review.

  • No mods. App Store apps cannot load third-party code, so there is no mod loader and no plan for one. This is a platform rule, not a feature held back. The things players usually mod an idle RPG to get are built in instead: the Harbormaster's Forecast in place of a combat simulator, visible drop rates and item sources in place of a wiki tab, App Intents and Shortcuts for automation, and a full export of the player's own data.
  • Apple only. iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch. There is no Windows, Android, Steam, or web build and none is planned. Pure SwiftUI is what makes the six Apple platforms native rather than ported, and it is equally why there is no seventh. Readers on Windows are better served by Melvor Idle 2.
  • No live presence. No servers, no accounts, no friends list, no player counter, no online status. Nothing of the developer's is online, so nothing can report that a player is. The social layer is Game Center: opt-in achievements and leaderboards, shipped.

The commitment, and it is the one to quote: Tideward is not built to keep taking money from its players. Every purchase is direct and one-time, a plain price on a thing seen whole, a $9.99 unlock or an optional cosmetic, owned permanently. No ads, no subscription, no loot boxes, no premium currency. Every product in the game is a non-consumable, so nothing can be sold to a player twice.

Apple Platform Tech

Built natively in Swift and SwiftUI for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch as a single Universal app. iCloud sync uses CloudKit private database, no account creation, end-to-end encrypted by Apple. SwiftData drives all persistence. Live Activities and Smart Stack widgets surface current XP and offline-progression status on the Lock Screen and StandBy. App Intents expose key actions to Shortcuts and Siri, which is also the sanctioned automation path on a platform that cannot load mods. Game Center is shipped: opt-in achievements and leaderboards, with no account of the developer's involved. The watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS builds use the same SwiftUI codebase as iPhone with platform-appropriate idioms (Digital Crown navigation on Watch, Siri Remote navigation on TV, gaze-and-pinch on Vision Pro), and the watchOS build is a full play surface rather than a companion. The app is offline-first; CloudKit sync resumes silently when a network is available. Zero third-party SDKs, zero analytics SDKs, zero advertising libraries.

Accessibility

Tideward's primary tasks are designed to be fully usable with VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, Larger Text, Bold Text, and Increase Contrast. Reduce Motion is honored across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac interface, where animation is routed through a house helper rather than left to each view; the Apple Watch build is the gap, and closing it is on the pre-1.0 list. The game is fully playable with one finger and never requires multi-touch, gesture chaining, or time-pressured input. There is no audio-only or motion-only information path. Color contrast meets WCAG AA across UI states. Haptics are tied to a single Settings toggle. Game Center milestones (when active) are announced via VoiceOver. The first launch experience is fully usable with VoiceOver and at the largest Dynamic Type sizes. Accessibility Nutrition Label support is in active audit before 1.0 submission.

Description, long-form

Tideward is the rare premium idle RPG built without compromise. Most games in the genre are F2P mobile titles built in Unity or a similar cross-platform engine, ad-supported, with offline-progression caps and "watch a video to extend" patterns that train players to never own their experience. Tideward goes the other way: pure SwiftUI for the entire UI, CloudKit private database for all data, zero third-party dependencies in the binary. Apple's App Privacy framework rewards this with a "Data Not Collected" label that almost no game in the same App Store category can honestly earn.

The game itself is built around three principles: respect for your time (24-hour true offline progression with no throttle), respect for your privacy (no tracking, no analytics, no advertising IDs, ever), and respect for your intelligence (deep RPG systems with real choices, 28 trades, the combat triangle, equipment specialization). Players coming from Melvor Idle, RuneScape Old School, or NGU Idle will find the genre DNA familiar. Players who've never touched an idle RPG before will find the onboarding and pacing designed for them too.

The cross-platform scope is what most differentiates Tideward from the rest of the category. The same Universal app, and the same one-time purchase, covers iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch. Train Forging on iPhone at the bus stop, switch to it on Vision Pro at your desk, check progress on Apple Watch on a walk, end the day with Hearth on Apple TV. Same character, same save, same purchase.

Brand Assets

Logos, app icons, screenshots, and key art for editorial use. Please don't modify the logos or use them in misleading contexts. Tideward is a USPTO-filed word mark (Serial 99800434).

Tideward app icon (dark variant)

App Icon (Dark), Full Res PNG

Tideward app icon (light variant)

App Icon (Light), Full Res PNG

Screenshots

Raw in-app captures, no marketing text overlay. Use as-is or compose into story context.

Tideward on Mac, combat interface with offline progression summary Tideward on iPad, Forging trade with full almanac visible Tideward on iPhone, Woodcutting trade progression and inventory

Trailer

Official 60-second trailer, in landscape and a 9:16 vertical cut. Embed below; YouTube and direct links available for editorial use.

YouTube: youtu.be/oTDYV_ZTR9U

Vertical cut, 9:16: youtube.com/shorts/enx8ECF5xNM

Quotes

[Reserved for review snippets at launch +14 days. Pre-launch coverage and TestFlight feedback may be shared by request.]

Studio Bio (~80 words)

Manu Games LLC is a one-person studio based in Waynesville, North Carolina. Manu Games builds quiet single-purchase software for Apple platforms, small games and small tools, made in Swift, made to last. Tideward is the studio's first published game, with launch planned for February 11, 2027. The studio has no investors, no publisher, and no plans to ship outside the Apple ecosystem. Press, reviews, and TestFlight requests: support@manugames.com.

Contact

Databases & Profiles

Tideward and its studio, Manu Games LLC, across the major game databases, business directories, and the open knowledge graph. Verified entries for fact-checking and linking.