YWIX is a reclaimed ground studio. We occupy a decommissioned munitions factory east of Glasgow where nature has spent thirty years dismantling what humans built. We make games in the spaces where concrete cracks and moss wins. The buildings are our collaborators.
Set in Building 4's foundation, where a single hairline fracture has become a vertical ecosystem. You guide root growth through concrete veins. The game tracks real satellite data on soil moisture and rainfall in the actual site. What grows here mirrors what grows there.
Building F was the tool shop. Rust spreads across every surface following real oxidation patterns. You document the decay, categorize the corrosion, and decide what to preserve. The game generates new deterioration each real-world week. Nothing stays the same.
Building A's ventilation system still breathes. You release spores through the ductwork and time their journey across the facility. Based on actual airflow patterns mapped by environmental engineers. The wind in-game matches the wind outside.
Building D collapsed in 2008. We're rebuilding it virtually using photogrammetry from 14,000 site photos taken between 2012–2024. Walk through a structure that exists only as memory and scattered rubble. Completion estimated 2027, if the remaining walls hold.
YWIX occupies 47 acres of the former Gartcosh Ordnance Factory, 12 miles east of Glasgow. Thirteen of us live on-site in converted admin buildings. We don't commute. The site is our home, our collaborator, and our constraint. Nature decides what survives here, including us.
We don't clear land. We clear sectors — sections of the facility where enough stability exists to work safely. Each game emerges from a specific building's ongoing decay. We document the deterioration, then build something that accelerates or honors it. The buildings are co-authors.
Our tools are salvaged. Our electricity comes from solar panels bolted to rusted roofs. Our internet travels via a single microwave link from a nearby hill. We lose connection during storms. We've learned to like it that way. The site teaches patience.
Decides which buildings are safe enough to enter. Maps new cracks weekly. Hasn't left the site in four years by choice. Knows which floors will give way before they do. Sleeps in Building C with a hard hat beside her bed.
Guides the studio's relationship with the site's ecology. Identifies which plant species should be encouraged in each sector. His game designs grow from watching how bracken reclaims asphalt. Keeps a spore library of 140 local fungi.
Photographs every square meter of the site quarterly. Maintains the photogrammetry archive. Can locate any crack, any rust bloom, any sapling from memory. Her documentation is the foundation for every virtual reconstruction.