Stories you can read, play and use

Cacko Studio is the independent studio of Julio Cacko, a product designer and game developer from Brazil. First up: a book about a signal that should never have been answered.

Read COLD BEACON free Work with me

I spent years designing software used by more than 80 million people. Now I make my own worlds: a novella I took back from its publisher, a game set on its planet, and free tools for the developers building theirs.

Cold Beacon

Out now. A contractor answers a distress signal on a planet the Company swears is free of anomalies. Three chapters are free to read; the full novella is $5.

36 pages · PDF · English, Portuguese soon

Start reading

, the game

The planet from the book, now playable and in development. One contract, one signal, forty-five minutes of air.

  1. A landing craft on a rust-orange desert under two suns.
    I

    The Contract

    The planet has no name. Only a designation, a rust-orange desert, and a distress signal blinking to the north.

  2. An abandoned survey rig in a dust storm, a cable running across the sand.
    II

    The Walk

    Standard protocol: locate the signal, confirm personnel status, return to the ship.

  3. An astronaut slumped against a rock, a glowing device in the sand.
    III

    The Survey Team

    Audio logs left in the sand. A backpack emptied in a hurry. A body against a rock, visor full of sand, oxygen to spare.

  4. Carved monoliths standing in a red storm.
    IV

    The Monoliths

    Someone scratched four words into the stone floor before they stopped looking at anything else.

How it plays

  • Helmet view with a scanner in hand and an oxygen timer reading 31:42.

    Oxygen is the clock

    Forty-five minutes of air. ATLAS counts every one.

  • A handheld scanner pulsing over an abandoned camp.

    Scan the silence

    A pulse finds what the last team left behind.

  • Visor HUD over a survey stake in the storm.

    The analysis visor

    “Analysis: natural rock formation. No data.”

  • A gloved hand wiping sand off the helmet glass.

    Wipe the visor

    The storm builds on the glass. Only a glove clears it.

The Company thanks you for your service.No anomalies detected.

Free input icons

The Super Input Prompt Pack: more than 1,100 controller, keyboard and mouse prompts for your game. Free under CC0, commercial projects included.

  • Unreal Engine, Unity and Godot
  • 5 gamepad sets and 3 keyboard and mouse styles
  • 128 × 128 px icons plus a sprite sheet
  • No attribution required
Get them on itch.io Get them on Fab
Super Input Prompts Pack key art: icons for PC and consoles, 100% free.
  • X inputs: default, light and 3D gamepad icon sets.
  • P5 inputs: default, light and 3D gamepad icon sets.
  • S inputs: default, light and 3D gamepad icon sets.
  • Keyboard and mouse: default, light and 3D icon sets.
  • Steam inputs: default, light, 3D and alt icon sets.
  • P4 inputs: default, light and 3D gamepad icon sets.

Featured on 80.lv

Consulting

Between stories, I help studios and product teams ship interfaces people understand at first sight.

  • Product & UX design

    Senior product design and enterprise UX, from discovery to shipped flows. Work used by more than 80 million people.

  • Game UI & UX

    Menus, HUDs, onboarding and input prompts that stay readable on a TV across the room and on a phone in your hand.

  • Unreal Engine 5

    UI implementation, gameplay prototypes and tools in UE5, made by someone who designs the screens too.

Client workFunnel RunnersPIX Football Manager
contact@cacko.com.br
Illustrated portrait of Julio Cacko in a black t-shirt.

Hi, I'm Julio

Senior product designer, game developer, and now a self-published author. I spent years designing enterprise software, then fell back in love with making things that are just mine: a book, a game, and tools other developers can use for free.