# How Lost Arcade 2X'd Its Engineering Output and Slashed Tool Dev Time by 95%

#### Julian Park

##### CEO

September 10, 2025

### Overview

- **The Situation:** Lost Arcade, a small indie studio, hit a major bottleneck while developing their debut title, _Voodoo Fishin_.

- **The Problem:** With only one programmer swamped by building core gameplay, the two artists could not get custom tools or automation and were stuck with slow, manual workflows that dragged creative iteration and constantly delayed progress.

- **The Solution:** Using Bezi, Lost Arcade empowered their technical artist to rapidly build and deploy custom Unity tools without writing a single line of C#, facilitating complex processes like NavMesh generation and ScriptableObject organization with in-editor interfaces.

- **The Impact:** This shift effectively doubled the team's engineering capacity, freeing up an estimated 80 hours of programmer time per month (20 hours a week) and accelerating their overall feature velocity by up to 2x, giving them the kind of competitive edge typically reserved for much larger studios with dedicated tool development teams.

### Results Summary

### About Lost Arcade

Lost Arcade was founded by three seasoned developers: Mark, the programmer; Blake the technical artist; and Brett, the artist and modeler. Their mission is to build games they are passionate about, without the compromises that often come with external publishers. Their debut project, _Voodoo Fishin_, blends a Jim Henson-inspired low-poly aesthetic with a co-op horror fishing adventure.

### The Problem

With Mark as the sole programmer, he was constantly pulled in different directions. This programmer bottleneck became a direct cap on the game's quality and the team's creative freedom. Tasks like NavMesh creation, which could be done in five minutes with a tool, took an hour or more.

This single issue represented a larger problem the studio faced: they were accumulating massive "workflow debt." Dozens of small manual processes were costing the art team an estimated 20-30% of their week, creating a subtle but powerful drag on the entire creative process.

The team was forced to operate at a fraction of its true capacity and had to choose between hiring an external developer or scaling down the game for their upcoming launch.

### The Solution

Lost Arcade's adoption of Bezi marked a turning point in their development. They enabled Blake and Brett to unblock themselves, independently creating custom tools and new feature prototypes.

Blake encountered Bezi while trying to make edits to UI prefabs, and instead of just providing instructions, Bezi built a custom Editor tool to perform the tasks for him. Blake described this moment as when the dots connected, realizing that Bezi could be used for scalable work.

Blake built an arsenal of functional tooling that addressed the art team's needs without interrupting Mark’s work on game-critical features.

Blake could now prototype and ship tools in an afternoon that previously took a week to request. Two such tools were:

- **The NavMeshGenerator:** Automates the process of creating NavMeshes for the game's enemies, saving significant time and ensuring consistent, quality results.

- **The FishingManagerDisplay:** Identifies and visualizes fishing area objects, turning a cumbersome process into a simple, visual workflow.

### The Impact

Lost Arcade now ships features and resolves tickets **1.5 to 2 times faster than before**. Bezi unlocked two fundamental workflow changes:  
1. _Artists could build their own tools, allowing them to experiment freely._  
2. _With artists managing technical needs, Mark could focus on critical work, doubling his capacity._

The artists experimented more freely, speeding up workflows significantly. For instance, the NavMeshGenerator tool reduced a tedious process to just "2 clicks," saving an estimated 15 hours on enemy creation alone.

In total, the custom tools built over months saved Blake and Brett countless hours while reducing the programmer's workload. Mark's output nearly doubled as he focused on improving game quality and scope.

> #### _“It’s as if someone cloned me or made me twice as fast. I have at least 20% more time to program each week.”_  _-Mark, Lead Programmer_

The use of Bezi has effectively resulted in the same output as hiring another senior programmer, allowing Lost Arcade to build the game they envisioned without compromises.