Loopfund brand kit

Updated 2 September 2026. How we talk, how we look, and what we are for. When a new page or a new sentence doesn't match this, change the page, or change this and say why.

The idea in one breath

Fans pay for the machine time. AI builds the game in public. The creator never touches the money.

Everything else on this page is a consequence of that sentence. It is what makes strangers comfortable funding someone they've never heard of, it is why every dollar is visible, and it is why the word "donation" never appears on the site.

Positioning

For people who back indie games before they exist, and creators who can describe a great game but can't build it alone, Loopfund is a funding site where the money buys compute instead of paying a person. Unlike Kickstarter, Patreon or GitHub Sponsors, where you trust a maker with cash and hope, Loopfund puts every dollar into a hosted machine that builds the game in the open, judged round by round against a bar the creator set, with whatever isn't spent going back to the backers.

	Kickstarter	Patreon	GitHub Sponsors	Loopfund
Money goes to	the creator	the creator	the creator	a machine, never the creator
What you see	updates when they feel like it	posts	commits	every round, every dollar, live
If it stalls	you eat it	you cancel	you cancel	unspent money is refunded
Proof of work	trust	trust	the repo	blind judging against reference frames

Who we're for, in order

Backers: people who already put $25 into indie games on Kickstarter or itch, follow devlogs, and are curious what AI can build when someone pays for the whole run. They want to watch.
Creators: people with taste and a clear picture of a game, who can't or won't spend a year building it. Designers, writers, artists, small studios between projects. They want a build, not a paycheck.
The curious: people who heard "AI built a game live for $500" and came to see if it's real. They should be able to tell in ten seconds.

indie gamescrowdfundingbuilt in publicAI agentscompute, not cashblind judgingrefund what's unspentthe bar

Elevator pitches

Five seconds

Kickstarter, except the money buys compute and the creator can't take a cent. AI builds the game live.

Thirty seconds

Loopfund is a funding site for indie games where backers pay for machine time instead of paying a person. A creator posts a pitch, a paragraph on what "done" looks like, and a few reference frames from the game they're chasing. Backers fund it. When the goal is met, a hosted computer boots with a spending cap equal to the pot and AI agents build the game round after round, judged blind against those reference frames. Every round ships a playable build and shows what it cost. The creator steers but never touches the money; whatever isn't spent goes back to the backers.

Two minutes, for someone who asks "why would that work"

Two things changed this year. AI coding agents can now run for days, not minutes, and they get dramatically better when a separate agent judges the result against a real target instead of the agent grading itself. That method exists; a few people run it on their own machines and it costs a few hundred dollars per game. What doesn't exist is a way for a creator without that money or that setup to get a run, and a way for fans to pay for one without just handing cash to a stranger.

Loopfund is that. The money never becomes a payout, so we don't need the trust machinery of a crowdfunding site. It becomes a hard spending cap on a machine we host, so the creator can't misuse it and can't run off with it. Because the build happens on our machine, we can show all of it: the builds, the judging, the spend. Backers get something Kickstarter never gave them, which is watching. Creators get something Patreon never gave them, which is a finished thing. And because the unspent part is refunded, the worst case for a backer is a partial refund and a good show.
Say the last line out loud before using it. If it sounds like a pitch deck, cut it.

Tagline

The tagline's only job is to make someone who's never heard of us want the second sentence. The second sentence explains the mechanic. Don't make the tagline do both.

Back a game. Watch it get built.

Followed, always, by a plain line about the money: Your money buys machine time; AI agents do the work in public; the creator takes no cash.

Why not the earlier one

"Back a game. Pay for the machine, not the maker" assumed you already knew that crowdfunding money normally goes to a person. Anyone who didn't have that frame read "machine" and "maker" as a riddle. The replacement promises the experience (watching), and leaves the mechanic to the explainer.

Alternates, in case the mood changes

Line	Reads as	Use when
Back a game. Watch it get built.	the experience	default; homepage, share card
Your money builds the game. Literally.	the mechanic, with a wink	ads, social, where the explainer can't follow
Fund the build, not the builder.	the rule	creator-facing; press
Every dollar becomes build time.	the money	checkout, receipts
Games built in public, paid for by their fans.	the category	about pages, one-line descriptions
Kickstarter for compute.	the analogy	talking to people who build things; never on the public site

Voice

We sound like the friend who explains money honestly. Plain verbs, short sentences, real numbers, no adjectives doing the work a fact should do.

Say the number. "$85 of every $100 becomes compute" beats "the vast majority of your pledge." If we don't have the number, we don't have the sentence.
Describe, don't sell. The product is interesting enough. "AI builders make a round of changes; separate AI judges compare the result against the bar" needs no "revolutionary."
Name the downside in the same breath. "You're charged now. Whatever isn't spent comes back." "No GPU: stills are fine, frame-rate claims aren't."
Sentence case, always. Buttons, headings, labels. No ALL CAPS eyebrows, no Title Case Buttons.
Active voice, and the button says what happens. "Back Tidewater," not "Submit." "Start a project," not "Get started." The name of an action stays the same through the whole flow.
Second person for backers and creators, first person plural for us. "You're charged now." "We host the machine." Never "users."
No exclamation marks. No emoji. No "just."
Empty and error states give directions, not moods. "Publishing needs a GitHub account. Use Connect GitHub above, then publish again." Not "Oops!"

Not thisFuel the loop! Your pledge is held in escrow until the Gauntlet Loop kicks off, then 85% is converted to tokens and streamed to the sandbox.

ThisBack this project. You're charged now and the money is held for this project. When the build starts, $85 of every $100 becomes compute on it; the rest covers card fees, hosting and Loopfund.

Not thisUnleash autonomous AI agents to bring your dream game to life.

ThisDescribe where the game is going. Show what good looks like. A hosted machine builds it, round after round, until it's there.

Not thisSomething went wrong. Please try again later.

ThisThe card was declined and nothing was charged. Try another card, or back this project later; the pot doesn't close.

Words we use

Public copy uses the left column. The right column is how the system is built; it belongs on the spec pages and in code, and creators hear it only if they ask.

Say	Not	Why
project, campaign	loop, run	"Loop" is the name of the method and the company, not the thing a backer backs.
build	run, session, harness	Everyone knows what a build is.
round	wave	Rounds are judged; waves just happen.
judge, judging	critic, gauntlet	A judge picks a winner. A critic complains.
the bar, reference frames	shot set, targets, ground truth	"Clear the bar" is a phrase people already own.
hosted machine, a computer we host	sandbox, VM, container, E2B	The point is that it isn't the creator's laptop.
compute, machine time	tokens, inference, API spend	Compute is what the money buys. "Tokens" only in the ledger detail, and defined there.
backer, back	funder, donor, pledge, donate, fuel	Kickstarter taught the world this word. Nobody is donating.
held for this project	escrow, locked, secured	Escrow is a legal term for something we are not.
goal	threshold	Goal is a word a person uses.
stretch goal	stretch, ceiling	Already understood.
note (to the next round)	nudge, prompt, injection	A note is what it is.
AI builders, AI judges	agents, subagents, the model, Claude	Roles people can picture. Model names go on the campaign's credentials card, once.
Start, Pause, Ship	launch, kick off, deploy, terminate	Three buttons, three verbs, unchanged everywhere.
the creator	the maker, the dev, the founder	One word for one role.
Loopfund	LoopFund, Loop Fund, loopfunder	One word, capital L. The domain is loopfunder.com; the company is Loopfund.

Talking about money

The split is said the same way every time it appears, and it appears before anyone pays: $85 of every $100 becomes compute on this project. $15 covers card fees, hosting and Loopfund. $0 goes to the creator as cash. Percentages are fine in prose ("85%"); dollars are better because they're what the backer is holding.

Say "charged now." Never imply a hold or a later charge.
Say what comes back and when: unspent money is refunded to the same card when the project ships or is cancelled; all of it if the build never starts.
Never say "donation," "tip," "contribution" or "support." Say "back."
Never say the creator "earns" or "receives" anything. They get a build, the repo, and the judging notes.
Show the pot as money that can be spent, and show what has been spent next to it. A pot with no spend line looks like a bank balance.

Talking about the AI

It's builders and judges doing rounds, not "an AI" doing "magic." Describe the process; the process is the credibility.
Blind judging is our proof. Say it plainly: the judges compare our frame to the reference frame without knowing which is which.
Name models once, on the credentials card, with what they do: "Builders: Claude Fable 5.1. Judges: Claude Fable 5.1, always." Not in headlines.
Say what the machine can't do. No GPU; stills are fine, performance claims aren't. Original work only; references from games we don't own stay private to the judges.
Never promise it'll ship. Say what happens if it doesn't.

Name and mark

Loopfund, one word. The mark is an open loop on an amber tile, drawn with one stroke that doesn't quite close, and a dot where the next round would start. Use the tile on white or black; never recolor it; never put the wordmark inside it.

Loopfund

The wordmark is the word set in Bricolage Grotesque 700 at slightly tight tracking (−0.02em). No gradient, no shadow. Files: /favicon.svg, /apple-touch-icon.png, /og/default.png.

Color

White paper, black ink, one amber. Amber is the color of the money and the machine (the pot meter, the primary button, the split bar); it never decorates. Green appears in exactly one place: the $0 that goes to the creator.

Amber
#e09b2d
primary button, pot meter, split bar, mark

Ink
#000000
text, outlines, dark bands

Paper
#ffffff
background, always

Slate
#5a5752
secondary text, captions

Fee grey
#3a3936
the $15 in the split bar, body text on marketing pages

Zero green
#1f7a4d
the $0 to the creator; nothing else

Pale amber
#fbf1df
callouts, quoted copy

Amber ink
#8a5a0c
small amber text on white ("Funding")

Line
#e8e8e8
hairlines, table rules

Dark surfaces (the run console, the watch page, the creator band) invert to black paper and white ink and keep the same amber. No gradients except the one that fades a photo into black. No shadows.

Type

Two families, clearly different jobs, plus a mono for money.

Bricolage Grotesque, 700–800, display. Headlines, numbers that are the point, the wordmark. Tight (−0.03 to −0.04em), tight leading (0.95–1.05).

Back a game.
Watch it get built.

Where your money goes

IBM Plex Sans, 400–600, body. Everything you read. 15–18px, line-height 1.5–1.6, lines under 72 characters.

Backing a project on Loopfund is not a donation to a person. It's prepaid machine time, spent only on the project you picked. Semibold for the one phrase that matters.

IBM Plex Mono, 400–500, money and machine data. Dollar figures in stats and meters, ledger rows, code. Never for prose.

$1,240 of $2,500, 47 backers

Scale: 64 / 40 / 28 / 20 / 17 / 15 / 13. Sentence case everywhere. Never italicize or recolor a single word in a headline for emphasis; if the headline needs help, rewrite it.

Imagery and layout

The real thing, always. Frames and video from actual builds and actual pitch videos. No stock, no illustration, no abstract "AI" imagery, no glowing brains. If a campaign has no frames yet, show the reference bar labeled as the bar.
The featured project is the hero. The homepage opens on a campaign's own pitch video, muted, because the most interesting thing on the site is a game being made.
Structure carries information. A hairline means "different section." A number means "this is a sequence." A meter means "this much of the goal." Nothing is drawn to look nice.
Left aligned, 1160px, generous whitespace, 4px corners. Cards only where things are actually a list of like items (projects). No shadows. No rounded-everything.
Motion answers a person. The meter fills once on load; expanding a FAQ moves; nothing else does.
Screenshots of the product go stale. Prefer live components over pictures of components; if a picture is used, it must show the current copy.

Boilerplate

One line (directories, bios)

Loopfund funds the compute that builds indie games. Backers pay for machine time, AI agents build in public, and the creator takes $0 in cash.

Short (press, about)

Loopfund is a funding site for indie games where the money buys compute instead of paying a person. Creators post a pitch, describe what "done" looks like, and set a bar with reference frames. Backers fund it, charged up front. When the goal is met, a hosted machine boots with a spending cap equal to the pot and AI builders make the game round after round while AI judges compare each round against the bar, blind. Every round ships a playable build and shows what it cost. Unspent money is refunded. The creator steers the build and never touches the money. Loopfund takes 15% all in.

Campaign page footer line

Backing is a real charge, held for this project. $85 of every $100 becomes compute; $15 covers card fees, hosting and Loopfund; $0 goes to the creator as cash. Unspent money is refunded.