Internal tooling · AI-assisted
Update Formatter & Blockcast
Two small browser tools I built for myself while running Bow Tie Cat Studios solo: one to stop rewriting the same release notes three times, one to turn pixel art into real 3D geometry. Both are free-standing static pages, and both were built quickly by pairing directly with an AI assistant and holding the result to the same bar as anything I'd write by hand.
Why build tools instead of working around it
Running a one-person studio means every recurring bit of friction is either a tax you keep paying or twenty minutes of tooling you build once. I lean toward the second option, and I lean on AI heavily to get there fast, using it to draft, debug, and prototype, while still reviewing and tightening everything it produces before I trust it in my own workflow.
Update Formatter — one editor, three platforms
Every patch note for Saloonery needed to exist in three slightly different flavors: Steam's formatting, itch.io's, and a Discord-friendly version for the community server. Update Formatter is a three-panel tool: an editor on the left, a live preview in the middle, and platform-specific, ready-to-paste output on the right, each with its own one-click copy button.
It also handles the boring-but-important parts of running updates over time: an "Add Section" flow for structuring a changelog, a log manager to track update history, and export/import so an in-progress changelog can be saved and picked back up later.
live embed, if it doesn't load use "Open ↗" above
Blockcast — turning pixel art into real geometry
Blockcast converts a piece of pixel art into an actual 3D model by extruding each solid pixel into a block. Drop in a front sprite (auto-scaled to a 256×256 grid), optionally add a side sprite to define a cross-section that intersects the front plane at 90°, and tune pixel thickness, transparency (which cuts holes through the mesh), an "unlit" material mode for game-engine-ready exports, and a simplification pass that smooths the final silhouette without losing the pixel-art read.
A live stats readout shows grid size, solid pixel count, merged blocks, and triangle count as you adjust settings. The result exports as STL for physical 3D printing, or as GLB/GLTF (both with color data) for dropping straight into a game engine.
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