A mark you can’t buy.
The Spritelane mark says one thing: a person looked at how this game was made, and real people made it. Games earn it by showing their work over weeks of devlogs.
How a game earns it
Three checks. All done by people.
A content farm can fake a store page in an afternoon. It can’t fake months of grey boxes turning into a game. So that’s what we look at.
- A person behind the account
- We look at your itch page, Steam page, repo or portfolio. Studios and solo devs alike, as long as someone real is answering.
- A lane with some length
- Several devlogs, spread over weeks, showing the game change. Grey boxes count. Rough is the point.
- Read by a moderator
- No classifier hands out the mark. A human reviews the lane and can take the mark back.
What the mark isn’t
Clear about what it means, and what it doesn’t.
Not a quality score
A rough game with an honest lane can carry the mark. A polished game with no history can't. The mark is about how a game was made, not whether we like it.
Not a ban on tools
Engines, store assets, code assistants and upscalers are tools. The mark asks whether a person put real work into the game, not which software they used.
Not for sale
There's no fee, tier or sponsorship that gets a game the mark. A moderator grants it, and only a lane earns it.
Not permanent by default
If a game turns out not to be what its lane says it is, the mark comes off. That's what keeps it worth something.
Showing the mark
Verified games will get a badge they can put on their Steam page, itch page, press kit and trailer end card. It links back to the game’s lane on Spritelane, so anyone who sees it can check the work for themselves. That link is the point: the mark isn’t a claim, it’s a receipt.
Losing the mark
Anyone can report a game. A moderator reviews the lane, and if the work isn’t what it claims to be (stolen screenshots, a made-up history, a game that’s mostly generated with nothing holding it together) the mark comes off and the game may be removed. Developers can always ask us to look again.
The full rules are in the house rules, and the reasoning behind them is in what we mean by “no AI slop”.
Coming soon · Founding members open