Games Porting
Donut county
Reaches Android Devices In 7 Weeks, Fully Optimized and Certified
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/ tinyBuild & Pingle Bring /
Waking
Waking’s Atmospheric Gameplay to Xbox One
ID@Xbox
supported
program
Solo
title
game developed
Xbox
gamepad
optimized
/ Testimonials /
Personal, moving, and impactful indie game
Hey Poor Player
4.5/5
Waking is by far the most deeply personal, deeply moving experience in video game history.
GameGrin
70/100
An experience which encourages you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and go back into your memories.
Xbox One
5/5
This game will make you feel, make you cry (in a good way), and the combat is fun & challenging.
Steam
Impactful
It’s the most personal video game I’ve ever played, and, at its best, it’s an impactful journey of self-reflection.
/ Project overview /
Pingle & tinyBuild
About the game
Waking is a third-person action journey through the space between sleep and memory. You fight, explore, and shape a surreal world built from your own recollections, pushing toward one goal: wake up.
Client
tinyBuild
Solution
Porting
Engine
Platforms
Release
June 18, 2020
About Pingle & tinyBuild partnership
tinyBuild reached out to Pingle Studio to take a solo-built PC title and make it feel native on Xbox One. We reworked the performance, optimized the code, and rebuilt controls so that Waking plays smoothly and intuitively on a gamepad.
/ The Challenge /
Bring a PC-first adventure to Xbox One and make it feel native
Created by solo developer Jason Oda, Waking carries a deep emotional weight that players could feel when playing on the PC. But the first Xbox builds weren’t ready for fixed console hardware. Frames dipped, loads dragged, and the game’s core logic wasn’t tuned for a controller-led experience.
To release on time without losing the game’s dreamlike atmosphere, tinyBuild needed major lifts in performance, code structure, and input. Pingle’s job was to turn a passionate PC project into a stable Xbox release that runs smoothly, loads faster, and feels natural on a gamepad.
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/ Phase 1 /
Deep performance profiling and optimization
Our engineering team conducted a full technical audit to identify CPU/GPU bottlenecks, physics overuse, and memory leaks. Here’s what we did:
1
Researched problematic areas through in-depth performance profiling
2
Optimized rendering and content pipeline to reduce draw calls and improve asset streaming
3
Implemented a tailored loading system to stabilize framerate and minimize memory spikes
Thanks to this, we achieved consistent 30 FPS performance on Xbox One, with faster load times and smoother combat.
/ Phase 2 /
Structural code improvements
Waking is a deeply personal, solo-built project by Jason Oda. That craft shows in the game, but the codebase had grown organically, with little structure, which impacted performance on fixed console hardware.
To solve it, we:
1
Wrapped existing logic in an event-driven structure
2
Reduced hidden dependencies and streamlined core systems
3
Refactored heavy update paths for better performance
4
Added centralized input handling and asset streaming rules
5
Introduced logging hooks for faster tuning, testing, and certification
As a result, the game became more stable, easier to optimize, and fully ready for Xbox certification.
/ Phase 3 /
Gamepad optimization for Xbox controls
Waking was designed for mouse and keyboard input. To make the experience seamless on Xbox One, Pingle’s UI/UX and tech teams rebuilt the control layer for Xbox gamepads:
1
Mapped and tuned all actions for Xbox controllers with analog sensitivity
2
Refined combat responsiveness for precision in timing-based mechanics
3
Adapted menus and UI navigation for console ergonomics
Now, players can enjoy fluid gamepad controls that match the meditative flow of gameplay.
/ The results /
Waking reaches Xbox One with smooth performance and a stable build
Before
After
Low framerate and long load times
Stable 30 FPS and optimized memory usage
Unstructured code from a single-dev build
Modular codebase ready for certification
PC-only input system
Responsive Xbox controller input integration
Risk of delayed release
On-time Xbox One launch
/ The team /
Cast
- 10 specialists
- Unity developers
- QA engineers
- Tech Artists
- Project Managers
- Game Designer
- UI/UX designer
/ Cases /
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