ERVEN.BUILD · R&D LOG
Full-cycle prototyper 0-to-1 · rapid prototyping · Figma, Unity, Unreal Every clock stamped where you can check it

Marisa Erven

R&D · Creative Technologist · Art & Technical Direction

I build the thing the same day I meet the problem. Every entry below is a real product born from a real friction. One person runs the whole 0-to-1 loop: concept, architecture, prototyping, build, artistic and technical direction, and the story of the solve. Nothing gets lost in a handoff.

The build log

Problem → Built → Shipped → Proves
Screenshot of the LE VERE website showing the app icon and the line “Start with one item. See what it reveals.”
FLAGSHIP LE VERE, INC. SOLO FOUNDER ANGEL FUNDED iOS + ANDROID SHIPPED JUN 2026

LE VEREPersonal property vault: inheritance infrastructure on modern rails

The problem

What people own, and what it means, lives in shoeboxes, camera rolls, and memory. When insurance, estates, or disaster strike, the record isn't there.

What got built

A structured property vault: mobile capture, attributes and documents, multi-space and multi-member sharing, clean export. The soft launch build passed Apple's human review on first submission.

Role

Technical director · Art director · UI/UX director. Built the initial fully functional prototype, then directed external developers.

Proves

The engine that every build below reskins: capture, structure, export.

levere.app →
Screenshot of STARLITE showing a dark-sky map of the western United States with Bortle-rated pins, an open field-condition card for Death Valley National Park listing cell signal, elevation, temperatures and hazards, and the gear panel calculating an NPF shutter limit.
T-3 HRS GOOGLE BUILD EVENT SOLO SHIPPED AUG 2026

STARLITEDark-sky field intelligence: seven systems on one surface

The problem

Prepping one night of star photography meant stitching intel from 5 to 10 sources: Bortle maps, weather, cell coverage, elevation, hazards. Half a day per trip, and the surprises still got through.

What got built

One surface: a Bortle-rated dark-sky map, field-condition cards (signal, temps, fog behavior, hazards), an AI location & gear guide, and a gallery where every photo carries its camera settings and source credit.

Proves

The full cycle runs at lab speed on a cold surface: three hours, concept to working build.

starliteapp.com →
Screenshot of Glitter n' Dust showing the daylight meter, a rock at the cliff face waiting to be broken down, and side panels for today's bag, rubble and screens, the rock tumbler, and the minerals collection.
T-2 DAYS SIREN COVE STUDIOS SOLO LIVE AUG 2026

Glitter n' DustPush-your-luck rockhounding, inverted clicker

The problem

Idle games manufacture tension with random punishment: the shatter, the lost streak, the dice that betray you. It works, and it teaches players to blame the game. There was room for a loss condition that couldn't be blamed on anything but a choice.

What got built

A full economy on day one: daylight as the resource and dusk as the pressure, a bag that banks only when you pack up and camp, named sites with their own yields, real mineralogy delivered as discovery cards, offline accrual in the washing screens and the tumbler, and a collection wall across five categories.

Proves

Systems design with a thesis: the loss is opportunity cost, not randomness. Follow one fault or vein and every other falls away permanently. Commitment-regret retains better than punishment-fear, and geological fidelity does the teaching for free.

glitterndust.com →
Screenshot of The Department of Connections showing a force-directed graph of structure and domain nodes, with a side panel opened on Boolean algebra listing the six domains it connects to.
T-7 DAYS SOLO SHIPPED JUL 2026

The Department of ConnectionsCross-domain knowledge graph

The problem

The load-bearing structures under separate fields (music, math, ecology, law) rhyme constantly, but nothing maps the rhymes. The connective tissue between domains stays invisible.

What got built

A living knowledge graph mapping shared structure across 50 domains, so a pattern found in one field can be walked into all of its neighbors.

Proves

Concept to live domain in seven days, without handoffs.

deptofconnections.org →
Screenshot of Kitty Clicks showing the pettable cat at the centre, the cat friends and gift box panels on the left, and the Pet Shoppe upgrade list on the right.
T-3 DAYS SIREN COVE STUDIOS SEASONAL RELEASES LIVE

Kitty ClicksCozy idle clicker: retention without pressure

The problem

Most idle games monetize restlessness. There was room for one that rewards softness: a game that winds a player down instead of up.

What got built

A cozy idle clicker designed and shipped end-to-end as a solo build under the Siren Cove Studios mark: game loop, art direction, and release.

Proves

Retention and loop design, plus art direction, from the same single pair of hands.

kittyclicks.com →

On the record

Facts, dated, checkable

Build with Gemini, Seattle. STARLITE built onsite in three hours and submitted for feature consideration.

Advanced-track presenter, Seattle Tech Week. Claude Code workshop segment: 85 in the room, 400+ on livestream, named in the host's public post alongside Anthropic's community team. Recording public.

The New York Times. Signatory to the "Hollywood Heavyweights" letter opposing Paramount's deal for Warner Bros., cited in ongoing coverage.

SH//FT: The Next 10 Years of Creative Tech and Futurism. Keynote speaker and panelist, Ceres Robotic Lab, Palo Alto.

Rapid Prototyping in XR. Speaker, UW XRA 2025 Speaker Series, University of Washington.

National Science Foundation. External advisory board, Advanced Technical Education project, Applied Technologies Division, Coastal Alabama Community College.

How I work

The pattern is the product. I find the load-bearing structure under a problem fast, and I build straight at it, which is how an idea becomes a working product in an afternoon instead of a quarter.

Prototyping in Figma, Unity, and Unreal. Adobe Creative Cloud and Substance for the art. Whatever the problem actually needs.

No traditional pipeline produced this. A creative-writing spine, a systems eye, and a refusal to have the same problem twice. The log above is the résumé.