Fresh off their formal debut at Edinburgh’s Cymera Festival 2026, independent publisher superforest is proving that the Scottish creative ecosystem is growing far beyond traditional boundaries. Run by co-founders E.L. Hark and Natalie, the tiny studio, which playfully boasts more feline staff members than humans, has arrived with a dual mission: revitalising classic dark fiction and engineering a sustainable, safe space for independent creators to flourish.
The studio’s name is a literal manifesto for their business model. Rather than focusing solely on commercial output, superforest was founded to cultivate an ecosystem, metaphorically “planting a forest”, that provides a protective, nurturing canopy where writers and digital designers can develop original intellectual property without corporate compromise.
Smashed Targets and Hand-Bound Fantasy
The studio’s flagship project, Little Bird, is down to its final 24 hours on Kickstarter after a wildly successful run. Serving as the debut novel for both author E.L. Hark and the publisher itself, the book has comfortably cleared its initial £1,000 funding goal, securing nearly £6,000 from backers ahead of its Tuesday, 9 June deadline.
The book will be the opening chapter of a dark academia fantasy series titled The Life and Death of Sibyl Wylt. Set in the arcane university city of Afalin, the narrative follows the protagonist, Sibyl, as she navigates competitive academic swordplay, arrogant professors, and a dangerous Faustian bargain tied to an old family feud. Hark, who holds a PhD, drew directly from the triumphs and anxieties of their own decade spent in higher education to ground the magic school setting. Hark noted.
I wanted to write a magic school book in the spirit of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea and draw from my experiences, the good and bad, at university,”
Operating on an old-school artisan philosophy, superforest is handling the layout, cartography, and even the physical production of their premium tiers entirely in-house. Premium editions of the book are being hand-bound by the author using a traditional chain stitch and flexible soft spines designed to lay perfectly flat during reading. The surge in funding has successfully unlocked mass-market print distribution channels across the UK as well as a fully produced audiobook. A free preview of the first chapter remains available online for curious readers.
Paying Homage to Gaming History
While Little Bird establishes the studio’s literary footprint, superforest is concurrently building a digital pipeline that pays direct homage to vintage gaming history. When questioned on the Cymera floor regarding whether the studio would pivot into physical, branching interactive fiction, the team noted that while they have the capacity to create traditional gamebooks, their immediate interactive roadmap is firmly focused on digital environments.
The studio currently has three distinct video game titles progressing through pre-production, each adapting tabletop structures and retro mechanics into digital formats:
| Title | Development Stage | Genre & Interactive Style |
| Age of Karnassus | Pre-production | Action-adventure “Zeldalite” featuring Metroidvania exploration mechanics. |
| Genesys System (Working Title) | Pre-production | A computer-based, choose-your-own-adventure strategy hybrid heavily inspired by The Oregon Trail. |
| The Walking Samurai (Working Title) | Pre-production | An idle clicker experience integrated with light roleplaying game elements. |
By cross-pollinating the rich worldbuilding of their novels with interactive software, superforest is establishing a highly agile, modern media model from their independent Edinburgh headquarters. For a studio that debuted with little more than a passion for prose and a trio of cats, the future of their creative forest looks exceptionally bright.
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