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Pick a mood.Get a game.Play it tonight.

Zerado reads your entire library — Steam first, then PlayStation, GOG, EA, and the cartridges still on your shelf — and answers the only question that actually matters at 11pm: what do I play? It runs in your terminal, works with the network off, and everything it knows lives in one file on your machine.

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An illustration of Zerado's terminal library view. This is a mockup of the planned interface, not a screenshot — the program isn't runnable by visitors yet.

Zerado is the second product from FlowForgeSoft, the company behind FlowForge.

03 · the problem

The problem

You own 400 games.

You've finished six.

Most nights, you scroll for twenty minutes and start something you've already seen.

04 · moods

Sorted by mood, not genre

Genre tells you what a game is. Mood tells you what tonight is for. Zerado sorts by the second one.

Mindless grind

Repetitive, low-stakes, doesn't ask for your attention. For the night you want to zone out, not think.

Story rich, kind of sad

Something to feel, not just clear. For the night you want to sit with a story, not race through one.

Quick fifteen minutes

Starts fast, ends clean, fits in the window you actually have before bed.

Tactical, full focus

Wants your whole attention and rewards it. For the night you have the attention to spend.

Mockup of Zerado's mood picker in the terminal, showing mood categories — including 'Mindless grind' and 'Quick fifteen minutes' — next to the games that match each one.
05 · states

Where each game stands

Four states, one for every game in the library.

NOT STARTED In the library. Untouched.
IN PROGRESS Currently being played.
ZERADO Finished. Zerado is Portuguese for beaten — cleared, 100%'d — from the arcade counter that ran past its last digit and rolled back to zero. The product is called Zerado. Marking a game zerado, in Zerado, is the whole point of it.
ABANDONED Started, set down, not coming back to it.
06 · one collection

One collection, everything you own

Connected stores

Steam is what Phase 1 builds — your library, playtime and status, kept current on its own. PlayStation, GOG and EA come after: connect an account, see it in the same list.

Steam — planned
PlayStation — planned
GOG — planned
EA — planned

The physical shelf

Add the discs and cartridges next to your desk by hand — title, platform, done. Each one gets the same mood tag and status as anything synced automatically, and, once cover art and sinopse — Portuguese for synopsis, a short plot summary — are wired in, the same page as everything else. A physical copy isn't a second-class row in the list.

Mockup of a cover-art grid showing synced and manually-added games side by side, with one cover labelled 'Physical' to show a hand-entered disc or cartridge sitting in the same collection as everything else. Cover tiles are illustrative artwork, not real game covers.
07 · price intelligence

When to buy, not just what to buy

Say what you can spend. Zerado checks today's price against the lowest that game has ever gone, and tells you plainly whether today is a good day to buy.

Price check
$15 Today
$8 All-time low · 3 months ago

"$15, and in budget. It's been $8. Maybe wait."

Illustrative numbers. Price data comes from IsThereAnyDeal once Zerado is connected — nothing above is a live quote.

08 · yours and offline

It's yours, and it's offline

One file on your machine.

Your whole library lives in a single SQLite file you can back up, move, or delete — nobody else holds a copy.

No account to use it.

Nothing to sign up for, nothing to log into, before it works.

Runs with the network off.

Once your library is synced, Zerado doesn't need the internet to answer what to play tonight.

09 · terminal first

Built for the terminal, on purpose

It's a text program. It starts instantly, holds your whole library in memory, and fetches from every connected source at once instead of making you wait on each one in turn. No mouse required, no page to load, no telemetry running in the background.

Mockup of a game's detail page in the terminal, showing its status, mood tags and price history in one screen.
10 · and on your phone

And on your phone, later

Native iOS and Android apps are planned for Phase 4 — the same library, the same states, the same mood sort, in your pocket instead of your terminal. The old form and the new form, one product.

An illustration of two phone frames representing the planned iOS and Android apps. Not built yet — Phase 4.
11 · community ⊘ PHASE 4 · NOT AVAILABLE YET

The community layer — Phase 4, not built yet

Comments, reviews and public profiles. These run on servers, and servers cost money — so this part will be supported by donation once it exists. There is no paid tier and no premium account, nothing is decided about how any of it works or when, and nothing on this page is asking you for anything. This section shows what's planned, stamped for what it is: a later phase.

Example mockup of the community layer — a comment thread, a review, and a public profile — watermarked 'Phase 4, not available yet.'
12 · roadmap

Roadmap

Four phases, in order. Phase 1 is under way — nothing here is marked done, because that would be the one dishonest line on this page.

Phase 1

CLI/TUI MVP

Your library, your statuses, stored locally.

In progress
Phase 2

Enrichment

Covers, synopsis, prices, moods.

Planned
Phase 3

Recommendations & Budget

What to buy, and whether to wait.

Planned
Phase 4

Social & Mobile

Sync, community, the phone apps.

Planned
13 · after phase 4

After Phase 4 — ideas, not promises

A few directions under discussion, none scheduled and none committed: more storefronts beyond the four above, deeper backlog analytics, and mood tagging that improves the more you use it. Nothing here has a date, and nothing here is a promise.

14 · faq

Questions

Is it free?

Yes, and using it always will be. Zerado costs nothing and earns nothing — there is no commission on any link on this page and nothing here is for sale. Once the Phase 4 community layer exists it will be supported by donation, because comments and public profiles need a server and servers cost money. There is no premium account and no paid tier.

Do I need anything from Steam? Does my profile have to be public?

A free Steam API key, which takes a minute to generate. And yes — Steam only returns a library if the profile is public, or if the key belongs to that same account. If a profile is private, Steam won't share the list; that's a Steam setting, not something Zerado can work around.

Does my data leave my machine?

Your library lives in one SQLite file on your machine, and nothing needs an account to use it. The only network traffic is Zerado reaching out to the services you've connected — Steam, price data — using your own keys. Nothing about your library is sent to a Zerado-run server, because there isn't one.

Which stores work today, and which are later?

None of them yet — nothing is runnable. Steam is what Phase 1 builds; PlayStation, GOG and EA follow. Physical discs and cartridges will be entered by hand from day one — no store integration required for those.

Can I run my own server?

There's no server to run. Zerado is local-first: it reads your library and stores the result in one file on your own machine. The one thing that will eventually run centrally is the Phase 4 community layer — comments, reviews, public profiles — because sharing a comment with someone else requires a server somewhere.

How is this paid for?

Right now it is not paid for at all — Zerado earns no money and nothing on this page is for sale. From Phase 4 the community layer will be donation-supported, because it is the one part that needs a server to run. Using Zerado will never cost anything.

Nothing to install yet. Tell us you're in, and we'll tell you when there is.

Join the waitlist

Opens your mail client, addressed and subject-lined already. No form, no account.