Fothergill is a one-person independent studio designing, coding, and maintaining lightweight browser games, practical tools, and a photography platform. Everything here runs directly in your browser — no downloads, no accounts required, and no heavy frameworks slowing things down. This page is the home base: it explains what each project is, how it works, and why it exists.
About Fothergill
Most of the web has gotten heavier every year. A simple card game wants you to create an account, accept a dozen trackers, download an app, and sit through a loading screen before you can play a single round. Fothergill exists as a deliberate reaction to that. Every project starts from a simple question: what is the smallest, fastest thing that still feels great to use?
The studio is independent and self-funded. There is no venture money steering the roadmap toward growth-at-all-costs, and no product manager pushing engagement metrics. That freedom shows up in the work. Games load in under a second, run on a phone as comfortably as a laptop, and don't ask for your email before you've had any fun. Tools do one job and do it clearly. When a project is done, it's done — it gets maintained and kept online, not endlessly re-monetized.
Fothergill covers three kinds of work. The first is browser games — bluffing, trivia, drafting, and party games that are easy to learn and quick to play with friends. The second is practical tools, small utilities built to solve a specific, real problem without ceremony. The third is Santo Photos, a photography platform for booking sessions, buying prints, and browsing a working portfolio. Different surfaces, same philosophy underneath.
This site is the central directory for all of that, but it is more than a list of links. Each project below has its own full write-up covering what it is, how to play or use it, the strategy behind it, and the story of why it was built. If you want the short version, launch anything and start playing. If you want the long version, keep reading — that's what these pages are for.
Featured Projects
Every card links to a full page explaining the project in depth, plus a direct launch link. Filter by category or read them all.
A fully responsive, browser-based version of the classic bluffing dice game, with custom AI opponents that bid, doubt, and call your bluffs using their own probability model. Play a full single-player game right here, or learn the rules, odds, and strategy on its page.
A hybrid of Texas Hold'em and pub trivia. Answer questions correctly to improve your hand, then bet, bluff, and read the table. A game of both knowledge and nerve — full rules and strategy inside.
A salary-cap draft game for football fans. Build a roster from a shared budget in a blind-bid auction — win by knowing player value cold and predicting how your rivals will spend. Play a full single-player draft right here against AI GMs.
A tile-based routing puzzle about moving cars through a growing town without gridlock. Every level is a small optimization problem under tight resource constraints. Easy to start, genuinely hard to master.
The photography platform for Santo Fothergill — book a session, buy prints and editing presets, and browse curated collections. A working portfolio and small storefront in one, built for photographers who'd rather shoot than fight software.
A game for couples and close friends. Rank a set of cards the way you'd answer, then guess how your partner ranked theirs. Points for matching — and a surprisingly honest conversation starter. Rules and ideas inside.
How We Build
There's no house style guide pinned to a wall, but after building this many projects the same handful of rules keep showing up. They're less about technology and more about respect — for the person on the other side of the screen, and for the work aging gracefully.
If a page can't be interactive in about a second on a mid-range phone, something is wrong. That constraint rules out a lot of heavy libraries early, which usually makes the whole project simpler and more reliable, not just faster.
You should be able to play or use nearly everything here without signing up for anything. Accounts get added only where they genuinely earn their keep — like saving a photography order — never as a gate in front of the fun.
Most people arrive on a phone, so layouts are built mobile-first and scaled up. Tap targets are generous, text stays readable, and nothing important hides behind a hover you can't perform on a touchscreen.
A good party game explains itself. Each game aims to be learnable in a single round, with the depth revealing itself as you play rather than in a wall of instructions before you start.
Where ads appear, they're there to keep the lights on, not to hijack the page. No pop-ups over your game, no interstitials between every action, and a clear privacy policy explaining what that means for you.
Projects are kept simple partly so they keep working for years without babysitting. A finished game is a promise that it'll still be there — and still load fast — the next time you come back to it.
Recent Updates
Every project now has a full write-up covering how it works, the strategy behind it, and why it was built — starting from this directory and linking straight into each game.
The computer opponents in Liar's Dice got a smarter bidding model, so early-game bids feel more human and late-game calls are harder to bluff past.
Hundreds of new questions across more categories, plus better balancing so a single lucky specialty subject can't run the whole table.
Print ordering and preset downloads moved to a cleaner checkout, and the portfolio collections load faster on mobile connections.
FAQ
No. Every game on this site runs directly in your browser and can be played without creating an account or installing anything. The only place accounts come up is Santo Photos, where you may create one to track a print order or session booking.
Yes, the games are free to play in the browser. The site is supported by lightweight advertising, which is explained in full on the privacy policy page. Santo Photos sells prints, presets, and photography sessions, which are paid products.
Fothergill is an independent studio run by Santo Fothergill. Each project is designed, coded, and maintained independently rather than by a large team. You can read more on the About page.
Yes. Every project is built mobile-first and works on modern phones, tablets, and desktops. No app store download is required — the browser is the app.
Head to the contact page and email the address listed there. Bug reports that include your device and browser are especially helpful and genuinely do get read.
The site uses third-party advertising to stay free. Those providers may use cookies to serve relevant ads. Full details, including how to opt out of personalized advertising, are on the privacy policy page.