Counting Out Loud
Every world page now shows which of the six steps its game is on, and the build it's running. Plus a week of small things that move.
A small change to the site, and a slightly brave one: every world now wears its build number.
The six steps from the first note now sit on the homepage, each with a status. Every world shows its status, and the road so far on each world page lights up wherever that game actually is. Not where it hopes to be by spring.
The numbers, as of this morning. Conquest is a Prototype at v0.7.1. Skybound Sanctuary is In Design at v0.2.2. Project Alchemy is a Prototype at v0.9.6, the furthest along by some distance, which tells you exactly where the hours have been going. Phase Loop is In Design at v0.1.1, which is to say the ink has only just touched the page.
None of them starts with a 1. They won’t for a while, and that’s fine. A version number is a promise to count honestly, not a promise to count quickly.
The site itself has also had a week of small things that move. Each world now opens on the homepage in its own way: Conquest’s roads fade before its tiles turn, Skybound’s clouds drift with the scroll, Alchemy fills like a flask, and Phase Loop bleeds in as ink. The menu button is now the logo’s two arcs, closing into a ring when you open it. Dispatches have a thin reading line along the top, and the Now marker on each road pulses gently, as if to say: still here, still going.
None of it is strictly necessary. All of it was strictly enjoyable.
One last thing. Anyone who has spent long enough in these worlds will know the Arcwrights: a people who turn up in every one of them, and not always to anyone’s benefit. They’ve been at this site too, and left a mark somewhere in each world. Find all four and something changes. With the Arcwrights, whether that’s a reward or a warning is never entirely clear.