Devlog9 October 20262 min read
World 1: Hearthlight Harbour
The first region of World 1 is finished. This one is about the thinking behind it.
What the first region has to do
World 1 is the Smog Coast: a dead industrial coastline you cross, region by region, on the way inland to the Dome.
Hearthlight Harbour comes first, right outside the bunker. That gives it a specific job. Within about thirty seconds of stepping outside, you should understand what the whole game is.
Huge. Dead. Still running. And the light is the only thing on your side.
A world that never stopped
The idea behind the whole coast is that nothing here was switched off. The people left in a hurry, and the machines just kept going. Cranes still hold their loads. Lamps still come on at night. The smog is the exhaust of a coast that’s been running for nobody for decades.
The people who built it were far more advanced than us, and not human. So the harbour has nothing made for people: no desks, no chairs, no ordinary doors. Instead there are robot-scale portals, iris airlocks and machinery whose purpose you can only half work out.
That one rule does a lot. It’s the difference between a ruined town and somewhere that feels genuinely foreign.
Light leads the way
In Halation, light is safety. So I wanted every lamp in the harbour to mean something.
There are fewer lights than you’d expect and a lot more fog. Each pool of light marks somewhere worth reaching: a path, a landmark, a way forward. If you’re lost, look for the next lamp.
Each light is somewhere to aim for.
Moments, not just scenery
A harbour you only walk through is a backdrop. I wanted this one to feel like it’s still alive around you.
- The pier blackout. The first time you cross the long pier, the power fails. The lights die one by one ahead of you and the smog closes in, until the grid stutters back on at the far end. It only happens once, and it’s the first time the game takes the light away.
- The sea. Waves break over the breakwater and leave the deck wet, and a big one can shove Scrappy if he stands too close to the edge.
- The beacon stair. A climb up a rock cut to the first real view of how far the coast goes, and how far you have to go.
The beacon stair, and one of the few places that isn't amber.
Next: The Line
North of the harbour is region two, The Line: a long freight road of rails, belts and presses that still run on a rhythm. The harbour teaches you to read the light. The Line teaches you to read the machines.
The first stretch is built. That’s the next devlog.
