Folded Thunder
Run, roll, and double-jump Pip across four living paper worlds before a brass machine predicts every wrinkle.
A playable atlas of experiments
Build things to find things out.
Roll a paper dinosaur. Repair an island. Walk through spacecraft data. Every build starts with a question.
54 experiments · 6 research territories
Run, roll, and double-jump Pip across four living paper worlds before a brass machine predicts every wrinkle.
Arcade racer
Action adventure
These experiments belong to both territories.
Bring eight Summer Into AI builders into one walkable world of experiments, exhibits, and arcade doors.
Living world
Town builder
These experiments belong to both territories.
Explore NASA MMS4 magnetosphere data through a guided browser scene.
Data gallery
Dashboard
These experiments belong to both territories.
Hold a glowing breach shut, push the bloom into overdrive, and inspect the 30-part machine behind it.
Material lab
Repair simulation
These experiments belong to both territories.
Walk a scale-led Giza reconstruction while documented rooms, scan evidence, and disputed spaces stay clearly labeled.
Flight simulation
Platformer
These experiments belong to both territories.
Run and mutate a tiny nanochat browser model that performs as a goblin character.
Card game
Memory game
These experiments belong to both territories.
Six questions, many ways in. Select a territory name to trace the projects it shares with its neighbours.
Curated trail
Follow six experiments as movement rules grow into places that answer back.
Begin with one strange vehicle and the feel of its controls.
Add procedural spaces and choices that change each run.
Stretch movement across a long sequence of characters and stages.
Let momentum, art, and story share the same paper language.
Turn individual actions into work that changes a community.
Arrive in a world where weather, light, people, and repairs respond together.
Complete catalog
Search names, questions, forms, and technology. A project can answer to more than one territory here.
54 experiments
Make · Feel
A pumpkin carving simulator. Cut the lid, scoop out the goop and seeds, carve or etch a face, set candles inside, and line up an assortment of jack-o'-lanterns on a porch. Then turn the porch lights out.
Remember · Feel
Paul Revere's midnight ride as a playable oil painting. Gallop nineteen easel-painted stages from the Old North Church to Yorktown, call out the countryside, outride the dragoons and find thirteen hidden colony lanterns.
Feel · World
Keep the lighthouse on Lumen Reach's north cape for five nights. Sweep the beam to hold every ship's bearing, turn a six-facet Prism Forge lens to burn fog, freeze rogue waves, split waterspouts and expose wreckers, and shutter the lamp so migrating thrushes can pass.
World · Feel
Walk a zoo the size of Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo inside an orbiting space station as Seven the robot, log twelve habitats of alien animals, then run for the last escape pod when the hull fails and every animal gets out.
Feel · Remember
Fly twelve WWII aircraft through twelve notebook pages drawn in blue ballpoint, dodge red-pencil warnings and drop ink bombs, with real history in the margins.
Feel · Think
Carve your own tunnels through three underground biomes, pump critters until they pop and drop rocks on the rest, on a phone D-pad or a keyboard.
Feel · World
Step into an Old-Master painting as a wood-elf apprentice, drive brass clockwork machines out of each scene and glaze the grey world back into colour, in 3D or on the 2D map.
Feel · See · World
Fly a young Swainson's thrush from Manitoba to Costa Rica by night. Turn your body to steer by the real compass, wave a hand over the phone to flap by ultrasonic sonar, and hold your course by stars, sunset and the Earth's magnetic field.
Feel · Make · See
Blow into your phone to shape molten glass. Tilt to stretch it, roll the pipe to keep it true, aim the camera at a lamp to reheat. Every vessel sings a note measured from its own shape; fill a shelf and play it as a glass choir.
Remember · See · World
A turn-based expedition RPG you play by walking: survey every city you visit, fight and sketch glitch constructs made from your camera's own pixels, and keep a pixel field journal. Everything stays in your browser.
Feel · World
Race four hovercraft across six Practice courses or take on a five-race league, with an aerial battle unfolding above the track.
Feel · World
Explore an abandoned colony, find an ion cutter, and recover tools in a sci-fi adventure inspired by the original NES The Legend of Zelda.
Remember · Feel · World
Play baseball beneath a time rift, watch an exhibition broadcast, or walk Wrigleyville as the neighborhood switches between 1914, 1937, and 1988.
See · World
Launch the four MMS spacecraft, then run real-physics labs on orbits, trapped particles, the magnetopause and magnetic reconnection using NASA's MMS magnetometer data.
Make · World · Feel
Haul a membrane through simulated mud, dress a windmill in real cloth, and repair its drive. Then watch the repair travel downstream into a megastructure of gears.
Remember · Feel
Command a T-34, fly an IL-2 Shturmovik or go over the top with a rifle company at Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943.
Feel · Remember
Fight a red rival one-on-one under the El in 1986 New York as a black-and-gold muscle car that stands up as a robot.
See · Feel · World
Run a century of CDC life-expectancy data as a voxel rhythm platformer, free the band one decade at a time, then wander a town where everyone explains the numbers.
Make · Feel · World
Grow a creature whose body makes its music. Pluck its ribs, breed new voices, and compose a four-part choir.
Make · World · Feel
Climb out of flooded tunnels, align a three-ring orrery, and ignite it to wake an entire machine-planet, then watch the world tell you why.
Remember · Feel
Fly the SR-71 sequel through five reconnaissance sorties over a procedural planet, from the chase view, the cockpit, or the RSO's sensor seat.
Think · Feel
Race a rival spy through a 14-floor Art Deco hotel, secure four dossiers, and reach the getaway car before Vanta.
Make · Feel
Power a forty-metre machine, fold its heat exchangers against gravity, and open a broken sun inside its collector crown.
Feel · World
Run, roll, and double-jump Pip across four living paper worlds before a brass machine predicts every wrinkle.
World · Make
Bring eight Summer Into AI builders into one walkable world of experiments, exhibits, and arcade doors.
Think · Feel
Match four, chase gravity chains, and outsmart four villains in a bright falling-pill puzzle experiment.
Feel
Race eleven wet tracks where puddles, rivals, jumps, boost, and garage choices teach the next driving line.
Feel
Guide Luke through 62 stages, then inspect every hero, enemy, boss, and Retro motion in the character lab.
Remember · Feel
See how an anime rebuild changes Founderman's art and mechanics while preserving the original boss-select feel.
World · Remember
Work five Victorian exhibits, follow the static between mansions, and run when the house drops you into the forest.
Make · Feel
Hold a glowing breach shut, push the bloom into overdrive, and inspect the 30-part machine behind it.
Remember · See · World
Walk a scale-led Giza reconstruction while documented rooms, scan evidence, and disputed spaces stay clearly labeled.
World · Make
Restore a storm-hit field station while weather, people, water, and light respond to each repair.
Remember · Feel
Fly an SR-71 through a three-sortie Cold War reconnaissance campaign, from takeoff to recovery.
Make · Feel
Drop, pull, and tune three live textiles across sculptural forms in a browser physics lab.
Make · Think
Diagnose wiring, parts, and bench tests in a practical repair simulation and field repair guide.
Make · See
Turn a teen job search into a focused local plan with a practical browser tool.
World · Make
Build a small town, complete useful work with little helpers, and earn Friday fireworks.
Think · Make
Run and mutate a tiny nanochat browser model that performs as a goblin character.
See · World
Explore NASA MMS4 magnetosphere data through a guided browser scene.
See · Remember
Walk Chicago Public Art records through a neon photo-backed gallery.
See
Compare motor-fuel tax rates with filters, rankings, and stress tests built from BTS data.
See
Map bikeshare, dockless bike, and e-scooter records as a punk data scene.
See
Compare supply-chain CO2e factors through sector stickers and clues from EPA data.
Remember · Feel
Play a Founders-versus-British baseball prototype on a 3D diamond.
Remember · Feel
Play the Mega Man-inspired competition build with four founders, boss routes, and stolen weapons.
A continuous practice
Every build changed what came next. Follow the build sequence, then trace the ideas that returned later. This is an editorial sequence, not a timeline inferred from publication dates.
Continuous practice Every build changed what could come next.
Documented echo A named idea returned in a later experiment.
Play the Mega Man-inspired competition build with four founders, boss routes, and stolen weapons.
Rebuild
Founderman 1776: Original Build carried an idea into Founderman 2.
Founderman 2 keeps the original boss-select campaign while changing its art, scale, timing, and encounters.
Read the Founderman 2 build storyPlay a Founders-versus-British baseball prototype on a 3D diamond.
Rebuild
Timestorm Baseball carried an idea into Timestorm Baseball II: Season of the Rift.
The sequel keeps the Founders-versus-British matchup and adds three eras of Wrigleyville, rooms and conversations, traffic, and an exhibition broadcast.
Read the Timestorm Baseball II source articleUse recall mechanics to explore AI concepts in a pirate memory game.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Test clicker pacing with upgrades, combos, and arcade pressure.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Build better prompts under pressure in a portrait-first card game.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Descend through procedural mazes while building survival synergies.
Working method
MazeFall carried an idea into JustDig!.
MazeFall's Roomba harness proved its run loop by letting a crude bot play the real game. JustDig carries the same idea as a pump bot that looks one move ahead through the production rules and clears every wave, so new layouts and critter attacks are tested by play, not by hand.
Read about JustDig! Read The Mazefall Roomba HarnessPlay through NCHS life-expectancy and death-rate records from 1900 to 2018.
Rebuild
Long Live the Beat carried an idea into Long Live the Beat 2: Encore.
The sequel keeps the first game's NCHS table and its 1900-to-2018 timeline, then turns the numbers into terrain, creatures and characters: key heights follow life expectancy, Static follows the death rate, and an explore mode lets townsfolk explain the data.
Read about Long Live the Beat 2Compare supply-chain CO2e factors through sector stickers and clues from EPA data.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Map bikeshare, dockless bike, and e-scooter records as a punk data scene.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Remix transportation service indexes into air, rail, and surface lanes.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Compare motor-fuel tax rates with filters, rankings, and stress tests built from BTS data.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Walk Chicago Public Art records through a neon photo-backed gallery.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Explore NASA patent data through a GPU Heavy WebGL starship bridge prototype.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Explore NASA MMS4 magnetosphere data through a guided browser scene.
Rebuild
MMS4 Ephemeris Lens carried an idea into Ephemeris Lens II: Reconnection.
The sequel keeps the first game's MMS4 ephemeris and adds the data.gov magnetometer archive for all four spacecraft. On top it builds a launch cutscene and four tested physics labs: orbits, trapped particles, the magnetopause and the curlometer.
Read about Ephemeris Lens IIRun and mutate a tiny nanochat browser model that performs as a goblin character.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Build a small town, complete useful work with little helpers, and earn Friday fireworks.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Turn a teen job search into a focused local plan with a practical browser tool.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Diagnose wiring, parts, and bench tests in a practical repair simulation and field repair guide.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Race a 1776 horse bike across ramps, heat, and touch-friendly controls.
Rebuild
RevereBike carried an idea into Revere's Ride: Lantern Run.
Lantern Run keeps RevereBike's gallop, turbo, heat, lean-to-land feel, music and sound effects and its fifteen stages, then rebuilds them in 3D with easel-painted backdrops, three lanes, the Call, crews, rivals and a field guide.
Read about Lantern RunDrop, pull, and tune three live textiles across sculptural forms in a browser physics lab.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Fly an SR-71 through a three-sortie Cold War reconnaissance campaign, from takeoff to recovery.
Rebuild
Blackbird Recon: SR-71 carried an idea into Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II.
The sequel keeps the first game's documented-procedure missions and adds a J58 flight model, an RSO sensor seat, a tanker, SAM batteries, and a Blender-generated airframe.
Read about Black Budget BirdRestore a storm-hit field station while weather, people, water, and light respond to each repair.
Working method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Founderman 2.
The build story credits the IslandLab projects as a group with showing how a project can improve as AI tools improve. Island V3 represents that series here; the source does not credit a specific island version.
Read the note that connects IslandLab to the rebuildWorking method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Starlight Menagerie.
The build follows the IslandLab series' loader recipe from Island V5: a manifest of every file, cache-busted versions, staged build steps and a shader warm-up before play. Island V3 represents the series here.
Read about Starlight MenagerieWorking method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Prism Light.
Prism Light stands on Lumen Reach, the Island V5 world, and follows the series' loader recipe: a manifest of every file, cache-busted versions, timed build steps and a shader warm-up before play. Island V3 represents the series here.
Read about Prism LightWalk a scale-led Giza reconstruction while documented rooms, scan evidence, and disputed spaces stay clearly labeled.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Hold a glowing breach shut, push the bloom into overdrive, and inspect the 30-part machine behind it.
Rebuild
Apostate Engine 185 carried an idea into Apostate Engine II: The Unfinished Sun.
The sequel replaces the first engine's short protocols with coupled controls, Blender-built machinery, and three recoverable spatial events.
Read about The Unfinished SunWork five Victorian exhibits, follow the static between mansions, and run when the house drops you into the forest.
World system
The Ashwicke Galleries carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
The Ashwicke Galleries' framed exhibits return as gilded frames on every vault entrance, with a cut scene for stepping into the first one.
Read about Relay Zero IISee how an anime rebuild changes Founderman's art and mechanics while preserving the original boss-select feel.
Rebuild
Founderman 1776: Original Build carried an idea into Founderman 2.
Founderman 2 keeps the original boss-select campaign while changing its art, scale, timing, and encounters.
Read the Founderman 2 build storyWorking method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Founderman 2.
The build story credits the IslandLab projects as a group with showing how a project can improve as AI tools improve. Island V3 represents that series here; the source does not credit a specific island version.
Read the note that connects IslandLab to the rebuildGuide Luke through 62 stages, then inspect every hero, enemy, boss, and Retro motion in the character lab.
Working method
Mario Walker carried an idea into JustDig!.
Mario Walker put each hero and enemy in its own character lab. JustDig keeps that habit at a smaller scale: the digger, Nib, Puffin and Mottle each get a lab page where you can step through every clip, facing and frame at up to six times size.
Read about JustDig!Race eleven wet tracks where puddles, rivals, jumps, boost, and garage choices teach the next driving line.
Mechanic
Mud Truck '99 carried an idea into FIELDWORK.
FIELDWORK keeps TruckMud's soil-limited tyres, ruts and winch, then asks the hauling to matter: the crate you bring through the slop becomes a sail, the sail becomes power, and the power wakes a machine the size of the horizon.
Read about FIELDWORKMatch four, chase gravity chains, and outsmart four villains in a bright falling-pill puzzle experiment.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Bring eight Summer Into AI builders into one walkable world of experiments, exhibits, and arcade doors.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Run, roll, and double-jump Pip across four living paper worlds before a brass machine predicts every wrinkle.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Power a forty-metre machine, fold its heat exchangers against gravity, and open a broken sun inside its collector crown.
Rebuild
Apostate Engine 185 carried an idea into Apostate Engine II: The Unfinished Sun.
The sequel replaces the first engine's short protocols with coupled controls, Blender-built machinery, and three recoverable spatial events.
Read about The Unfinished SunRebuild
Apostate Engine II: The Unfinished Sun carried an idea into Apostate Engine III: Heretic World.
The third engine binds the first engine's singularity and the second engine's unfinished sun into one orbit, then scales the collector crown and the gimbals up until the planet around the pit is part of the machine.
Read about Heretic WorldRace a rival spy through a 14-floor Art Deco hotel, secure four dossiers, and reach the getaway car before Vanta.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Fly the SR-71 sequel through five reconnaissance sorties over a procedural planet, from the chase view, the cockpit, or the RSO's sensor seat.
Rebuild
Blackbird Recon: SR-71 carried an idea into Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II.
The sequel keeps the first game's documented-procedure missions and adds a J58 flight model, an RSO sensor seat, a tanker, SAM batteries, and a Blender-generated airframe.
Read about Black Budget BirdWorld system
Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II carried an idea into Kursk: Steel & Thunder.
Kursk reuses the sequel's approach to baked terrain, height fog and sky light, then fills the ground with instanced wheat, flowers and craters.
Read about Kursk: Steel & ThunderMechanic
Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II carried an idea into Lodestar: The Night Migration.
Lodestar keeps Black Budget Bird's long night flights over a whole planet and the SR-71's habit of steering by stars, then hands the navigation to a songbird whose inner compass is only as good as the stars, sunset and field it can sense.
Read about LodestarClimb out of flooded tunnels, align a three-ring orrery, and ignite it to wake an entire machine-planet, then watch the world tell you why.
Rebuild
Apostate Engine II: The Unfinished Sun carried an idea into Apostate Engine III: Heretic World.
The third engine binds the first engine's singularity and the second engine's unfinished sun into one orbit, then scales the collector crown and the gimbals up until the planet around the pit is part of the machine.
Read about Heretic WorldGrow a creature whose body makes its music. Pluck its ribs, breed new voices, and compose a four-part choir.
Mechanic
Wild Choir carried an idea into Breathglass: The Singing Furnace.
Breathglass keeps Wild Choir's idea that a body's shape is its instrument and that you're judged on harmony, then makes the body a blown vessel whose voice and ring are calculated from its profile.
Read about BreathglassRun a century of CDC life-expectancy data as a voxel rhythm platformer, free the band one decade at a time, then wander a town where everyone explains the numbers.
Rebuild
Long Live the Beat carried an idea into Long Live the Beat 2: Encore.
The sequel keeps the first game's NCHS table and its 1900-to-2018 timeline, then turns the numbers into terrain, creatures and characters: key heights follow life expectancy, Static follows the death rate, and an explore mode lets townsfolk explain the data.
Read about Long Live the Beat 2Fight a red rival one-on-one under the El in 1986 New York as a black-and-gold muscle car that stands up as a robot.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
Command a T-34, fly an IL-2 Shturmovik or go over the top with a rifle company at Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943.
World system
Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II carried an idea into Kursk: Steel & Thunder.
Kursk reuses the sequel's approach to baked terrain, height fog and sky light, then fills the ground with instanced wheat, flowers and craters.
Read about Kursk: Steel & ThunderHaul a membrane through simulated mud, dress a windmill in real cloth, and repair its drive. Then watch the repair travel downstream into a megastructure of gears.
Mechanic
Mud Truck '99 carried an idea into FIELDWORK.
FIELDWORK keeps TruckMud's soil-limited tyres, ruts and winch, then asks the hauling to matter: the crate you bring through the slop becomes a sail, the sail becomes power, and the power wakes a machine the size of the horizon.
Read about FIELDWORKMechanic
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
Fieldwork's visible repair becomes restoration: every scene the machines hold starts in grisaille and is glazed back into colour once they are cleared.
Read about Relay Zero IIMechanic
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Starlight Menagerie.
Starlight Menagerie casts FIELDWORK's robot Seven as a zoo keeper, keeps his treads and animation set, and adds a stun gun, a headlamp and a battery that the shield and the gun both draw on.
Read about Starlight MenagerieWorld system
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Prism Light.
FIELDWORK's rigged Kraken, tamed on Lumen Reach in Island V5, guards Kelda Head's reefs. Clear the sea and it rises to catch a hull before it strikes.
Read about Prism LightLaunch the four MMS spacecraft, then run real-physics labs on orbits, trapped particles, the magnetopause and magnetic reconnection using NASA's MMS magnetometer data.
Rebuild
MMS4 Ephemeris Lens carried an idea into Ephemeris Lens II: Reconnection.
The sequel keeps the first game's MMS4 ephemeris and adds the data.gov magnetometer archive for all four spacecraft. On top it builds a launch cutscene and four tested physics labs: orbits, trapped particles, the magnetopause and the curlometer.
Read about Ephemeris Lens IIWorld system
Ephemeris Lens II: Reconnection carried an idea into Lodestar: The Night Migration.
Lodestar keeps Ephemeris Lens II's real magnetic field and its geomagnetic storms, then turns the field into the bird's own compass: a dipole model for inclination, a violet veil after the radical-pair hypothesis, and storms that shake it.
Read about LodestarPlay baseball beneath a time rift, watch an exhibition broadcast, or walk Wrigleyville as the neighborhood switches between 1914, 1937, and 1988.
Rebuild
Timestorm Baseball carried an idea into Timestorm Baseball II: Season of the Rift.
The sequel keeps the Founders-versus-British matchup and adds three eras of Wrigleyville, rooms and conversations, traffic, and an exhibition broadcast.
Read the Timestorm Baseball II source articleExplore an abandoned colony, find an ion cutter, and recover tools in a sci-fi adventure inspired by the original NES The Legend of Zelda.
Rebuild
Relay Zero carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
The sequel keeps the first game's room-by-room simulation untouched and repaints it as an Old-Master world, with a chase camera, a jointed voxel hero, cut scenes and room atmospheres.
Read about Relay Zero IIRace four hovercraft across six Practice courses or take on a five-race league, with an aerial battle unfolding above the track.
Part of the same ongoing practice. A specific connection has not been written up here yet.
A turn-based expedition RPG you play by walking: survey every city you visit, fight and sketch glitch constructs made from your camera's own pixels, and keep a pixel field journal. Everything stays in your browser.
Mechanic
Waymark: Expedition into the Unrendered carried an idea into Breathglass: The Singing Furnace.
Breathglass keeps Waymark's phone-as-controller and camera-as-material ideas, then turns the mic into breath, orientation into gravity on soft glass, and the camera into a light meter for the glory hole and a colour sampler for frit.
Read about BreathglassBlow into your phone to shape molten glass. Tilt to stretch it, roll the pipe to keep it true, aim the camera at a lamp to reheat. Every vessel sings a note measured from its own shape; fill a shelf and play it as a glass choir.
Mechanic
Wild Choir carried an idea into Breathglass: The Singing Furnace.
Breathglass keeps Wild Choir's idea that a body's shape is its instrument and that you're judged on harmony, then makes the body a blown vessel whose voice and ring are calculated from its profile.
Read about BreathglassMechanic
Waymark: Expedition into the Unrendered carried an idea into Breathglass: The Singing Furnace.
Breathglass keeps Waymark's phone-as-controller and camera-as-material ideas, then turns the mic into breath, orientation into gravity on soft glass, and the camera into a light meter for the glory hole and a colour sampler for frit.
Read about BreathglassFly a young Swainson's thrush from Manitoba to Costa Rica by night. Turn your body to steer by the real compass, wave a hand over the phone to flap by ultrasonic sonar, and hold your course by stars, sunset and the Earth's magnetic field.
Mechanic
Black Budget Bird: Blackbird Recon II carried an idea into Lodestar: The Night Migration.
Lodestar keeps Black Budget Bird's long night flights over a whole planet and the SR-71's habit of steering by stars, then hands the navigation to a songbird whose inner compass is only as good as the stars, sunset and field it can sense.
Read about LodestarWorld system
Ephemeris Lens II: Reconnection carried an idea into Lodestar: The Night Migration.
Lodestar keeps Ephemeris Lens II's real magnetic field and its geomagnetic storms, then turns the field into the bird's own compass: a dipole model for inclination, a violet veil after the radical-pair hypothesis, and storms that shake it.
Read about LodestarMechanic
Lodestar: The Night Migration carried an idea into Prism Light.
Lodestar's Swainson's thrush steers by the stars. Here a steady lighthouse beam catches whole flocks, as real lights once did, and the keeper has to choose darkness to let them go.
Read about Prism LightStep into an Old-Master painting as a wood-elf apprentice, drive brass clockwork machines out of each scene and glaze the grey world back into colour, in 3D or on the 2D map.
Rebuild
Relay Zero carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
The sequel keeps the first game's room-by-room simulation untouched and repaints it as an Old-Master world, with a chase camera, a jointed voxel hero, cut scenes and room atmospheres.
Read about Relay Zero IIMechanic
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
Fieldwork's visible repair becomes restoration: every scene the machines hold starts in grisaille and is glazed back into colour once they are cleared.
Read about Relay Zero IIWorld system
The Ashwicke Galleries carried an idea into Relay Zero II: The Varnish.
The Ashwicke Galleries' framed exhibits return as gilded frames on every vault entrance, with a cut scene for stepping into the first one.
Read about Relay Zero IICarve your own tunnels through three underground biomes, pump critters until they pop and drop rocks on the rest, on a phone D-pad or a keyboard.
Working method
MazeFall carried an idea into JustDig!.
MazeFall's Roomba harness proved its run loop by letting a crude bot play the real game. JustDig carries the same idea as a pump bot that looks one move ahead through the production rules and clears every wave, so new layouts and critter attacks are tested by play, not by hand.
Read about JustDig! Read The Mazefall Roomba HarnessWorking method
Mario Walker carried an idea into JustDig!.
Mario Walker put each hero and enemy in its own character lab. JustDig keeps that habit at a smaller scale: the digger, Nib, Puffin and Mottle each get a lab page where you can step through every clip, facing and frame at up to six times size.
Read about JustDig!Working method
JustDig! carried an idea into Margin Aces.
JustDig's loader checks every file and digs a tunnel as they arrive. Margin Aces borrows the same build-stamped file list, retries and reset button, and draws it as a pencil plane flying home over a handwritten checklist.
Read about Margin AcesFly twelve WWII aircraft through twelve notebook pages drawn in blue ballpoint, dodge red-pencil warnings and drop ink bombs, with real history in the margins.
Working method
JustDig! carried an idea into Margin Aces.
JustDig's loader checks every file and digs a tunnel as they arrive. Margin Aces borrows the same build-stamped file list, retries and reset button, and draws it as a pencil plane flying home over a handwritten checklist.
Read about Margin AcesWalk a zoo the size of Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo inside an orbiting space station as Seven the robot, log twelve habitats of alien animals, then run for the last escape pod when the hull fails and every animal gets out.
Mechanic
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Starlight Menagerie.
Starlight Menagerie casts FIELDWORK's robot Seven as a zoo keeper, keeps his treads and animation set, and adds a stun gun, a headlamp and a battery that the shield and the gun both draw on.
Read about Starlight MenagerieWorking method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Starlight Menagerie.
The build follows the IslandLab series' loader recipe from Island V5: a manifest of every file, cache-busted versions, staged build steps and a shader warm-up before play. Island V3 represents the series here.
Read about Starlight MenagerieWorld system
Starlight Menagerie carried an idea into Prism Light.
When Doorly Orbital broke up over Lumen, a shard of its glass crown fell on the north cape. The islanders cut it into the six-facet lens of Kelda Head Light, and on the last night more of the crown falls out of the sky.
Read about Prism LightKeep the lighthouse on Lumen Reach's north cape for five nights. Sweep the beam to hold every ship's bearing, turn a six-facet Prism Forge lens to burn fog, freeze rogue waves, split waterspouts and expose wreckers, and shutter the lamp so migrating thrushes can pass.
World system
Starlight Menagerie carried an idea into Prism Light.
When Doorly Orbital broke up over Lumen, a shard of its glass crown fell on the north cape. The islanders cut it into the six-facet lens of Kelda Head Light, and on the last night more of the crown falls out of the sky.
Read about Prism LightMechanic
Lodestar: The Night Migration carried an idea into Prism Light.
Lodestar's Swainson's thrush steers by the stars. Here a steady lighthouse beam catches whole flocks, as real lights once did, and the keeper has to choose darkness to let them go.
Read about Prism LightWorking method
Island V3: Storm Signal carried an idea into Prism Light.
Prism Light stands on Lumen Reach, the Island V5 world, and follows the series' loader recipe: a manifest of every file, cache-busted versions, timed build steps and a shader warm-up before play. Island V3 represents the series here.
Read about Prism LightWorld system
FIELDWORK carried an idea into Prism Light.
FIELDWORK's rigged Kraken, tamed on Lumen Reach in Island V5, guards Kelda Head's reefs. Clear the sea and it rises to catch a hull before it strikes.
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Prism Light carried an idea into Revere's Ride: Lantern Run.
Lantern Run reuses Prism Light's start-up loader and its Three.js wiring for the Prism Forge effects, which here color the turbo trails and the Lantern Burst.
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Prism Light carried an idea into Carve Night.
Carve Night reuses Prism Light's start-up loader and its Three.js wiring for the Prism Forge effects, which here spark each candle as it catches and breathe fire through the pumpkins when the porch lights go out.
Read about Carve NightPaul Revere's midnight ride as a playable oil painting. Gallop nineteen easel-painted stages from the Old North Church to Yorktown, call out the countryside, outride the dragoons and find thirteen hidden colony lanterns.
Rebuild
RevereBike carried an idea into Revere's Ride: Lantern Run.
Lantern Run keeps RevereBike's gallop, turbo, heat, lean-to-land feel, music and sound effects and its fifteen stages, then rebuilds them in 3D with easel-painted backdrops, three lanes, the Call, crews, rivals and a field guide.
Read about Lantern RunWorking method
Prism Light carried an idea into Revere's Ride: Lantern Run.
Lantern Run reuses Prism Light's start-up loader and its Three.js wiring for the Prism Forge effects, which here color the turbo trails and the Lantern Burst.
Read about Lantern RunA pumpkin carving simulator. Cut the lid, scoop out the goop and seeds, carve or etch a face, set candles inside, and line up an assortment of jack-o'-lanterns on a porch. Then turn the porch lights out.
Working method
Prism Light carried an idea into Carve Night.
Carve Night reuses Prism Light's start-up loader and its Three.js wiring for the Prism Forge effects, which here spark each candle as it catches and breathe fire through the pumpkins when the porch lights go out.
Read about Carve NightField notes