Developer's diary · 270 commits, 5 September to 22 September 2026
In the evening I finished playing Act 10 and found no gameplay fault in it. But Gu offered me copies of the photographs in talk and nothing arrived in my belongings, so the copies are a carried item now, and I use them on Zhao's comparison table before the cloths come out. Then I answered the Act 11 assessment, and it needs nothing new from the engine, because the outing's objectives and the shadow show both fit contracts that already exist.
Later on I let a walkthrough end at an optional chapter's fixture, so a breathing-room act can be proved without being on the spine, and the optional puzzle proofs replay before they search. One run of the fast gate found two things. The seven photograph files had no owner in the registry. And my new test assumed a fresh search would reproduce a committed path, although a search may find another route that is just as valid, so now it checks that the recorded path still replays.
Late at night Act 11 went in, A Little Light by the River. Two new spaces hang off the county routes, the reed landing and the drying terrace, and Gao Rui waits at the terrace with a rehearsal to prepare. There is a snagged scenery roll to bring down with a shaft and a fork, a screen with forty ways to hang it and only some of them right, and a shadow passage where the boat's sweep under the bridge depends on the real geometry of the light. Two new cues and a short shadow film went in with it, and Gu's mirror inspection stays apart from all of it.
Act 10 is still waiting for my playtest, but I did not want the evening to go idle, so I planned Act 11 as a breathing-room act, A Little Light by the River. It adds two outdoor spaces along the county river, a snagged scenery roll to retrieve, a screen that hangs badly, and a paper boat's shadow to send under a bridge by moving the light. The mirror's promised inspection with Gu stays separate from all that, and it proves nothing about the killer, because I think a filler act should give the player good problems and leave the case alone.
In the morning I finished playing Act 8 and accepted it, with a note that the screenplay still needs work, then the lane got its steps beyond the square and a low fence, and the crash when the cart finished was gone. I made the per-act walkthrough the standard check and kept the campaign run for the gate before release, because I think a check should cost what changed. Then I planned and built Act 9, The Space to Work, Liu's corrected route through the rinse court and Lan's cutting table, played it, fixed the counterfoil questions, the gateway and Liu's spinning walk, and accepted it before noon.
In the afternoon I sat with a number. I had planned this game as twelve or thirteen acts and about twenty hours, but nine acts played through in under ninety minutes, and ten would not reach two. So the Zhou family story becomes the practice case: Ding, Gu and the rest learn their craft on it, and I finish it with a supported ending. The real Forgotten Horizon case, the long one, I will write myself afterwards, because I think the main mystery has to come from me. Then I planned Act 10, Beyond the Market Road, a county excursion by minibus, with a travel film for the ride.
In the evening the notebook got a Notes page that opens on this case and folds earlier chapters behind one line each. Then Act 10 went in: the county street and its minibus stop, the canal bank, the repair yard, a cloth inquiry and the water and mirror puzzles. The bus road that ended at the map edge now runs on out of the picture. Late at night the review cleared the drop for play, the story graph now replays the paths it has proved before it searches, so the checks halved, and I cut a gameplay reel of all ten acts with its own score.
In the morning I made a second song for Ning, A Horizon of Your Own. The first one spoke to her father, so this one speaks to her sister, about the room kept for the daughter who left and the future put off for the one who stayed. I cut a lyric film for it from a close portrait and the kept room. Then I asked for an analogue finish, so it got washed colour, lifted shadows, a soft blur and warm halation, but no scanlines, and the lettering stays crisp because the grade goes on before the words. The main work resumes tonight, after I finish playtesting Act 8.
Late at night I went back to Act 8's family questions, because Ding asked the sisters about each other as if she did not know how they were related, although she had stood in the workroom when Wen apologised. Now she uses the family words, and the apology she saw is the ground under what she asks, so the questions about the past grow out of what she has actually heard in the present.
No update on the game today, because I spent the day learning something new: Jev, the model from TypeSafe AI. It turns plain language and the state of an app into typed judgments that code can combine. I will continue the game on Saturday.
In the evening I played into Act 8, and Lan's 1993 subject surprised me on arrival, and Ning's three topics were labelled with "you", "there" and "that meeting". So I went back through the chain. The saved Act 6 answer, that she met Wen once in 1993 at her workplace, does support the questions, but the labels and the spoken openings did not say so. Now the menu and the speech name Wen and the visit, the greetings work in either visit order, and the cart result points to a real follow-up, because I think a question should say what it is about, although the save already knows.
Later on I made a promo poster of Ning, standing at the edge of a rice field in 1993 in a red qipao, from the portrait as her identity. Then I wrote her a song, A Lamplight Away, in which she speaks to her father in that year, and had Lyria sing it as Mandarin pop-jazz with piano, upright bass and brushed drums. Then I cut a lyric film with the Chinese and the English burned in over a slow push across the field. It is a first cut for listening, because the transcription is still unsure of some syllables in the verses, so I have not called it done.
In the evening I went through the review of last night's work. It had three findings and all three were right. The recipe audit shared its visited states across groups, so a second group was skipped. The branch audit reached a member and then walked the spine greedily from the start, so a short route that spent a key condemned a branch a longer route could prove. A per-act walkthrough swept every act after its start. So I repaired them with the reviewer's counterexamples as tests, and answered the two Act 8 requests, the cart turn and the films, with a design and a cost each, but started neither.
Later on the content side came back with one more gap in the branch audit, because its fast entry still chose one route to the member. So when the fast way fails it now proves the branch whole: any route to the member, the member taken, every spine mark earned, the siblings still excluded. An exhausted budget now reads as unproven, in those words, because I think a check that runs out of budget should say so.
Late at night I authorized Act 8 and built it. The films came first, two chapter films that only present and hand back to a saved choice, then the cart: a loaded handcart that turns at stations and can be rolled back, with the actors settling around it. Then the environments, the cast and the historical media went in, and The Visit is ready for my own playtest. The engine look at the drop was green, with a few follow-ups noted. The rest of the week will be busy, so I am not sure I can keep the game moving at the usual pace until the nineteenth.
In the evening I played Act 7 for the first time. Hu's rear exit worked with E but I could not hover it, so it has a direction board now. The racks in Du's shed did not respond, because their handles hid behind an unexplained permission, so the whole rack is selectable now. Then the tray: using it did nothing, although the save had given the reward, so the scene had not told me. The tray had never been built, so I made it, and taking it moves it to the sorting table. I think what the save knows has to be visible in the room.
Later on I went outside to the trial at the frontage. I could install the frame with E but not find it with the mouse, because the target had no visible prop and stacked chairs blocked both standing marks. So a small measuring diagram sits where the frame goes, and the chairs moved out of the lane. Then both targets worked but I could barely see the marks against the paving, so they became wide pale chalk brackets with dark edging. After that I played it through once more and it was right, so Act 7 is delivered, and I pushed the source to the remote.
Late at night I reviewed the engine side and found the fast gate red, because the spine check ignored plain item needs and an old save ran into the state cap. The review had taken most of an hour, in checks that grew with the campaign, and I want each check to cost what changed. So the graph remembers the paths it has proved, long proofs go one mark at a time, impossible targets are refused early, and each act gets its own walkthrough. Then I planned Act 8, The Visit, around a handcart that cannot turn in a delivery court, and two films with a younger Wen and Ning.
After midnight I fixed the workshop. Wen went quiet after the cabinet came out while Ning was somewhere else, so now he thanks Ding and asks her back inside, where Ning actually is. The loading board makes a small bridge over the sill so the dolly rolls over it, and Liu moved off the threshold, because his body was blocking the click on the door and the walk to Peng. Then I went over the flow of Acts 5 and 6 for the morning, so Liu remembers his own correction on a second visit and the guidance follows what has actually happened, and went to bed very late.
In the morning I played on to the end of Act 6, so the playtest of all six acts is done, although to my surprise it took me only about an hour to finish everything. On the way I found the household music stayed silent after Continue, the dusk alarm needed Peng's actual shout at the doorway, the town felt empty between conversations, and I wanted the act number under the location title so I knew where I was. So I fixed the music, gave Peng a voiced card, made the residents look up and work more often with real step turns, and put the chapter under the title.
In the afternoon I changed how I check things, because the checking had started to outweigh the making, so for a small change to how something looks or moves I now look at it myself in Play Latest first. In the evening I gave Ding a rest on her bed, but two lie-down versions felt floaty, so it ended as a plain seat at the edge, and I made a game icon, a weathered window with the horizon in it. Then Act 7 went in as The Unsent Page, the prototype came out, and the town's three departures got their own landmarks, because I kept mixing them up.
In the evening I played the first two acts myself, and I could not find the way to the Zhou house without hovering, because the broad north paving pulled my eye toward the collection exit. So I gave the lane smaller worn flagstones, a brick seam, a wider mouth beside the grocer and an old wooden sign over it, because I want the scene itself to say where the lane is, although a marker would have been quicker. The probe turned up a separate fault at the county exit, where the click rays go through the noodle shop, so I wrote that down for the engine.
Later on I fixed bedtime, because turning in for the night with Dad left Ding in the courtyard while the card said she was inside. A confirmed choice can now travel through an existing door and save the arrival before the card, because I think a milestone saved in the yard would come apart the first time someone quits there. Then I went back to the supper talk, because I could not remember Ning ever saying she did not want Dad to collect her. Now Dad says Lan sent him a note, Ding asks whether Lan wanted him to go, and he says no, so the question is earned.
Late at night I kept playing and three more things came up. The school-day actions sat on an empty patch of floor, so now they hang on the real books on the desk. Think described Liu's cabinet problem while Ding was still at home, so the hints now follow what she has heard, because I think a hint that knows more than she does spoils the puzzle. The workshop's courtyard turn shared its click target with the way back inside, so it points at the door's upper timber now. Playing it myself finds what the checks cannot, because a check only looks for what I told it to look for.
One row per day, newest at the top, left to right through the day. Larger dots changed more files. The peach dots are the steps I would point at.
