Swarmlight

Timeline · newest first

1. 2026

2. Devlog · October 31, 2026

   Version 37: light, night and the grid; drone lines; copper

   Light and night came back around the simple core, one piece at a time. Then three checks (Kraig's own notes, a code review and a browser playtest) found the lines still only ran from a miner and items jumped between buildings, so every hop is now a drone line you drag yourself. Scripted players on 8 maps finish in about 18 minutes, a casual one in about 20.

   • Day and night: two minutes of day, one of night, with a 10 second warning. At night anything outside the light takes damage, and a whole night in the dark destroys it.
   • The grid: the hub and your lamps. Each lamp passes power on to the next and lights a circle at night. Machines only work inside the grid's reach.
   • Power: the hub makes 7. A solar panel adds more by day, and a battery stores the spare for the night.
   • Drone lines between any buildings: drag from the hub, a miner, a smelter or a constructor to the hub, a smelter or a constructor. A line carries what the far end needs. The first line of each kind is free.
   • Every machine has a small input store and a small output store. Nothing moves between buildings unless a drone carries it.
   • Smelters and constructors go wherever you tap, inside the grid's reach.
   • Copper lies far out in the dark: copper ore, copper ingots and copper wire, each worth more than iron.
   • Sell from the top bar: tap an item to open its own slider.
   • The goal: earn 3,000 credits in all. Saves from earlier versions reset.

3. Devlog · October 31, 2026

   A new look: pixel art where light is colour

   Claude built the moon mockup into the game. The world is drawn small and scaled up, so every pixel is a big square. Light decides colour: inside a lamp's light the moon is warm and pale, and outside it the world turns to dark blue-grey shapes, with a sharp dotted edge and a gold rim between. Two small changes to the mockup: a softer top on the hub's landing pad, and building walls a little darker so they stand out from the pale ground.

   • Pixel art: one art pixel is 4x4 screen pixels on a computer and 3x3 on a phone, in a small set of colours.
   • Light is colour: by day you see everything; at dusk the dark closes in, and at night only the lit ground keeps its colour.
   • Lamps, windows, the smelter's furnace, drones, progress bars and warnings stay coloured in the dark.
   • Buildings stand up from the ground with outlines and shadows. The ground, the drone lines and the light stay flat.
   • The top bar, menus, sell slider and all the text use a tiny pixel font, and still work by touch.
   • Everything else plays as in version 37. The old flat look is still there for comparison.

4. Devlog · October 31, 2026

   A smaller game, built for your phone

   Claude rebuilt the game small: the spaceport hub with one module of each kind attached, miners whose drones fly one curved line each back to the hub, and a shuttle that sells anything and flies shipments home. Then three separate checks (Kraig's own words against the build, a playtest on a phone screen and a code review) found 40 problems, from double buys on a slow phone to a bonus nobody could earn. All of them were fixed and tested. Scripted players on 8 maps finish the first planet in 31 to 38 minutes.

   • One hub, six modules on it: smelter, constructor, assembler, sensor array, solar and battery. Recipe slots are upgrades: each module runs up to three recipes at once.
   • Miners on ore patches, each with its own drone line to the hub that curves round rocks and craters. Those are the only lines.
   • The sensor array finds ore further out: iron, then copper, quartz and a glow crystal deep in the dark.
   • Sell anything at any time, or ship it: the story's order from the Corvane Mining Company pays 2.5 times what selling does, and side contracts set their goods aside as they come in.
   • Night: in the light everything runs, in a building's own glow it runs slowly, and in full dark it stops. Solar charges the battery by day; lamps spread the light at night until it runs low.
   • Planets are chapters. Pale Reach ends with 20 light cores; shipping them is a bonus you keep for good, and every repeat order is another, up to five. On Longdark the nights are long and the glow crystal lights the ground round it.
   • Built for a phone first: a dock of Modules, Sell and Ship opens a sheet over the map, buttons never move under your thumb, and one tap buys once. On a computer the panel sits at the side.
   • A clean, flat look: a light ground, one colour per item, and the dark as a soft shade. Saves from earlier versions reset.

5. Devlog · October 30, 2026

   Versions 10 to 12: power, night and exploration

   Three short builds overnight.

   • Version 10: day and night. Solar panels make power by day and batteries carry the night.
   • Version 11: a bigger planet under fog, richer ore farther out, wrecks and crystal fields.
   • Version 12: a cleaner opening, tuned against Kraig's recorded play.

6. Devlog · October 30, 2026

   Version 13: the danger returns

   Four hives sit far out in the fog. Bug nights raid the colony; by day the hives are sleepy and you can wear one down.

   • Towers run on the colony's power. A blast tower hits a whole cluster.
   • Attack drones and ship upgrades for going on the offence.
   • Destroy the last hive and the planet is safe. A scripted player wins in 43 to 57 minutes.

7. Devlog · October 30, 2026

   Version 14: ideas from ExoMiner

   The opening became hand work: mine by hand, build a smelter, run power out on poles. Each step unlocks the next.

   • A power grid on poles, and a drone with every miner.
   • Storage caps: what doesn't fit burns, and you see the money lost.
   • Each machine runs one recipe, so balancing ores means owning several.

8. Devlog · October 30, 2026

   Not fun yet, and a story in debt

   Claude read the recording: the trouble was contrast, not the clock. Hand-mining didn't hurt, and upgrades changed numbers you couldn't feel. A long interview followed, one card at a time.

   • Work first, then relief: slow hand-mining, then a miner that clearly beats you.
   • Explore by day, hide by night. The dark is deadly, and light is how you expand.
   • The story: one freelancer, dropped with the hub on a cheap, dangerous planet, owing a company a 5 million credit loan. Losing the hub ends the game.
   • The story arrives in version 16, after Kraig plays version 15.

9. Devlog · October 30, 2026

   Version 15: work, then relief

   Claude built the interview's answers, then reviewed the build and fixed what it found.

   • An intro: the landing, then one iron patch to drill by hand.
   • Modules snap onto the hub. The first smelter has one slot, and a second slot is a real upgrade.
   • Power you can read: every line shows, colored by whether it is live, short or cut off.
   • A 7-minute day. Only what has power lights the ground, and roaming bugs bite anything dark.
   • Unlocks come one at a time, each when you need it.

10. Devlog · October 30, 2026

    Version 34: rebuilt from the ground up as Core

    After version 15, a simpler core was built beside the old game, one small version at a time. Version 34 is that core grown into the whole game, and the old one was retired. Claude built it in four passes, with scripted players finishing the tutorial on 8 maps before each one shipped.

    • You walk instead of flying. Place a miner and its drone hauls ore to your hub.
    • A 30-step tutorial: each upgrade appears only once you can see the problem it fixes, like a starved smelter or a battery that runs dry at night.
    • Items build things and credits buy upgrades. Credits come only from trade runs to a second colony nearby.
    • Fog over unexplored ground. By day a few creatures roam; at night the dark beyond your lights kills fast.
    • Copper, wire, power poles and laser turrets. The swarm hits the other colony first, then comes for you.
    • A short story: you're a freelancer in debt to a mining company, and the tutorial ends with a landing pad.
    • The play page records anonymous playtests again: how far you got, how the session ended, and any note you leave.

11. Devlog · October 30, 2026

    Version 35: scarcity

    Kraig finished version 34 in about 10 minutes. Claude first added a pacing report to the scripted players' test (time, waits, starved machines, stockpiles, credits), recorded version 34 as the baseline, then tightened the economy until the tutorial took 25 to 35 minutes with something always short and never a minute with nothing to do.

    • Slower miners and drones, so iron ore is the limit early. Copper is farther out and slow until its drone is upgraded.
    • Bigger trade orders, loaded only once you have all of it, so until then you choose between shipping and building.
    • Each extra solar panel, battery, pole or turret costs more than the last.
    • Shorter days. At night the hub makes less power and the battery drains, so everything slows unless you've built enough power.
    • A hand generator on the hub: wind it to keep things running while power is short.
    • Nothing piles up: the hub holds 20 of each ore, and a miner waits once 40 sit at the mine.
    • The tutorial now takes about 27 minutes for a steady player, up from 15.

12. Devlog · October 30, 2026

    Version 36: back to a simple core

    Kraig played version 35 to the end and said it wasn't quite right. Claude stripped the game back to one loop: mine, carry, process, sell, upgrade. Everything else is switched off rather than deleted, so it can come back one piece at a time. Scripted players on 8 maps reach the end in about 9 to 10 minutes.

    • One miner on one iron patch, its drone, a smelter and a constructor. Nothing else for now.
    • Sell anything from the hub at any time: ore cheap, ingots more, plates more again. Selling is the only way to get credits.
    • Credits buy everything: the smelter, the constructor and every upgrade.
    • Lots of small upgrades on every part of the line: mining speed, drone speed and cargo, smelter speed, constructor speed. Each level makes its building a little bigger.
    • Simple flat shapes, and no night, power, swarm, copper, trading or fog for now.
    • The goal: earn 1,000 credits in all. You can keep playing after it.
    • Saves from earlier versions reset.

13. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    The idea: small, with a hard cap

    Claude asked one question at a time and wrote down each answer: small (a win in about two hours), lit pixel art, you fly a small ship, a light story. It picked the working name Swarmlight: the swarm, and the lit look.

    • A hard cap from day one: 8 towers, 6 base machines, 5 enemy types. Adding anything means cutting something.
    • The rules kept from the last game: fix the first 10 minutes before adding depth, and let strangers play it quietly first.

14. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 1: playable within the hour

    Claude cut the plan to the smallest thing worth playing: plain shapes, one map, one tower, one kind of bot.

    • Fly a small ship. Mine by flying close to rocks: poor grey ones near the start, rich gold ones far out.
    • One tower: it costs ore, drops where the ship is and shoots on its own. The ship has no gun.
    • Bots chase the ship and copy themselves if left alive. Ignored, the swarm reaches about 160 at five minutes.
    • Fly back into the jump gate to leave with your haul.

15. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 2: trips out from a base

    Claude made each run one trip: load out at the base, set up at a deposit, and get home before the swarm takes the outpost.

    • A load-out from banked ore: miners, towers and ammo, within a cargo limit.
    • Losing the ship loses the trip's haul.

16. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 3: one continuous game

    No more trips or load-out screen. One game keeps going on one map, and flying over the base banks your hold.

    • Buy miners, towers and ammo at the base any time, and drop them out in the field.
    • Losing the ship costs its hold; it comes back at the base. Losing the base ends the game.
    • The game saves on your device every few seconds.

17. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Versions 4 to 6: a recorder, a build menu and a factory

    One feature a build, each played before the next.

    • Version 4: a playtest recorder, so Claude can read how a session went.
    • Version 5: a build menu you use with the mouse, and ore sold for credits.
    • Version 6: the base factory, with storage, a smelter and a constructor.

18. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 7: a swarm that grows around you

    In version 5 no bot ever copied itself around the far outposts, so the swarm now grows where you are busy.

    • Each tower has its own recharging battery instead of shared ammo.
    • A constant swarm plus surges announced from the edges.

19. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 8: an alien planet

    The setting moved from space to a planet. The enemy became native alien bugs that breed and live in hives. This build was the peaceful half first: the colony and its drones.

    • Land, build the colony, and let drones carry ore from miners.
    • Better ores lie farther from the base.

20. Devlog · October 29, 2026

    Version 9: easier to read

    A clarity pass before any new feature.

    • Visible recipes and item icons.
    • A status on every machine, auto-sell, a cleaner screen and pixel-style sprites.