Changelog
How AFTERBLOOM grew from an empty app on Sunday 18 October to what it is today, step by step, with one picture of the game as it stood at each step.
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Sunday 18 October
The first playable- 01/Milestone 1Sim v1
The Meadow: the first playable skirmish
From an empty Next.js app to a playable isometric RTS in one evening: a base, a harvester, a squad and a living Seed Nest.
The first Meadow: classic procedural models on a painted ground. - A deterministic simulation at 20 ticks a second, with save-ready state and golden tests from day one.
- The Meadow: roads, ruins, crystal fields and a Seed Nest that breeds Skitterlings and grows angrier when harvested near.
- Selection, move and attack orders, fog of war, a minimap, and win and lose screens.
Monday 19 October
Studio and the art pipeline- 02/
Base building, the console HUD, the World Builder and Afterbloom Studio
The game grew a base to build and the tools to make everything else.
The classic base of the day, as the story art showed it. - A Red Alert style construction panel with buildings, defenses, infantry and vehicles; power, repair and sell.
- The bottom console: minimap, selection readout, command card.
- The World Builder for maps, and Afterbloom Studio, a procedural asset tool with live 3D previews.
- The landing page and its story art.
- 03/Art v6
The 2D game, drawn with Studio-rendered sprites
Every unit and building pre-rendered through Studio’s offline renderer, with a sharp 3x tier for zooming in.
Art version 6: the first bake through Studio. - Units in 16 facings, vehicles in 32, with walk and fire poses.
- Studio learned facings, sprite parts (a turret apart from its hull) and animation poses.
- A 3D battlefield prototype was tried alongside.
- 04/Art v7
Studio assets cast in 26 game roles
A generator for every library category, and the game’s roles filled with Studio assets, explosions included.
Art version 7: the cast of the day. - Presets, per-part facings, effect materials and export checks in Studio.
- Pre-rendered explosions and nest bursts.
- Documentation for every generator and the casting.
- 05/Mission
Reclamation, and Red Alert style voices
A 15 to 20 minute mission to retake a valley from the Crownwild, and units that answer when you order them.
Reclamation, as the story art of the day showed it. - Reclamation: attack waves that grow, Brutes later on, a Super Nest.
- Unit voices and an announcer, recorded with local text to speech and mixed live in Studio’s new Sound workspace.
- The 3D battlefield prototype rebuilt to match the 2D look.
Tuesday 20 October
The World Engine and the map builder- 06/Sim v2
The World Engine: worlds, rules, art and campaigns in one place
One editor for maps and their missions, a rules editor every number of the game goes through, and campaigns with briefings.
The first mission briefing. - Missions with objectives, briefings, debriefs and attack waves, saved with their world.
- Every match plays by its own copy of the rules, and saves keep them.
- Campaigns: missions in order, a briefing with Deploy, victory and defeat screens.
- 07/
2.5D for good
The real-time 3D view was tried, measured and removed: the game is drawn in 2.5D from Studio sprites.
The 2.5D battlefield that afternoon. - A benchmark mode for the battlefield views.
- The fog of war lifted for good over explored ground in 2D.
- 08/
Sharp 2x ground (and back off)
A sharper ground when zoomed in. It showed square tiles, so it was switched off until the map render could do it properly.
The sharp ground tier on a road. - Roads, grass, dirt, craters and cliffs at twice the detail.
- 09/Art v8
Sunresin crystals and the first Vanguard look
Glowing crystal fields replaced the old heliopods, mined by a new Gleaner and refined by a new Refinery.
The Gleaner at work on the new crystals. - Seven design rounds in Studio beside an art direction reference.
- A crystalline harvest sound, and the landing page re-rendered with the new look.
- The asset library: everything sorted by faction and world, with an animation player and a Sound tab.
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- 10/Art v9
The map builder: real 3D maps, rendered into the game
Maps are built in a real 3D view and rendered into the game’s ground, so the editor and the game match pixel for pixel.
The editor and the game, side by side. - Place and tune library assets in 3D; save a tuned asset as a new one.
- Wild ground, cracked concrete, real road crossings, water with sandy shores, light and seasons.
- The map renders into the game’s ground and props.
Wednesday 21 October
Vanguard, drones and the first mission- 11/Vanguard
The Vanguard faction: brief, Fabricator Core, drones and buildings
The demo’s faction was defined: rounded, domed, clean-energy machines that print their buildings with drones.
The Vanguard buildings, final round. - The faction brief and six concept boards.
- A shared module kit; the Fabricator Core, the construction drone and the MCV; then every core building from the kit.
- Version history for every asset and the Evolution view, kept for the development videos.
- 12/Vanguard
Vanguard units and energy weapons
Riflemen with laser rifles, Engineers, a Scout Rover, a Medium Tank firing plasma, and a Scout Drone.
The units at in-game size. - Laser flashes and impacts, plasma bolts and bursts, shield-hit ripples.
- The Gleaner restyled to match.
- 13/Art v9V3a
Vanguard in the game
The brief’s names and the new art in every mission: Fabricator Core, Energy Core, Infantry Complex, Vehicle Factory, Pulse Turret.
The Meadow with the Vanguard base. - Riflemen fire lasers and tanks fire plasma in battle.
- New sidebar portraits and tooltips.
- 14/Sim v3Art v10V3b
Walls, gates, shields, plasma cannons and Engineers
New Vanguard types with their own rules.
The shield takes the hits; the cannon fires over the wall. - Wall lines with corners and gates that open for your units.
- The Shield Generator’s dome takes hits for the buildings under it; the Dual Plasma Cannon fires over walls.
- Engineers repair buildings and vehicles; the Scout Drone hovers.
- 15/
The game shows the 3D map, always; one editor in 3D
The old painted ground is gone: the game renders the map as edited, and the World Engine edits in 3D only.
The Meadow, rendered from the map as edited. - Crystal fields thinned out into separate clumps with grass between.
- Re-recorded Vanguard voices and energy-weapon sounds.
- 16/Sim v4Art v11V4
Buildings printed by drones
Buildings are placed first and printed where they stand by the Fabricator Core’s construction drones.
Drones printing an Energy Core. - Drones fly out, print in layers with plasma beams, and can be shot down; the Core replaces them at a cost.
- Priority sites; an MCV that unfolds into a new Fabricator Core.
- Voice lines for the MCV, the Engineer and the cannon.
- 17/Sim v5Mission
The first mission starts with an MCV; unexplored land is black
The Meadow became the first mission: an MCV and four Riflemen beside the old mall, and everything else built from nothing.
The opening of the first mission. - Objectives one at a time: deploy at the marked site, build a Refinery, deliver Sunresin, destroy the Seed Nest.
- A Refinery comes with its own Gleaner.
- Never-seen land is fully black; a beacon marks the base site on the battlefield and the minimap.
- 18/
A fast pace: 12 seconds at most, and no queue limit
Nothing takes longer than 12 seconds to build or train, and a factory queues as many units as you can pay for.
A long queue: Sunresin is the only limit. - Build and train times scaled down: the Vehicle Factory and the MCV take the longest, 12 s.
- The queue holds 99 a factory; Sunresin is the real limit.
- 19/
A deploy site on the ground, and a Core that packs up
The base site is marked on the ground and turns green when the MCV can deploy; the Fabricator Core packs back into an MCV, as in RA2.
In range: the site turns green. - A dashed ring, a glow and chevrons, drawn above the fog until the site is seen.
- Pack up (G) folds the Core back into an MCV to move the base.
- 20/Art v12
Units aware of each other; vehicles on ramps
Units take spots of their own, step aside instead of being shoved, and vehicles turn before they drive and pitch on ramps.
The MCV climbing, nose up. - Units sent to a rally point settle side by side.
- A bulky MCV keeps clear of walls on its way.
- Every vehicle drawn nose up climbing a ramp and nose down coming down it.
- 21/
Walls as in RA2
Click in line with your walls and the gap fills itself; the wall stays in hand for the next run.
One click fills the gap. - Drag a line where there is no wall to fill to.
- 22/Mission
The first mission, played through
A full playthrough found a deadlock and a slow start; both fixed, and the mission is won in about six and a half minutes.
Mission accomplished at 6:32. - Two Gleaners meeting head-on now keep to the right and pass, instead of stalling the economy for good.
- The Meadow starts with 5,000 Sunresin, so the first tank comes at 1:40 instead of 4:54.
- 23/Sim v6
Drone levels, RA2 placement and faster Gleaners
The Fabricator Core starts with 4 drones and is upgraded to 48; a building needs four to print; buildings go beside your others.
All 48 drones out on two factories. - 12 upgrade levels, each dearer than the last; up to 24 drones on one building print it nearly four times as fast.
- New buildings go within 3 tiles of your others, as in RA2; the Relay Node is retired.
- Gleaners gather 25 Sunresin a second instead of 15.
- 24/
A Playbook and this changelog
The asset catalog became the Playbook, a guide to playing the game as it stands, and the game’s history moved here.
The Playbook’s unit and building cards. - The Playbook: a match from the MCV to the nest, the controls, Sunresin, building with drones, every unit and building, and the Crownwild, every number read from the game’s rules.
- This changelog: every step from the first commit, each with a picture of the game as it stood.
This is where the story stands today. The next step gets added here.