DevLog
The Cygnus Rift
A multiplayer space combat game, logged as it's built. RSS
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DevLog 09 · 12 October 2026Built as DesignedWeek two of about fifteen. The real game ran across three machines, the build was checked against the design line by line, and the flight model moved to a fixed step. Alongside it came a design document for partners, four design pillars, zone lighting at distance, a radar, and a hangar's worth of new concept art.
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DevLog 08 · 9 October 2026Making Concept ArtHow we make concept art for the document that goes to partners and funders. A sketch, the game's own models laid up in Blender, a composite in Photoshop, and an AI image generator to light it. Three shots worked first time. The fourth did not.
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DevLog 07 · 5 October 2026The Ship FliesThe ship flies, on a dedicated server, with two clients joined. The flight model was built three times in four days until it felt right. Alongside it, a zone got lit, dust got built, a bomber got a bay, and the plan got a calendar. Week one of about a hundred days.
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DevLog 06 · 28 September 2026Day and NightA week on the things that make a place feel like a place — a moving sun, drifting weather, and a moonlet that comes round like a train. Plus what a bomb means when there is no down, what we call our weapons, and why the cheap flight stick is the one we build against.
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DevLog 05 · 22 September 2026Designed and Built by HandHow a ship gets made — a light carrier from first sketch to a mesh ready for Blender. Drawn by hand, run through Seedream and Meshy for a fast rough volume block, then rebuilt from scratch in Blender. The generative steps in the middle are for speed; the ship is hand-built at both ends.
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DevLog 04 · 21 September 2026Built from SourceThe engine built from Epic's source, a second machine turned into the server, ships taking shape in Blender, and a week of design that settled how changing a ship's skin stays fair, how defence gets built, and what a lone pilot finds when exploring "out there."
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DevLog 03 · 14 September 2026Engineering has started!Engineering has started. Version control under load, a solo mode that turns out to be the demo, the voice system should be one single system, the shape every object in the game will be described in, and how a ship comes apart.
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DevLog 03 · 13 September 2026PreambleThe current build plan: A preamble. What a hundred days of engineering buys, how we might get funded, and the current state of the design document.
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DevLog 02 · 7 September 2026Still on PaperA week with no engine code in it. Zone boundaries, cruise as a route rather than a destination, a plan that got taken apart, and the list of paper decisions the first build day would have tripped over.
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DevLog 01 · 31 August 2026The Game Has a NameSix days, one name, a lot of ships, and two document sweeps that found the documents already stale. The first week of the daily record.
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DevLog 00 · 26 August 2026How We Got HereWhere the idea came from, what the game is, and the six weeks of design that built the foundation we are working from. Everything here is before that first line of engine code.