Shatterlight — post-trailer devlog

The trailer went up. Then we kept playing the song.

This update is about how the room sounds, how it looks in the dark, and how it feels to sit in the menu. Same game. Same death. Combo still feeds the speed. When the ball dies, the run is over.

The hymn

There are two songs in the garden now. Hauntology is the first serve. The next run picks up the other bed. They flip after that, so it isn’t the same night every time.

The music comes in on its own. You don’t have to break a pile of bricks to hear the pad.

Hauntology plays through. Around 1:59 it opens a hole — drums already gone — and Midnight Pulse fades in on the sustain. Long overlap. No slam. No jump back to the start of the track. If you’re still alive, Pulse holds while the combo keeps going.

Pause does not restart the song. You come back on the same bar.

Death is still a record slowing to a stop.

The title screen is quiet now. Just the Hauntology pad — bass and synth, the open of the garden. The old menu loop is gone.

Combo still conducts the room. Soft layers, slow swell. When the track gets loud, the void leans with it. A lift in the arrangement can bloom rings or widen the bed if you’ve earned it. Bricks do not spawn to the kick drum. Music is blood. Combo is the hand.

Hits

The arcade beeps are gone.

Breaking a brick is a small glass tick. Bloom is a low tone that matches the rings. Death is a light going out. Soft. Same family as the track. The world should not be mute, and it should not bonk.

The void

Darker. More room, less neon. Dust instead of a club. The breathe is still there — slow, under the song — but the base is deeper. A current, not a strobe.

Hands

Rail used to throw the ball into the walls. It lifts now. If you’ve split the ball, only the main one rides. The sister keeps a normal serve.

The system cursor was chasing you out of the window. During a serve, the pointer stays in the room. Pause, choose, and death give it back.

Menus have their own cursor now: a small glass shard with a lilac ring. It brightens over buttons. Once you hit Play, it disappears. The paddle is the cursor in the garden.

Still true

No map. No shop. No unlock tree at the title. Nothing you pick survives the light going out.

Click play. Choose one card. Serve. Combo feeds the room. The ball dying ends the song.

— CL Projects