Back to the journey

Interactive concept illustrations

Four worlds. Four ways to play.

Explore four proposed Gameloom games through distinct illustrations and the choices that could make them worth playing.

A harbour, a suspended ruin, a city of promises, a room that remembers. Different games should ask different things of the foundation they share.

These are game ideas, not footage or playable games. The controls compare illustrated possibilities; they do not run a simulation. Names and rules are proposals. The first game has yet to be chosen.

01 Water · machinery · cooperation

Tideworks

Make the harbour work together.

A rising tide lifts a platform. A counterweight opens a gate. Two people turn a broken harbour into a place that can carry its next delivery.

Compare two illustrated moments
Tideworks: a harbour that moves with the waterA coastal town surrounds a lock, cargo lift and turbine gate. Two people direct the same last crate toward different machines. The illustrations compare which request is first in the shared order.
Concept illustration · compare the proposed consequences below.

One crate. One destination.

Imagine your lift request comes first in the shared order. The lift receives the last crate; your partner’s gate request is refused. The harbour still contains one crate, and both of you can see where it went.

The rule behind this moment

The proposal gives competing requests a clear order. Repeating a request must not create another delivery.

A different order changes the plan.

Now imagine the gate request is first in that order. The same crate goes there instead. The lift has to wait, so you and your partner must adjust the next part of the chain.

The rule behind this moment

The shared decision changes the harbour for both players. A beautiful wave animation cannot move cargo by itself.

02 Height · momentum · trust

Threadfall

Find a way back with more to carry.

Suspended ruins offer a route of anchors and moving platforms. Reach the object together, then discover how its weight changes the journey home.

Compare two illustrated moments
Threadfall: trust the next anchorTwo explorers cross ruins suspended above clouds. A tether reaches toward a moving platform. One illustration shows a reachable anchor; the other shows the platform beyond reach, leaving the player at the ledge.
Concept illustration · compare the proposed consequences below.

The next hold becomes possible.

In this imagined moment, the anchor is within reach when the shared world accepts the attachment. Your tether can become part of the route, with your partner helping you bring the load home.

The rule behind this moment

The proposed first route judges the attachment against the anchor’s current position.

A convincing picture is not a hold.

The platform has moved since the view you aimed at. If the anchor is now too far away, the attachment is refused. Any immediate local preview must give way to that shared decision.

The rule behind this moment

Showing a tether early cannot make an out-of-reach attachment real. The challenge is to make that correction understandable to the player.

03 Identity · promises · private knowledge

Borrowed Names

What does a borrowed name owe?

An archive opens to one name, a guild recognizes another. In a city of stolen identities, two players exchange rights, clues and promises to find their way back to themselves.

Compare two illustrated moments
Borrowed Names: a city remembers its promisesA warmly lit archive faces a guild across a narrow square. Two people exchange a name written on a ribbon. The archive document and the promise to return it stay with the original borrower. ARCHIVEGUILD
Concept illustration · compare the proposed consequences below.

The door opens. A promise begins.

The archive recognizes the borrowed name. You take a document and promise to return it. In this particular scenario, that promise belongs to you, the person who made it.

The rule behind this moment

A name, a person and an institution’s recognition are different things. The game must say which one a promise binds.

The name moves. Your promise stays.

Your partner receives the borrowed name, but you still owe the document. Passing the name on does not quietly pass your promise with it. Another institution could write a different rule.

The rule behind this moment

Rights and obligations follow their stated conditions. What one institution accepts can differ from what another knows.

04 Memory · timing · shared intentions

Afterimage

The same plan. A changed room.

Two people attempt a heist, then agree to rewind. Echoes return to their earlier intentions. This time, arrange the room so those intentions can help you.

Compare two illustrated moments
Afterimage: the plan returns, the outcome can changeTwo players plan a heist in a moonlit room with two doors, a guard and a central prize. An echo follows an earlier route to a lever. An alternate illustration blocks the lever, so the earlier success cannot simply repeat.
Concept illustration · compare the proposed consequences below.

An earlier intention gets another chance.

The echo returns to pull the lever at its recorded moment. If the action is still permitted in this attempt, it can succeed again and become useful to your new plan.

The rule behind this moment

Both players authorize a shared rewind. The recording remembers an intention; the new world decides what happens.

Remembering success does not force it.

You have blocked the lever. The echo’s new attempt is refused, even though it succeeded before. In the proposed first version, the echo continues its schedule rather than inventing a new plan.

The rule behind this moment

Past outcomes are not pasted into the present. What repeats, what is remembered and what may fail must be clear to both players.

What comes next

Find the moments
worth playing.

Small shared-world experiments will let us discover how these ideas feel to play. Their differences should shape the engine—and help us choose the first game.

Follow the worlds taking shape