https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog.htmlEngine, game and tooling notes.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-project-separation.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-project-separation.htmlSun, 08 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000Hydro, its editor and its first game all lived in one repository. The plan to give every game its own repo, the 16 couplings in the way, and the first five steps.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-engine-for-agents.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-engine-for-agents.htmlMon, 02 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000Hydro has 500+ source files and strict house rules. Here is the harness that lets Claude and a local Qwen model work in it without guessing.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-game-code-structure.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-game-code-structure.htmlSun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000How the diorama RPG keeps its battle maths testable without a GPU, its UI dumb, and its run state alive across scene changes.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-data-definitions.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-data-definitions.htmlSun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000Dialogue, items, quests and enemies moved out of C++ into reflected definition files and tables, edited in the inspector.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-standalone-build.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-standalone-build.htmlSat, 31 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Splitting game code out of the editor, a small runtime that plays one project, and a build button in the editor. Deliberately not an asset pipeline yet.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-hierarchy-and-ui.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-hierarchy-and-ui.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Parent-child entities and a real UI system, planned against two plain goals and built in two days. The decisions that kept it small.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-jolt-physics.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-jolt-physics.htmlThu, 29 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Moving from bounding boxes to real 3D collision with Jolt Physics, and the two rules that made it simple.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-tonemap-toe.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-tonemap-toe.htmlTue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000A small HDR decision with a big effect on pixel art: keeping the darks exactly as the artist painted them.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-sun-shadows.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-sun-shadows.htmlTue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000One shadow map for the sun, sprite casters that turn to face the light, and a lookup trick so a sprite is never darkened by its own shadow.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-sprites-in-3d.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-sprites-in-3d.htmlMon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000How Hydro turned a flat 2D village into a diorama without rewriting the scenes: a facing mode per sprite, a depth buffer, and one discard.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-runtime-state.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-runtime-state.htmlSun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Settings, per-entity state, library-owned state and derived data each have one home in Hydro. Deciding that once removed a whole class of bugs.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-engine-review.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-engine-review.htmlTue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Before adding features, I reviewed all 6,000 lines of the engine and editor. Six critical bugs, a swapchain split, and RAII for every Vulkan resource.https://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-four-years-of-hydro.htmlhttps://joel-van-der-werf.com/devlog-four-years-of-hydro.htmlSun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Hydro started in July 2022 as a window and a validation layer. A look back at four years of a side project that kept getting picked up again.