October 22, 2026

Where rivers begin

New worlds are made on new land, where water behaves the way it does outside. A few evenings on it, and what we fixed along the way.

Since yesterday, every new world, Skirmish, and Battle round is made on new land. The change is in the water. Rivers used to be drawn across a finished landscape. Now the land is shaped first, and the water finds its own way down.

A river winding across open grassland toward a distant lake, under a warm evening sky, with a mountain fading into haze — Low ground in the evening. The river has gathered most of the valley's water by here, and it runs on into the lake.

Downhill, always

Each world now works out where rain would drain: which hollows feed which valleys, and where those valleys meet. Rivers follow that map. They start as creeks high in the hills, where slopes come together, never on a peak. They are a couple of metres wide at first and widen and deepen as tributaries join. Water only runs downhill. Where it fills a hollow it becomes a lake, and the lake spills out at its lowest rim. Every river ends in a lake or the sea.

Where the ground drops away, the water drops with it. A creek steps down a hillside over a run of small falls, then settles into a quiet stretch below.

A stream stepping down through a wooded valley in a series of white cascades, with a peak behind it in late light — A creek stepping down through the woods toward the valley floor, late in the day.

What we fixed today

Shaping land this way has side effects, and we've been walking it to find them. Three fixes went out today.

Slots under creeks. Where a creek doubled back on itself, its lower stretch cut a valley 18 m deep straight under its upper stretch, leaving the creek at the bottom of a sheer slot you couldn't climb out of. A stream's own banks now hold, and those pits are gone.

Walls beside rivers. Below a fall, the bank built up to hold the water above it was carried down alongside the stretch below, as a wall. On the four worlds we measure, sheer banks are down by more than half, and by five-sixths on one.

Stones. A boulder at the top of a steep bank hung half its width over the drop. Boulders now settle into the slope.

White water at dusk

White water, foam, and surf used to stay bright white until full night. In the evening, with the valley already in shadow, the white water glowed. Now it takes the light of the hour: warm in a low sun, dim at dusk, faint under the moon. Drag the slider to compare.

The same creek just after sunset. Before, the cascades glowed against the darkened woods; now they settle into the evening.

After — The same creek just after sunset. Before, the cascades glowed against the darkened woods; now they settle into the evening.

Falls pour in ropes of white now, with darker water showing between them, and they catch the sun on the side that faces it. The tall ones still look too even from a distance, so that's next.