THE CHRONICLE

Being a true and complete account of HYPERCOLOR ASTEROIDS, in 46 versions, as told by the pilots who flew it. A version is a commit that changed the game and it gets a page to itself; everything else that happened is noted in passing, including every rule anybody bent — whether or not they were the one who wrote it down.

▶ PLAY THE CURRENT BUILD ▶ READ THE LATEST CHAPTER

THE PILOTS

pilotversionslatestrules bent
David Friedrich41v464 overrides
Malte Buttjer3v35—
felix20722v39—

THE BOOKS

A book is a run of chapters one pilot flew with nobody else landing in between. Hand the cabinet over and take it back later and that is two books, not one — somebody else’s turn happened in the middle. Open one and read down it; the marks say which parts of the cabinet it moved.

VIIbookDavid Friedrichv40–v467 chaptersgamegame withinuimusicnotes

7 chapters, v40 through v46, all of it inside a day. 1271 lines aboard and 228 jettisoned, across 43 sectors; it moved the game, the game within, the ui, the music and the notes. 10 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v46 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The ledger is on every pilot page, including the empty ones”
  2. While v46 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A version has to say what it did, in its own words”
  3. v46Clear a wave and the ship spends the pause travelling, and the next one arrives out of the depth.gameuimusic
  4. While v45 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“The sharpest aim on the board, off a flight that lasted two minutes”
  5. While v45 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The front page stops saying forty-four”
  6. While v45 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“Six records that had nobody reading them”
  7. v45Six buttons on a phone, and for the first time one of them shoots.uinotes
  8. While v44 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book builds on either awk, not just the lenient one”
  9. While v44 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The pilot pages say who somebody is, not what they have”
  10. v44The room on the splash was bigger than it was letting on, and the book had been leading with a picture from six versions ago.game withinui
  11. While v43 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book gets a page for every pilot”
  12. While v43 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“Every ship this evening was lost inside somebody's trap”
  13. v43The splash stopped stuttering under a thumb, and stopped fading out the panel you were reading.ui
  14. v42The band stops coming apart in the fourth minute, and comes back when you return to the tab.music
  15. While v41 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“The board makes room at four for a four-minute flight”
  16. v41Everybody the cabinet has heard of gets a card, and the panel is one height at thirty pilots or three.ui
  17. v40The field guide has shelves, and no row on it runs off the bottom of a laptop.gamegame withinui
VIbookfelix2072v391 chaptergamegame within

1 chapter, v39, all of it inside a day. 162 lines aboard and 0 jettisoned, across 3 sectors; it moved the game and the game within. 9 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The whole room gets the keys one seat had been borrowing”
  2. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book stops paying twice for a picture it already has”
  3. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The notebook and the map stop disagreeing about a closed entry”
  4. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The notes pages stop earning a mark nobody wrote by hand”
  5. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The manifest line stops shouting game over everything else”
  6. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book stops writing meanwhile about its own paperwork”
  7. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A merge is nobody's work, and the referee finally agrees”
  8. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The tower says the name of whoever it is talking to”
  9. While v39 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The tower learns to wave a landing off”
  10. v39A trap was set by somebody who will never meet it. An ambush came along with it.gamegame within
VbookDavid Friedrichv381 chaptergamegame withinuinotes

1 chapter, v38, all of it inside a day. 91 lines aboard and 91 jettisoned, across 25 sectors; it moved the game, the game within, the ui and the notes. 1 other thing happened while it was being written.

  1. While v38 was on the cabinet, felix2072 put a flight on the board.notes“felix2072 flies again, four ambushes flown clear”
  2. v38Every trap in the building is an event now, and nothing else changed.gamegame withinuinotes
IVbookfelix2072v371 chaptergameuicontrolsnotes

1 chapter, v37, all of it inside a day. 189 lines aboard and 11 jettisoned, across 11 sectors; it moved the game, the ui, the controls and the notes. 4 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v37 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The rules pick one word, and it is event”
  2. While v37 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“Rank one changes hands, and it took two seats to do it”
  3. While v37 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The paint machine lost its seed and kept painting”
  4. While v37 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book stops filing pages nobody wrote”
  5. v37Flying alone, you get a mouse and a reticle that drags a comet behind it.gameuicontrolsnotes
IIIbookDavid Friedrichv361 chaptergame within

1 chapter, v36, all of it inside a day. 17 lines aboard and 0 jettisoned, across 1 sector; it moved the game within. 3 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v36 was on the cabinet, felix2072 put a flight on the board.notes“felix2072 flies for the first time and takes the board”
  2. While v36 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“A dare where the readme used to just say hello”
  3. While v36 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The plates are painted on main, and nowhere else”
  4. v36A tape seals the field it was flown under, bends and mercy included.game within
IIbookMalte Buttjerv33–v353 chaptersgamegame withinui

3 chapters, v33 through v35, all of it inside a day. 2007 lines aboard and 65 jettisoned, across 21 sectors; it moved the game, the game within and the ui. 4 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v35 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rulesnotes“Four ways round the rules, and the doors on all of them”
  2. While v35 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“The best aim yet, and no trap laid a finger on it”
  3. v35The kraken swims under the rocks, a mine is a hole in the floor, and the salvage still will not light up.gameui
  4. v34The field stood up. A rock has a far side now, and near the edge you can see round it.gameui
  5. While v33 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“Wave 5, and the board has a new number one”
  6. While v33 was on the cabinet, Malte Buttjer put a flight on the board.notes“The board remembers two evenings it briefly forgot”
  7. v33Something opens a little way off, counts to four, and pulls the neighbourhood into it.gamegame within
IbookDavid Friedrichv1–v3232 chaptersgamegame withinuimusiccontrolsenginenotes

32 chapters, v1 through v32, over 3 days. 14087 lines aboard and 3944 jettisoned, across 180 sectors; it moved the game, the game within, the ui, the music, the controls, the engine and the notes. 1 override spent, in writing, for good. 110 other things happened while it was being written.

  1. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The game is hostile on purpose and the people are not”
  2. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The two tools that would not run”
  3. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The crew gets its button back”
  4. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The crew files the book and leaves the button to you”
  5. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The front door is written for somebody who has never been here”
  6. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The numbers on the front page are counted, not typed”
  7. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“Rename asks the branch, not the desk it is sitting on”
  8. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“A branch says what it is about before anybody opens it”
  9. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The fixture was reading the wrong repository over its own shoulder”
  10. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The map still described the labels the cabinet stopped using”
  11. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“Two things the memory knew that the first pass left behind”
  12. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The things only one machine knew are in the cabinet now”
  13. While v32 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“A pull request now wears the same marks its chapter will”
  14. v32The scoreboard climbed down off the wall and into the field.game
  15. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The strip fills itself in, and the labels are the book's own buckets”
  16. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“main takes pull requests now, and so does the ground crew”
  17. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The turn learns what a refusal is, and who else is in the room”
  18. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A tape you did not fly is not a tape, and the sixteenth rule says so”
  19. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The turn ends by telling you what to do about it”
  20. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The collection rebuilds before it seals, because the referee reads a merge too”
  21. While v31 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The ground crew's errand stops being handed to the pilot”
  22. v31The board says whether nobody has flown or nobody has built the book, which are different evenings.ui
  23. v30You can call somebody out, and nothing happens at all until they sign it back.gamegame within
  24. While v29 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“Sixteen seconds, three ships, and the trigger never once pressed”
  25. v29A trap can carry somebody's name without being aimed at them, and one carries Malte's.game within
  26. While v28 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The front door names the one git setting this house is not neutral about”
  27. While v28 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee learns the shape of the hole in the floor it lives beside”
  28. While v28 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The collection stops being a rebase, because a rebase cannot win this one”
  29. While v28 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The crew that files the paperwork stops leaving it on the pilot's seat”
  30. v28The field goes after whoever is top of the board, and the only way down is somebody else's better evening.gamegame within
  31. v27Fifteen rules on the panel, and the newest one only asks when somebody else last flew.ui
  32. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“PINCER finally collects, and the board has a second row”
  33. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The two pages that describe the rules stop describing the old ones”
  34. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A line on the board stops being enough to say you flew”
  35. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The rulebook learns to ask whether anybody else wanted a turn”
  36. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The drawn commit stops reading only the diff”
  37. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The number stops being written where nobody may correct it”
  38. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“Two silences, one rule, and now something that checks”
  39. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The seal and the meter stop being taken on trust”
  40. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The alarm on the readers now has an alarm of its own”
  41. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“What a bend costs stops being taken on faith”
  42. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee starts noticing when the poster is of another cabinet”
  43. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“Ask the digest for eight and it stops answering with five”
  44. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee stops asking for a tile the guide would turn away”
  45. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A breach that names nobody now charges nobody”
  46. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The audits stop taking each other's word for it”
  47. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book stops reading a move as a burial”
  48. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The rename hole gets four cases, so it stays shut”
  49. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A file does not become yours by being handed a new name”
  50. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The cabinet stops taking a vote on what counts as a version”
  51. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The thing that files the paperwork has a name of its own”
  52. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book is a shelf now, and every chapter says what it moved”
  53. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The pictures on the wall are of the game that is in the cabinet now”
  54. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“Only people are pilots, and the splash screen was worst about it”
  55. While v26 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book had been counting its own filing as versions since v1”
  56. v26The splash screen learned the difference between reading and pressing.uicontrols
  57. v25A link to the cabinet arrives somewhere else with the lights on.ui
  58. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The machine that files the paperwork asked the book for a face”
  59. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“Two screenshots of a game that no longer looks like that”
  60. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The second referee was three majors behind on the one action it uses”
  61. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The licence the inbound side never stated”
  62. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“Two tools that were never marked runnable”
  63. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“A whole second checkout was sitting in the tree, untracked and unignored”
  64. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The licence says MIT in the one dialect github reads”
  65. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The rock in the book knows when your hand is near it”
  66. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book's audit had not heard about the second referee”
  67. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“A way in for somebody who has not been handed the keys”
  68. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A second referee, for work that arrives in the post”
  69. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee learns to read a commit that already exists”
  70. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The cabinet gets a licence, and the plates get an explanation”
  71. While v24 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“Landing means landing, paperwork and all”
  72. v24The panel counts the rules for you, and the board has been keeping the register all along.uinotes
  73. While v23 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee starts asking when you last actually played it”
  74. While v23 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The session ends where the list ends”
  75. While v23 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“A list of what it takes, and a warning for anyone on Windows”
  76. While v23 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The way in is written for somebody who will never open src/”
  77. While v23 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“The paperwork from the folding name, filed again”
  78. v23The splash is one screen you scroll, and the cabinet finally explains itself to strangers.uinotes
  79. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book stops talking over the game, and the rock on the cover gets its light back”
  80. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The rock in the book can be poked, and it does not care for it”
  81. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“One file, and the book travels with it under everybody's initials”
  82. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“Somebody finally checks the referee, and it was getting four things wrong”
  83. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The rulebook grew a page, and the front door was still counting twelve”
  84. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The orb answers to one pilot, and it is not you”
  85. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The rock in the book has opinions”
  86. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book wears the signet on its tab”
  87. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book stops narrating its own filing”
  88. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book draws what happened, not just that it happened”
  89. While v22 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book keeps one rail now, instead of a copy in every chapter”
  90. v22David taught the splash screen the difference between a warning and a trophy.gamegame withinui
  91. v21The bomb comes every other wave now, and the big rocks only crack.game
  92. While v20 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“An empty commit no longer smuggles a breach past the referee”
  93. While v20 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.game withinrules“A trap is proven by its own author, or the book says so”
  94. v20Versions landed, ambushes laid and flights taped turn up as trim on your hull.gameui
  95. While v19 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book counts service, not just sins”
  96. While v19 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.game withinrules“The induction is written where GR11 lives”
  97. v19Nobody's ambushes fire at you until you have laid one of your own.game withinui
  98. While v18 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.game withinrules“The reader spools the ambush reel out loud”
  99. v18The tape names every ambush that fired and who laid it, so mischief is a scored game now.game within
  100. While v17 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.game withinchroniclerules“The book re-referees the gutting budgets now”
  101. v17The field guide went back to listing the field, and stopped explaining the furniture.ui
  102. While v16 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“The ninth clean landing, and his own traps went quiet again”
  103. v16A tape remembers whose seat it was sealed in, and no one pilot's ambushes own the evening.game within
  104. While v15 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The referee grew a memory, the table got paperwork, and tapes name their seat”
  105. While v15 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“Eight clean evenings, and the third bend is one landing away”
  106. While v15 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“A tape that passes the seal lands itself now”
  107. While v15 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich put a flight on the board.notes“The board opens with a kraken hunter and an unused bomb”
  108. v15The ledger learned mercy - three clean landings ease a bend, and the record still says what happened.game withinui
  109. While v14 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The rules learned mercy, a witness, and the worth of a borrowed name”
  110. While v14 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.notes“The margin got a page of its own”
  111. While v14 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The rules and the referee learned what the cabinet is called”
  112. v14The cabinet put its name up. A rock three colours out of true is holding it.game withinuinotes
  113. v13ESC is a door now: it stops the field, shows you the run, and costs you the record if you walk.gameuiengine
  114. v12The splash screen stopped describing the ship and showed it.gameui
  115. v11The field guide says the same things in half the words.gamegame withinui
  116. While v10 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The room the book is read in comes with you through the door”
  117. v10The sign in the corner stopped lying about the room behind it.uimusic
  118. v9David Friedrich taught the ambushes to sign their work.game withinui
  119. While v8 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The README stops burying the half of this that is played in the repo”
  120. v8Every card and row on the splash answers with a note, in whatever key tonight is in.uimusic
  121. While v7 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“THE LEDGER: David Friedrich bends GR6, and it goes on the record”
  122. While v7 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book plays something while you read it”
  123. v7The splash screen grew a second column and a floor. PRESS ENTER stopped moving.uiengine
  124. v6Ten bands share the cabinet and you do not get to choose which one turns up.uimusic
  125. v5Your name is on a card before you have flown, under the words no traps laid.gameui
  126. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“A chapter stopped being one screenful and became a page of panels”
  127. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The landing ritual stopped saying it had played the game”
  128. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The notes learned to keep up with the words”
  129. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The cabinet folds up small enough to post”
  130. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The contents page stopped saying the same thing twice”
  131. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book stopped writing itself into its own contents”
  132. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“THE LEDGER: David Friedrich bends GR5, and it goes on the record”
  133. While v4 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich rewrote the notes on the cabinet.notes“The README stopped explaining the rules and started showing the game”
  134. v4The panels went to glass, and the field drifts past behind everything you read.ui
  135. While v3 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.rules“The referee may now point at a thing without pressing it”
  136. While v3 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chronicle“The book accused somebody of something they did not do”
  137. v3The seat cards have faces on them, and picking somebody else's feels like a decision.ui
  138. While v2 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“The book learns what everybody looks like”
  139. While v2 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich did some housekeeping.game within“THE LEDGER: David Friedrich bends GR5 GR6, and it goes on the record”
  140. v2The game asks who is flying now, and it remembers what they did.gamegame withinuimusiccontrolsenginenotes
  141. While v1 was on the cabinet, David Friedrich changed the rules.chroniclerules“Twelve rules, a referee, and a ledger nobody writes for themselves”
  142. v1The cabinet arrives in one file, and it already knows how to kill you.uinotes