The fog, the stone, the flame
Three words pinned above the desk. Every asset in Warden's Lantern has to earn its place against one of them.
Every game has a moodboard. Most moodboards are a hundred images and zero rules. Ours got better when we threw the images out and kept three words instead: fog, stone, flame.
Fog
Soft. Cold. Grey with a blue bias. Never black — black is the absence of everything, fog is the suggestion of something. All our dark areas are #0a0a08, never pure black. When you lose sight of a path, you should feel like it's still out there somewhere.
Stone
Heavy. Warm-neutral. The stone of the lighthouse reads as old and salt-worn. Colors lean toward bone and sand — #ebe7d9 is our base "paper" tone. Every interior surface uses a slight texture so the stone looks touched.
Flame
Small. Precious. Yellow with a little green in the cool hours, a little orange in the warm ones. Never red, never magical. The flame is a working object, not a spell. When light hits a mirror, it doesn't glow — it reflects.
What the three words kill
They're a veto list. "Cool glowing crystals" — no, fails flame. "A procedurally generated sky" — no, fails fog. "An inventory screen with gold trim" — no, fails stone.
This is how we stopped arguing about every asset. If it doesn't fit one of the three words, it doesn't go in the game.
Next month: we finally write the journals.