Choose your look

Everything stripped for speed: system fonts, no web fonts, no motion, no 3D, flat ink on paper.

Motion — None, by design. No ambient layers, no reveals, no counters, no diorama — the fastest page this game can serve.

The same fast page after dark: system fonts, no web fonts, no motion, no 3D — flat gold on slate.

Motion — None, by design. Identical to Lightweight in every way but the palette.

The same fast page in a cultivator's violet: system fonts, no web fonts, no motion, no 3D — flat violet-white qi on ink, jade for a gain.

Motion — None, by design. Identical to Lightweight in every way but the palette.

The court as the game shipped it — black stone, old gold, candle-warm.

Motion — Embers of gold light rise slowly through the page.

The same court, stripped to obsidian and cold platinum. Nothing decorative survives.

Motion — A single faint sheen travels across each panel edge on the tick.

The dispatch as it arrives by hand: aged paper, iron-gall ink, a wax seal.

Motion — Ink settles into the fibres of the page when content changes.

Fire. Charcoal, forge-orange, a crimson core.

Motion — Sparks lift off the base of the page; headings hold a low heat-shimmer.

Water. Deep hull-blue, caustic aqua, a pearl edge.

Motion — Caustic light drifts across the ground like sun through shallow water.

Air. Slate, storm-cyan, and driven white.

Motion — Thin wind streaks race across the page; the parallax runs fast and shallow.

Earth. Wet loam, deep moss, lamp amber.

Motion — Dust hangs in the light and drifts down; the page settles heavily on the tick.

Spirit. Near-black violet, ghost lilac, bone white.

Motion — Wisps drift upward and fade; panels phase very slightly in and out of register.

Emberfall under an eclipse. The orange is gone; only the red and the dark remain.

Motion — A slow red vignette breathes at the edges of the screen.

Tidewrought after a hard freeze. Ice blue on white-grey, crystal at every border.

Motion — Frost creeps in from panel corners and holds; the drift slows to almost nothing.

Deeproot in the 10,000 peaceful years — before the wars began. Spring light.

Motion — Pollen and leaf-light drift gently across a warm, open field.

Hollowlight taken out past the continents into open sky. Cosmic indigo, a field of stars.

Motion — A nebula turns slowly behind the page; stars parallax against it.

The original as it rendered on a CRT: tiled stone, bevelled table borders, web-safe ink.

Motion — None. A 1999 CGI page did not move. One tiny sparkle GIF, and only on the crest.

The tick from the other side of the glass. Phosphor on black, monospace, scanlines.

Motion — The scanline rolls; the cursor blinks; new lines type in a character at a time.