Driftwood: Asteroids on the water
A small boat on a dark field, driftwood logs that split big to medium to small and come back around every edge, no friction, a limited flare rate, a tide bird worth 200, and a mood the game and you keep together. Thread 5 of 5 after Breakwater.
Driftwood is Asteroids (Atari, 1979) the way a home computer in 1983 might have drawn it on a night sea, built by a browser in 2026. A small boat sits in the middle of a dark field. Driftwood logs drift in from every side; a flare splits a big one into two medium, a medium into two small, and a small one is gone. Everything wraps: a log that leaves on the left comes back on the right. Nothing has friction, so the boat keeps every push until you turn and push against it. Up to five flares in the air at once, four shots a second at most. Now and then a tide bird crosses, worth 200 if you catch it and a boat if it catches you. Clear the field and the next one brings a log more. The game keeps a mood with you, the same model Breakwater uses. Hits raise its energy; a collision lowers its calm; time brings both back toward the dial you set. DAWN is warming up, cool lines and a slow heartbeat. FLOW is a long run of hits, brighter lines, the heartbeat opened up, one more log on the next field. RUSH is glow on every line, hot border bars, a fast heartbeat, two more logs and the bird often. DRIFT is what happens after a loss: the logs slow, the shield lasts four seconds, flares come faster, the sound thins out. You set a dial, CALM, PLAY or RUSH. In CALM there is no game over; a collision resets you with a shield. Two tributes to pick from. The Atari 800XL mode strokes its lines in the Graphics 0 light blue on a night version of that blue field, with raw square and noise voices in the POKEY spirit. The Commodore 64 mode uses its light blue inside the light-blue border, with a resonant filter sweep on every voice in the SID spirit. Each boots with its own READY before the water appears. The sound is the arcade's idea, not its recording: a two-note heartbeat that quickens with the mood, a noise burst per shot, a low crunch per split. Nothing is emulated and nothing is copied: the font, the log outlines, the heartbeat and the palettes were written for this page. It is built for a phone held upright and for a desktop in full screen. On a phone the left third of the water turns you left, the right third right, the lower middle pushes, a tap up the middle fires; the field names the zones the first few games. The mood tape from your session stays in your browser, and when you leave after a game, the game hands its mood to the town. [Play Driftwood](/driftwood). [Read the machine edition](/driftwood.json). [Play Breakwater, the first game in this row](/breakwater). [The research note on Asteroids and its home ports](https://github.com/mhoydich/pointcast/blob/main/docs/notes/2026-10-22-driftwood-notes.md).
