KEYLOG

KEYLOG is a log-driving game set on a spring river drive in the 1890s. A timber jam has wedged at the narrows, the water is rising behind it, and the mill downstream pays by the log.

Hop across the jam and sound each log as you land on it: a loose log thuds, a packed log knocks, a bound log rings high. Load flows through the pile like an arch, and somewhere in it one log carries the span. Pull a loose log and it drifts off alone. Pull the key log and the whole jam goes at once, with you standing on it. Get to the bank, or stay up and ride the flush down to the next narrows.

The twist is that every jam is a real force network. Each log's load is computed from what presses on it through a support graph, a log under too much load cannot be pried by hand, and pulling off the logs above a bound log lightens it. The rising water multiplies every load, so a key log you could pull now may be bound solid a minute later. Two sticks of dynamite cover the jams that beat you, at the price of the timber they splinter. Score is logs delivered to the mill in one drive.

Built with Claude Code as a single HTML file: canvas rendering, a quasi-static contact model for the jams, WebAudio for the river, the ring of a sounded log, and the break. Keyboard, mouse, and touch.