23 September 2026

A first build has gone to the App Store.

Today I sent a first version of Blakeney to Apple. It is waiting for review.

It is a free game. That felt important. I do not want anyone to pay for the privilege of trying something that is still very early.

This build is very much a proof of concept. It is not the finished harbour, and it is not pretending to be. It is something you can actually pick up and play with, while we keep developing the game much further.

A grey RIB at rest on the harbour in the first playable Blakeney build, helm and throttle on screen

You can take a RIB out. There is a throttle, a heading, a little chart in the corner. The village sits on the bank in a simplified way. You can put the lever ahead and leave a wake, or sit still and look at the water.

A dark RIB underway in front of the village in the first playable Blakeney build — The village, simplified. Still recognisably the bank.

Once you put the throttle down, it starts to feel like a boat rather than a menu. There is a houseboat. There is open water. There is already enough harbour to get slightly lost in.

The RIB leaving a wake past a black houseboat in the first playable Blakeney build — A wake. A houseboat. Not much else yet, and that is fine.

The RIB on open water with other boats in the distance in the first playable Blakeney build

You can also go sailing, in a small dinghy, which is closer to why this whole project exists.

A white dinghy with a tan sail on the harbour in the first playable Blakeney build — The dinghy. Closer to the point of the thing.

The same dinghy from above, a long shadow on the water, a yellow mark nearby

The tide still has opinions. Drive up onto the marsh and the game will tell you that you are aground, and that you might want to check the tide in Morston. That is the sort of harbour this is supposed to be — not an empty sheet of water, but a place where the bottom comes up to meet you if you get it wrong.

The RIB high and dry on grass beside a blue boathouse, with an aground warning — Aground. Check the tide in Morston.

The lighting can already do something quite lovely at the end of the day. A yacht, a red sail, the sun going down the channel. That is the feeling I want to keep, even while almost everything else still has to be rebuilt.

Sunset over the harbour in the first playable Blakeney build, a yacht and a red sail on the water — The bit I want to keep.

I do not have a store link to share yet. Apple has to look at it first. When it is approved it will be free, and it will be early, and that is the point.

The original Blakeney Pit Sailing remains its own game. This is the next thing: a first public build of Blakeney, for anyone who wants to wander around until there is a much better one.