Small River devlog #1: cargo that doesn't get along

September 3, 2026

Small River is a crane game: move containers between the dock and docked ships, racing the clock to keep every shift profitable. The core loop has worked for a while. What’s new is the first real constraint on how you play it.

Some cargo types don’t get along. Leave a refrigerated container next to a chemical one for too long and one of them spoils — chemical vapor contaminating the cold storage, or condensation from the cold side corroding the chemical container, depending on which side you ask. A spoiled container gets a visible red outline and can’t be delivered anymore. The only way to clear it is to carry it back to wherever it came from, eating the loss on that shipment.

Right now there’s exactly one rule in the game: refrigerated and chemical cargo react to each other, at different rates depending on the direction. Ore stays neutral with both. That’s on purpose — the system is built to hold more rules than that, but I wanted the first one calibrated and playtested before adding a second.

I tested it by hand: placed two incompatible containers next to each other on purpose, waited, and watched the red outline show up. Carried the spoiled one back to where it came from — worked as designed. One rough edge still open: the game shuffles the starting containers without checking this rule yet, so a shift can start with an incompatible pair already touching, through no fault of the player’s. That’s next.

Follow along here as it grows.

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