Harkfell 0.2 is out, and it's a big one: a whole new region to explore! Glasswood is a birch wood west of the Hollow where everything is frozen and glazed in ice, and it's where the third note has been hiding.
\nAt the Hollow's west edge there's now an old amber stone door. It hums at you from the very beginning, but it stays shut until you're carrying the amber note from Reedfen. Once it opens, scree falls away into the mist, and far below you, a whole wood glitters.
\nGlasswood is 22 rooms, which brings the world to 58. You'll climb birch branches up into the crowns of the wood, where every twig is coated in glass and clinks in the wind, and cross a tarn frozen clear as glass. Stand still out on the ice for a while and it sings! There's a waterfall that froze in the middle of falling, too.
\nIt has creatures of its own. A snow owl on a high branch turns its head to follow you as you pass, and if you stand still in the snow for a moment, the voles come up to have a look at you.
\nYou can drop down through the birch branches, too: hold down and press jump. On a touch screen, hold the stick straight down and tap to jump.
\nUnder the wood there are caves of blue ice, and they are dark. You'll get your first taste of that dark on the way in, before you have any way to light it.
\nThe moths spend the winter in the oldest birch in the wood, and they're drawn to the note you find there. Carry it into the caves and the moths in each one come to you and gather around you, lighting a small circle wherever you go. The caves are your way home, so you'll be spending some time in their company. It's one of my favorite parts of the game so far.
\nGlasswood is beautiful, but it isn't entirely safe.
\nIcicles hang over some of the paths, and now and then one of them rings, shivers and falls. If you listen, you'll hear which one is about to go, so you can wait for it and then walk through. Get hit and you'll be back where you came into the room, a few steps behind.
\nSome of the ice is thin, too. You can cross it, but keep moving: stand on it for about a second and it cracks under you. The good news is that the ice isn't slippery, so every jump feels the same as it does anywhere else.
\nThis one changes the whole world, not just Glasswood. When you're carrying a note and there's a shut stone somewhere that it opens, that stone now calls to you with it. The call is quieter than a note you haven't found yet, you can hear it from up to three rooms away, and your ears point toward it when nothing louder is nearby. Coming home, you can follow the sound of the door you're about to open.
\nSomewhere in Glasswood there's a place you won't find on the way to anywhere. If you do find it, you'll hear a note that no stone in the world has. There's nothing to take there yet, but I'd remember where it is!
\nIn 0.1, a lot of sounds were cut off while they were still ringing: the stones, the notes you pick up, the moths' chimes and one of the birds' chirps. They stopped dead in the middle of their ring, like a recording chopped short. Now they fade away naturally, the way a bell dies away in a quiet room. It's a small thing, but in a game about listening you can hear the difference.
\nYou can play it right now at harkfell.com/play.
\nLet me know what you hear!
", "summary": "Glasswood is open: a frozen birch wood west of the Hollow, with caves of blue ice that the moths light for you." }, { "id": "https://harkfell.com/news/harkfell-0-1-1/", "url": "https://harkfell.com/news/harkfell-0-1-1/", "title": "Harkfell 0.1.1", "date_published": "2026-09-26T00:00:00Z", "content_html": "Harkfell 0.1.1 is out! It's a small release, but it fixes the two things I noticed most when I played 0.1 on my phone.
\nIn 0.1, footsteps, jumps, splashes and the creatures' calls reached your ears a little after the thing that made them, about a tenth of a second late. That doesn't sound like much, but in a game about listening you can feel it: your feet and their sound didn't quite line up.
\nNow every one of those sounds plays the moment it happens, in the browser and on the desktop. They used to wait in line behind a buffer of audio, and now they're mixed straight into the output as soon as the game asks for them. Everything still sounds the same as before, just on time.
\nThey're also ready from the very first step. The game now prepares them while the title screen waits for you, instead of all at once as the world fades in, so your first jump makes its sound like every other one, and a slower phone no longer crackles while the game gets its sounds ready.
\nThe creature has had a little climbing animation since the beginning, paw over paw up a rough rock face, but a bug meant it never actually played! You'd hold on to the wall and slide up it frozen in place. Now it climbs the way it was drawn to, and it holds still when you stop.
\nYou can play it right now at harkfell.com/play. Your save from 0.1 carries over, so you can pick up right where you left off.
\nLet me know what you hear!
", "summary": "Footsteps and splashes now sound the moment they happen, and the creature climbs paw over paw." }, { "id": "https://harkfell.com/news/harkfell-0-1/", "url": "https://harkfell.com/news/harkfell-0-1/", "title": "Harkfell 0.1", "date_published": "2026-09-25T00:00:00Z", "content_html": "Harkfell is here! Well, the first slice of it is, and I'm excited for you to check it out.
\nHarkfell is a quiet little platformer about listening. The stones on the fells used to ring, and now only the wind does. Somewhere far below, a very low note is waiting for its overtones to come back, and you're the small, long-eared creature who goes looking for them.
\nThis release covers the first two regions of the world: the Hollow, a ring of old standing stones where you wake up, and Reedfen, a wide, wet fen of reeds, still water and frogs. That's 36 rooms to wander through, climb around and listen to.
\nThere are no words in the world and no tutorial. It just begins, and you explore. The trick is that the thing you're looking for is something you can hear: a missing note sounds from its direction and gets louder as you get closer, so if you stand still for a moment, the land will tell you where to go. Every note you bring home joins the drone you hear everywhere after that, so you can hear how far you've come with your eyes shut.
\nEverything you hear is synthesized live while you play. There isn't a single recorded sound in the game!
\nHarkfell is a game of listening, and headphones bring it closest. It's made to work on laptop and phone speakers too, but with headphones you'll hear which way things are much more clearly, and that's a big part of the fun.
\nYou can play it right now at harkfell.com/play. It's free, and the source is on GitHub if you'd like to see how it's made.
\nLet me know what you hear!
", "summary": "The first slice of Harkfell is here: the Hollow and Reedfen, free to play in your browser." } ] }