Diligesker’s Lab

Rill & Reef: A First Look at a Hex-Tile Earth

By Diligesker Lab · Written September 26, 2026 · Based on project records · Report a correction

Rill & Reef is a cozy fishing game I am working on. Its world is the real Earth, redrawn as hex tiles you can travel across. It is still early, so this is simply a look at the world as it stands in September 2026. There is nothing to play yet.

Rill & Reef hex world map in summer: green hex tiles, pine trees, a lake and a sandy coastline with small islands
Summer on a stretch of coast near Stockholm: forest, a long inland lake, sandy shores and small offshore islands.

A map drawn from real places

Coastlines, lakes, rivers and forests follow the places they come from. The view above is the Swedish coast near Stockholm, where the land breaks into bays and skerries. The map covers the whole planet, so there is always another coast further on.

Seasons and weather

The same coast changes with the season and the sky. These three images show the view above in other conditions.

The same Rill & Reef coastline in autumn, with orange ground and evergreen trees
Autumn: the grass turns amber while the pines stay green.
The same Rill & Reef coastline in winter, covered in snow with snowfall over the sea
Winter with snowfall. The land goes pale and the sea darkens.
The same Rill & Reef coastline in spring rain, with rain streaks and muted colors
Spring rain softens every color.

For a fishing game this is more than decoration. Where you go, and when, should feel different, and the world ought to reward coming back to a place in another season.

Rivers, wetlands and islands

Rill & Reef inland wetland: a river and a branching lake among forested hex tiles
An inland wetland in China: a river runs past a branching lake among forested hills.
Rill & Reef coastline with many small islands and forested hills
The island-scattered southwest coast of Korea in spring.

Open coast, lakes, rivers and island chains each make a different kind of place to explore. Getting all of them to sit together on one continuous map, without visible seams where water meets land, has been most of the work so far.

What comes next

The world comes first because everything else in the game happens on it. Fishing, travel and the reasons to visit a particular shore come next. I will write another note when there is something you can actually try.

Art credit: the hex terrain is built from KayKit’s free Medieval Hexagon Pack (CC0), adapted for this map. The images are in-development captures and may change.

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