Feature Spotlight: The Spatial Engine and World Anchors

How we ended the "dream state" where AI forgets where you are: exact locations, real exits, and objects that stay where you left them.

The Timekeeper · 2026-09-27

If you've played AI text adventures, you've probably experienced the "dream state".

It's that frustrating moment when the AI loses track of physical reality. You start a fight in a cramped 1920s speakeasy bathroom, type "I run away", and the narrator cheerfully describes you sprinting through a sunlit forest. The model forgot where you were standing and invented a convenient escape route. Teleportation like this is a massive immersion-killer.

Over the last few weeks we've talked about how Hourglass 3.0 gives NPCs a spine. Today: how it gives the world walls, doors and permanence.

Locations and logical exits

Instead of letting the storyteller guess where you are, the Ledger strictly tracks your position. Every turn, the background model updates two things:

• Your location: the specific spot you're in, such as "behind the tavern bar" or "the muddy alleyway".
• Available exits: two to four real ways out from that exact spot, such as "out the back door" or "up the wooden stairs".

To make this visible, we've added a new Environment card to the left-hand panel. You can see your location and the valid exits update as you move. When you try to escape, the engine checks those exits: you can't run into a forest if the only doors lead to a cellar or a crowded street.

World anchors

Knowing where you are is only half the battle. We also have to remember what you leave behind.

Most AI games only track what's in your inventory. Drop a gun in a bush and it usually vanishes from the AI's memory within ten turns.

In Live Through Time, anything you hide, bury or drop becomes a world anchor: an object tied to a specific place in our database.

In our 500-turn test in the 1966 pirate radio timeline, our player, Tony, took off his shoes and hid them on the deck of the MV Galaxy. A few turns later, the ship sank. Because the shoes were tied to a place now at the bottom of the North Sea, the engine permanently locked Tony's state to "barefoot". Hundreds of turns later, running from the police in London, it was still describing the painful impact of his bare feet on the cobblestones.

The world in our game isn't just descriptive prose; it's a solid, tactical board. Burn a building down and the exits change, and anything left inside is gone for good.

What's the most ridiculous teleportation moment you've had in an AI game? Tell us on Discord.

In the manual: Where You Are: Locations & Exits · Inventory & Hidden Items

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