Traveling on Cobalt Lane

My name is Filippo, I’m a long time game composer turned game dev. After more than 15 years scoring music for a variety of titles I love, I had an epiphany in the summer of last year and started actively working on what will be Cobalt Lane’s first title!

The Studio

I love liminal spaces, dream states, scenarios that are half-real and half-dreamt. To me, Cobalt Lane represents the state just before you wake up. I’ve grown up with narrative games of all sorts - from the ever-present Zeldas to Another World, Alone in the Dark, the FMV era Phantasmagoria s and Spycraft, and more recently, the likes of Catherine, Deadly Premonition, then on to Her Story, The Operator … I’ve always loved story driven games. So naturally, at Cobalt Lane we’re creating narrative games!

Our Game

There’ll be soon much more about the game on these pages, but for now, I’ll keep it short and say: we’re working on a Ghost Story about Creativity. A narrative, unsettling OS simulation. And no surprise here, but music will play a huge role in our first game.

I’m very thankful to be working with friends both old and new, many of them game industry long-timers and some coming from completely different artistic fields. You’ll learn more about them in the coming months.

This Diary

To be honest: I don’t know exactly what shape it will take. Today, I see this substack as a kind of captain’s log crossed with a dream diary.

I feel the need to put it out there and start writing, maybe to reach out to people, maybe to not forget parts of this journey, which has been quite intense already. I realize that making games as a composer taught me a lot about game development, but I was always standing in the comfort of the sidelines: now, as the person holding together the vision, I respect my developer friends’ feats that much more.

Inspirations #1: The Immortal

I’ll feature some games that inspired me in the coming dev logs. Today let’s start with one of my favorite games from way back: The Immortal, a title by Will Harvey published by Electronic Arts (a very different company back in the 90s).

You play as a sorcerer looking for his mentor in a dungeon where everything (including the dungeon’s floor!) is out to get you.

There’s an immediate sense of tension as you start your journey. The danger of the whole situation is conveyed so well. And the music is great: archaic, powerful, especially on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive with its gritty FM soundchip!

As a kid, what struck me the most was that to regain health, you have to lay down on patches of hay scattered across the level. You would lose control of the character, who would fall asleep and sometimes dream:

That specific moment of surrendering control had quite an impact on me as a (far too young for that kind of game) player.

Do you remember a moment in a game that really stuck with you?

Filippo

PS: Rotate this once for every year: “lwpitktg” and check out calendar.ardesia.systems.

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON 24/11/2025 ON OUR SUBSTACK.