Road to VHL #2: Building a rink for a sport that doesn't exist
Part 2: designing VHL's first full-size arena, where the game's visual identity was born.
Road to VHL is a short series retracing three years of development. This part covers the first arena work in 2022 and the gear that followed.
VHL is hockey, but it isn't just hockey. Nothing forced us to define what that actually means like building the arena.
The first full-size rink was built modular: boards, glass, ice, and lighting as separate pieces we could rearrange and restyle without starting over. Navigation meshes were integrated from the start, because the rink was never meant to be a showpiece. It had to be a playable competitive space from day one.
The look that came out of it, dark ice and cold light with sci-fi accents, became the visual identity everything else follows, this website included.
The gear came next. Stylized hockey sticks with glowing circuit patterns, one per team color, and the first animated menu systems:
A real sport needs a real place to be played. This was VHL getting one.
