Phase 1.5: Public demo preview of the galaxy and star creation process

Before the real Afterglow galaxy is ready to hold people’s memorials, we wanted to show what the experience could feel like.

So we created a synthetic sky: an interactive public preview filled with example stars, memorials and memories. It is not the real galaxy yet, and the people within it are not real public memorials. It is a way to explore the world we are building without asking the first people who arrive to imagine it from an empty screen.

Why we made a synthetic sky

A galaxy full of stars only makes sense when you can feel the human story behind each one. We wanted the preview to show how someone might move through the sky, arrive at a star, read a memory, light a candle, and understand that the star represents a person who was loved.

The preview lets us make the idea more tangible while we continue putting the foundations in place for the real version: the backend, privacy controls, ownership, shared contributions, moderation and the systems needed to handle people’s memories with the seriousness they deserve.

What you can explore in the demo

The public demo is designed to feel like an early walk through Afterglow. You can explore the synthetic galaxy, open example memorials, see how stars and candles could work, visit resources, and get a sense of how profiles may sit within the wider experience.

What you can actually explore in the demo

The sky is deliberately populated with fictional memorials so it feels like a living place rather than an empty prototype. You can move through it from different viewpoints, open the recent activity feed, fly towards an example star, and light a candle without leaving anything behind.

You can also walk through the four-step preview of creating a star. It shows the decisions the real experience will ask people to make: who they are remembering, whether it is a simple personal star or a page others can contribute to, what relationship they had, whether their name can be found, and the dates and words they want to include. For shared memorials, the preview shows a clear rule we want to protect in the real product too: others can ask to add a memory, but nothing appears until the person holding the page approves it.

The Dates area previews another quieter part of Afterglow: birthdays, death anniversaries and other days that can arrive before someone feels ready. It lets people imagine choices such as no reminder at all, a candle lit automatically, opening a star that morning, or writing a letter that stays sealed until the day comes.

These are preview interactions, not real public memorials. They are there to make the direction of Afterglow visible while the underlying systems for real stars, photographs, privacy, ownership and care are being prepared for Phase 2.

Why we included all of this

We did not want to make a beautiful galaxy that only looks meaningful from a distance. The point of the preview is to test whether the parts around a memorial make someone feel more held, not more alone.

The sky and Feed answer a practical problem: as more people are remembered, no one should disappear simply because their star is not the newest or brightest. The Feed gives recently lit stars a human-scale place to be seen, while the sky lets people experience remembrance as a shared landscape rather than an isolated profile page.

The star-creation flow exists to show that a memorial should be shaped by the person creating it. Some people want one private, simple place for their own words. Others want a shared page where family and friends can offer memories. The consent and approval model matters because a shared memorial should never mean losing control of the story.

Candles are for the moments when words feel too small. They are a simple acknowledgement: I saw this person; I am thinking of them; you are not speaking into an empty room.

Dates exist because birthdays, death anniversaries and the small dates nobody else has in their calendar can be difficult. The preview shows different ways Afterglow could support those days-quietly, with no reminder at all, or with a candle, a letter or a gentle nudge-rather than assuming everybody wants the same thing.

Search shows another balance we need to get right: making it possible to find a person or useful guide without treating every memorial as fully public. First names can be discoverable, while full-name search belongs to the person who created the memorial and the permission they choose.

Resources are included because a place to remember someone should also help people understand what grief is doing to them and find words for supporting someone else. The preview includes the interactive workbook, short guides on what to say and what not to say, printable exercises, source lists, practical/family reading, and immediate signposting to bereavement support. It also imagines a future library shaped by people who have lived through loss: what helped, what hurt, and what they wish someone had told them.

None of this is there to turn grief into a product journey. It is there because grief is not only a memory problem. It can affect the body, relationships, practical life, safety and the feeling that nobody else remembers. Phase 1.5 is our first attempt to show how a single place might hold those things with more care.

Explore the interactive grief guide

Phase 1.5 also launched the interactive Resources version of What your brain is doing during grief. It brings the guide into the preview as something you can read and move through, rather than only a download link.

It is a 29-page neuroscience grief workbook built around five mechanisms, named plainly: the brain still expecting someone to be there; the body carrying stress; the swing between loss and ordinary life; the absence of a fixed timeline; and the possibility of carrying someone forward rather than “letting go.” There are six private writing exercises and ten published sources behind it, but the aim is not to make grief academic. It is to make a frightening experience feel understandable.

The resource also explains why concentration, sleep, memory and emotions can change after loss, and why these responses do not mean that you are broken.

The guide also makes room for the value of telling your story. Naming what happened, writing about it, or speaking with someone safe cannot undo a loss, but it can help people make sense of an experience that otherwise feels impossible to hold alone. The interactive version is part of the preview because resources should not sit beside the memorial experience as an afterthought; they should be available when someone needs language for what they are feeling.

The downloadable guide uses the same pay what you want approach: it can be free, with no pressure to pay. We originally considered charging £10, but decided this kind of information should not be gated. If you are able and want to contribute, your payment helps us keep growing Afterglow: building the real galaxy, safer memorial tools, resources and the community around them. And if you pay but later change your mind, you can ask for a refund whenever you want.

It is a preview, which means some interactions are intentionally illustrative. The real Phase 2 experience is what we are building towards: on desktop and mobile, people will be able to create real stars and memorials for the people they have lost, upload photographs, preserve stories, and invite others to add the memories only they hold.

Those memorials should not feel disposable. The ambition is to create a durable place on the internet where someone’s story can continue to exist, with clear ownership and care for the people who trust us with it.

Joining what comes next

Accounts are not open in the demo yet. The profile area explains that clearly and invites people to join the waitlist instead, so they can hear when the real sky opens and their own account and star can exist.

For now, the most useful thing you can do is explore, notice what feels meaningful, and tell us what is missing. Afterglow should not be shaped only by the people building it. It should be shaped by the people who need a better place to remember.

Explore the preview, visit /start to join the waitlist, and follow along as we build towards Phase 2.