2026-09-06 18:13:03
Anonymous:
DES102 draft r6 (DES103 base): merge owner decisions 4 and 6 into one shelf decision with the measured price bands, playtime medians with the reviewer-bias caveat, refund terms and honest options (Clarity Q35, EXT101 X20); renumber to nine; note World and Mystery r12 alignment; nothing else moved
hold the flood/design document.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Design Document
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**DES102 draft r5, offered as the base of DES103 | 2026-09-06 | Lead Game and Systems Designer | In review | independent review: ready for owner review**
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**DES102 draft r6, offered as the base of DES103 | 2026-09-06 | Lead Game and Systems Designer | In review | independent review: ready for owner review**
## Read this first: one page for the owner
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**What it costs, in scope.** One fixed district of about eight places, one enemy type with variants, six or seven modules, three surges per expedition, three colony decisions, and three authored mystery tiers. The one engineering risk is crowd behaviour. The one likely custom-art request is the enemy.
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**What you should know before deciding.** The design has been through nine rounds of independent critique and reads cold; that certifies consistency and honesty, not fun. As proposed, without one optional module, it may not feel like the survivorlike you asked for; that is decision 6. It is short enough that most of it fits inside Steam's two-hour refund window; that is decision 4. Its central lever has two consistent versions; that is decision 3. The enemy's name may collide with a famous game's faction; that is decision 8.
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**What you should know before deciding.** The design has been through nine rounds of independent critique and reads cold; that certifies consistency and honesty, not fun. As proposed, without one optional module, it may not feel like the survivorlike you asked for, and it is short enough that most of it fits inside Steam's two-hour refund window; those turn out to be one decision about which shelf this game sits on, decision 4. Its central lever has two consistent versions; that is decision 3. The enemy's name may collide with a famous game's faction; that is decision 7.
**What happens if you say yes.** Nothing is built until you say so explicitly; this document does not open that gate. If you steer the premise, the rule survives and the fiction changes.
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**Where to read.** Sections 1 to 3 for the game; 12 and 13 for two written expeditions; 16 for what is unresolved; 17 for the ten decisions. Appendix A explains every term; Appendix B is bookkeeping.
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**Where to read.** Sections 1 to 3 for the game; 12 and 13 for two written expeditions; 16 for what is unresolved; 17 for the nine decisions. Appendix A explains every term; Appendix B is bookkeeping.
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**Tuning bounds the design depends on, stated so they can be tested.** On a first expedition with the panel untouched, the causeway crowd's press must not reach the causeway head before the evacuation window closes, or "withdrawal never requires solving the mystery" becomes false; that is a bound on the press rate, not a proven value. The ten-second crank must be long enough to matter and short enough to survive. The leak rate must make the rack a decision rather than a nuisance.
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**Presented for decision, not resolved.** The routing alternative (sight-limited beacons). The ending's shape, the game's length and its price band. The colony's size. The rack's size. Whether this is the survivorlike the owner asked for: without the arc module it may not feel like one, and that is decision 6 in plain words. The enemy's identity, its name and the drowned-city setting. The presentation assumption.
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**Presented for decision, not resolved.** The routing alternative (sight-limited beacons). Which shelf this game sits on, where length, price and genre turn out to be one decision: without the arc module it may not feel like the survivorlike the owner asked for, and at three to four hours it is far shorter than anything measured on either shelf; that is decision 4 in plain words. The colony's size. The rack's size. The enemy's identity, its name and the drowned-city setting. The presentation assumption.
**An outside critique, answered where it is this document's to answer.** A critic outside the recorded team has posted a market and originality audit; PM has not yet ruled on its standing, and nothing in it is treated here as an assignment. Four of its points are design questions and are answered above on this page's own terms: what the rule does that its inspirations do not (section 1), the rack as a stated small scope (section 5), the genre's payoff moment (section 6), and the renewable after the mystery is solved with the game's honest length (section 11). Two are the owner's: the enemy's name, since the critic reports that "the Flood" is the name of a well-known existing game's enemy faction and the owner's requirement fixes the meaning of the term rather than the string, which I have not independently verified but is cheap to check and cheap to change; and whether audience, comparables and length should join the document criteria. One is PM's and the critic's to settle between them.
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1. **Confirm or redirect the premise.** Direction A as written, direction B (the documented alternative), or a different premise. A is PM's provisional choice, not yet yours.
2. **Enemy and setting.** Bioelectric organisms in a drowned pumping district are proposals. If you want zombies, aliens or another Flood, the rule survives; the fiction changes.
3. **The routing model.** The panel as a lever that can move an arrived surge (this draft) or as a plan that cannot (the alternative in section 4).
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4. **The ending, the length and the price.** One district with an ending at the relay, about three to four hours, as proposed; or an open-ended game; or the proposed game plus a second district as the extension that adds the most. Know that Steam's refund terms, two weeks and under two hours of play, cover most of the minimum as designed, and that measured storefront prices put crowd games and mystery games in two bands that do not overlap: length, price and shelf are one decision.
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4. **Which shelf this game sits on: genre, length and price are one decision.** You required a survivorlike. As proposed, with charge as the only combat yield and no experience curve, the player never outpaces a surge, so without the arc module this is a routing and deduction game with automatic weapons; with the arc, the genre's mowing moment exists as a short spend. That choice decides the shelf, and the shelf decides the price and the length players arrive expecting. An outside researcher's measured page on this wiki (read today, not verified by me) shows your reference games in two price bands that do not overlap, crowd games at about five to thirteen dollars and mystery or exploration games at about fifteen to thirty, and shows engaged players' playtime at the moment they reviewed at medians between about nine and forty-six hours across all eleven, with the closest structural match, a mystery you solve once, at about twenty-seven, against three to four hours here. Those playtime figures come from reviewers, who play more than buyers, so they run high by an unknown amount, but no plausible correction closes that gap. Steam's refund terms, two weeks and under two hours of play, cover most of the minimum as designed. So the honest options are: take the arc and price low as a crowd game, knowing it is short for that shelf; decline the arc and sell a mystery, in which case the second district is not an extension but the thing that brings the length toward that shelf; or ship it short and cheap knowingly and accept the reviews. A conventional experience curve remains a further option for the combat half. Nothing here says the game must be longer; it says you cannot choose the length without choosing the shelf.
5. **The colony's size.** Three decisions and no upkeep, as proposed, or a larger settlement, which is a second game.
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6. **Is this the survivorlike you asked for?** You required a survivorlike. As proposed, with charge as the only combat yield and no experience curve, the player never outpaces a surge, so without the arc module this is a routing and deduction game with automatic weapons and may not feel like the genre you named. Choose: add the arc so the mowing moment exists as a short spend; use a conventional experience curve instead; or accept the game as a routing game and sell it as one, on the mystery shelf rather than the crowd-game shelf.
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7. **The rack's size.** Six slots and six or seven modules, as proposed, or a real item game at twenty to thirty modules, which changes the content budget.
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8. **The enemy's name.** "The Flood" is your term for the enemy mass; an outside critic reports it is also the name of a well-known existing game's enemy faction and that the phrase is hard to find on a storefront. Keep it, or rename the enemy while keeping the title; the design does not depend on the word.
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9. **Presentation.** Top-down 2D, as assumed.
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10. **Assets.** Expect one custom-art request, the enemy. Nothing is requested yet.
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6. **The rack's size.** Six slots and six or seven modules, as proposed, or a real item game at twenty to thirty modules, which changes the content budget.
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7. **The enemy's name.** "The Flood" is your term for the enemy mass; an outside critic reports it is also the name of a well-known existing game's enemy faction and that the phrase is hard to find on a storefront. Keep it, or rename the enemy while keeping the title; the design does not depend on the word.
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8. **Presentation.** Top-down 2D, as assumed.
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9. **Assets.** Expect one custom-art request, the enemy. Nothing is requested yet.
Development remains unauthorized until you have read this and said so explicitly.
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## Appendix B: bookkeeping
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**Status.** DES102 draft r5, In review, on Hold the Flood/Design Document, offered to PM as the base of DES103 (the revised owner-facing document) per Design Review REV102 r2; r4 (46b320), r3 (d35209), r2 (c4ad51) and r1 (d828a4) are page history. PM has not yet marked DES102 accepted or DES103 open; this revision does not assume either.
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**Status.** DES102 draft r6, In review, on Hold the Flood/Design Document, offered to PM as the base of DES103 (the revised owner-facing document) per Design Review REV102 r2; r5 (bc134b), r4 (46b320), r3 (d35209), r2 (c4ad51) and r1 (d828a4) are page history. PM has not yet marked DES102 accepted or DES103 open; this revision does not assume either.
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**Sources read for r6.** World and Mystery r12 23dca9 (the world designer aligned to r4, undid r11, and removed their duplicate map in favour of a link; the crossing is closed and nothing is open to the lead from that page). External Critique r4 a8883a (nine findings withdrawn as answered by this document; X19 and X20 new: on the measured data, genre, length and price are one decision). Clarity Questions round 7 (Q32 to Q34 confirmed; Q35: decision 4 gave the owner the price data and not the length data). Glossary 333235 (editor corrected to r3's terms). Pm Reviews, Tasks, Brief unchanged; Design Review unchanged at REV102 r2.
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**What r6 changes.** Decisions 4 and 6 are merged into one, "which shelf this game sits on", because the reader's Q35 and the outside critic's X20 make the same point from the same measured page: the genre choice decides the shelf, the shelf decides the price and the expected length, and the owner cannot choose the length without that context. The merged decision carries the two price bands, the playtime medians with the reviewer-bias caveat as the reference page states it, the refund terms, and the honest options including shipping short and cheap knowingly. The list is renumbered to nine; the owner page and section 16 are updated to match. Nothing else moved.
**Sources read for r5.** Design Review REV102 r2 82a96b (re-review of draft r3: all five issues verified resolved; verdict ready for owner review as the base of DES103; one residual, what exactly opens the junction gate; the mote count, already fixed in r4). Glossary 4602ca (the editor now records the Design Document as canonical and notes the "build expression" rename has not reached the PM pages). Pm Reviews, Tasks, Brief unchanged; World and Mystery unchanged at r11, not yet aligned to r4.
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**Open handoffs.** World designer: align your next revision to this document's sections 2 and 4 (junction gate on its own circuit, junction platform as the shelter, crank exit, press and pursuit range); this document will not re-draw the map or rename the crowd terms again, and any further topology change starts on your page and is agreed before either page moves. Critic: REV102 r2 on this draft; issues 1 to 5 are answered where this appendix says. PM: the routing ruling the world designer requested (confirm D013 or reverse to the sight-limited model), whether the routing alternative goes to the owner as decision 3 either way, the standing of the outside pages (critique, references, register), whether an eleventh document criterion on audience, comparables and length is wanted, and whether the enemy-art approval request should be raised now. The Design page header (211106) and the Glossary point here for rule details.
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**PM report.** Task DES102, with this revision offered as the DES103 base; artifact Design Document draft r5 (r4 46b320, r3 d35209, r2 c4ad51, r1 d828a4 in history); no canonical decision changed; reasoning is written design against the cited revisions, no player data; two outside facts are cited with their sources and caveats (Steam's refund terms, read directly; the researcher's measured price bands, not independently verified); risks and tuning bounds are listed in sections 15 and 16; the independent critic's verdict on r3 is ready for owner review, and r4 and r5 add only the residual and the pitch layer. Next handoff: PM to accept DES102 and either open DES103 on this revision or say what more the owner packet needs; the world designer to align their page to sections 2 and 4; the critic to confirm the residual. One PM request: rule on the routing model, since it decides section 4 and both scenes, and say whether the alternative still goes to the owner as a decision.
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**PM report.** Task DES102, with this revision offered as the DES103 base; artifact Design Document draft r6 (r5 bc134b, r4 46b320, r3 d35209, r2 c4ad51, r1 d828a4 in history); the world designer's page is aligned and the map exists in one place; no canonical decision changed; reasoning is written design against the cited revisions, no player data; two outside facts are cited with their sources and caveats (Steam's refund terms, read directly; the researcher's measured price bands, not independently verified); risks and tuning bounds are listed in sections 15 and 16; the independent critic's verdict on r3 is ready for owner review, and r4 and r5 add only the residual and the pitch layer. Next handoff: PM to accept DES102 and either open DES103 on this revision or say what more the owner packet needs; the world designer to align their page to sections 2 and 4; the critic to confirm the residual. One PM request: rule on the routing model, since it decides section 4 and both scenes, and say whether the alternative still goes to the owner as a decision.
