2026-09-06 17:24:11
Anonymous:
DES101 r4: answer Clarity round 2 (Q22 beacon-sight rule: panel never moves an arrived surge; Q23 yard intake is the channel; Q24 rhythm) and REV101 r5 N11 (modules do not conduct); surge splits on double pulse; note WLD101 r6 fiction agrees
hold the flood/design.md ..
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# Hold the Flood | Two concept directions
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**DES101 | r3 | 2026-09-06 | Lead Game and Systems Designer | In review | ready for owner concept steering per Design Review r4**
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**DES101 | r4 | 2026-09-06 | Lead Game and Systems Designer | In review | ready for owner concept steering per Design Review r4 and r5**
**Recommendation (proposal):** Develop **A: The Borrowed Route**. You are a surveyor in a drowned district whose machinery runs on one rule: current. Current is what fights, what opens doors, what draws the Flood, how you pack your gear, and what keeps your camp above water. Learning that rule is the game.
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- **Dispatch:** the scheduled instant a surge is released into the district. The district's relay broadcasts a pulse at that instant, and the surge comes in by the beacon that pulsed.
- **Forecast:** the countdown and map marker showing when the next surge comes and by which intake. It is the relay's own display, read from the dock's receiver.
- **Intake:** one of three ways the Flood enters: the causeway, the yard, or the sluice.
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- **Beacon:** a fixed lamp at the far end of each branch. Lit steady means its branch is powered; it pulses at a dispatch.
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- **Beacon:** a lamp on the district's circuit, one at the far end of each branch. Lit steady means its branch is powered; it pulses at a dispatch. A lit beacon pulls the Flood only within its glow.
- **Panel:** a three-position switch at the causeway head that decides which branch is powered, or neither.
- **Rack:** the surveyor's back frame, six slots in a 2 by 3 grid. It is the whole inventory apart from the cutter.
- **Module:** a piece of gear that occupies rack slots: battery, coil, insulation, beacon, kit.
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**The spine rule, stated once for district, rack and colony.**
1. *Conduction.* Current flows between touching conductors, and through water to everything the water connects. Insulation stops it.
2. *Power.* A device works only while energised: a hatch, lamp or beacon on a live cable or channel; a rack module linked to a charged battery.
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3. *Attraction.* The relay pulses at each dispatch from whichever fixed beacon is energised, and the surge enters by that beacon; the panel alone decides which, or none. After entry a surge moves toward the nearest energised beacon it can reach, re-evaluated continuously; with none reachable it spreads along the branch it entered. A dispatched surge keeps its intake. Wiring, signs and wear never change between expeditions.
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3. *Attraction.* The relay pulses at each dispatch from whichever fixed beacon is energised, and the surge enters by that beacon; the panel alone decides which, or none. If two fixed beacons pulse at one dispatch, the surge splits between them and the forecast shows both. After entry a surge moves toward the nearest lit beacon within its sight, re-evaluated continuously; each beacon shows its reach as a glow; with none in sight it spreads along the branch it entered. The fixed beacons stand at the far ends of different branches, out of each other's sight, so switching the panel never moves a surge that has already arrived: only a beacon carried into its sight does. A dispatched surge keeps its intake. Wiring, signs and wear never change between expeditions.
4. *Charge.* A killed organism drops a small mote; a mass stunned in water sheds a large one. Motes fade in seconds. Walking over one fills a battery in your rack; with no battery, the charge is lost.
So: a valve that joins channels extends where current reaches; a pump that drains one cuts it; the coil injects it; the panel routes it; and the powered branch is the branch the Flood comes to. That last consequence is what prices the panel: switching is free and available on the first expedition, but powering a branch to open its hatch invites the next surge there, the panel stands in the open a dash from shelter, and a surge already dispatched does not turn back.
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**Topology.** Two docks at the district's rim: the causeway dock, held dry by default, and the yard dock, flooded and unusable until the colony's pump holds it dry instead (flooded, it is wet ground and conducts). Between them a raised dry causeway signed as the evacuation route, its beacon at the interior end, lit by default. Under it a culvert, dry on its own with no pump needed, with cart wear and a refuge sign turned to face the yard. Beside the causeway, a pump hall and salvage yard on a shallow channel; the yard beacon stands at the pump hall, dark by default, and the hall's hatch is on the same circuit. At the low end where the branches meet, the sluice: the Flood's own way in, no beacon, opening onto the interior route. A surge enters beside its beacon and holds there while it stays lit, so the overrun "refuge" is the causeway's far end and the dock end stays passable. Three intakes: causeway, yard, and the sluice when the panel is off. The panel resets to causeway each expedition.
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**Topology.** Two docks at the district's rim: the causeway dock, held dry by default, and the yard dock, flooded and unusable until the colony's pump holds it dry instead (flooded, it is wet ground and conducts). Between them a raised dry causeway signed as the evacuation route, its beacon at the interior end, lit by default. Under it a culvert, dry on its own with no pump needed, with cart wear and a refuge sign turned to face the yard. Beside the causeway, a pump hall and salvage yard on a shallow channel; the yard beacon stands at the pump hall, dark by default, and the hall's hatch is on the same circuit. At the low end where the branches meet, the sluice: the Flood's own way in, no beacon, opening onto the interior route. The causeway intake is at the causeway's far end; the yard intake is where the channel enters beside the pump hall, so a surge arriving there stands in water. A surge holds beside its beacon while it stays lit, so the overrun "refuge" is the causeway's far end and the dock end stays passable; darken its beacon and it spreads along its branch. Three intakes: causeway, yard, and the sluice when the panel is off. The panel resets to causeway each expedition.
**Core actions.** Read the forecast. Choose a route. Gather salvage from deposits. Operate valves, pumps and the panel. Trigger the coil. Repack in a shelter. Reach a dry dock before evacuation.
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**In-run growth (decision for PM).** Kills give no experience, because kill experience makes standing still the best move and exploration a loss. Growth comes from the world: two to four modules per expedition from fixed placements with varying contents, two to six bundles from deposits, and charge from surges met at a chokepoint. The rack caps at six slots, so power grows by composition, not number: you leave with a cutter, one empty battery and an empty rack; by surge two you usually have one powered setup; surge three tests it. This is a moderate, front-loaded arc by design; the owner should judge it against the survivorlike requirement now. Fighting still matters because charge is the only fuel for powered experiments, stragglers yield little, and surges are finite, so nothing farms.
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**The rack.** Six slots; each holds a module or a bundle. Conduction applies inside it. Salvage is dredged wet and conducts, and so does every module except insulation. When packing you draw one link from each battery to one module; that module is powered. The battery leaks into every other conductive neighbour it touches, linked or not, shown as a drip; a dark unlinked module still drains it. Insulation is the only slot that blocks. With a two-slot coil linked to a battery, the battery touches at least one further slot in every position, so "three bundles and a leak-free battery" is impossible: carry insulation and two bundles, leave a slot empty, or accept a battery that drains over the expedition. A placement decision with a readable consequence, and the same lesson as the district's joined channels.
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**The rack.** Six slots; each holds a module or a bundle. Conduction applies inside it. Salvage is dredged wet and conducts; modules do not, powered or not; insulation blocks conduction on either side of it. When packing you draw one link from each battery to the one module it powers; an unlinked module is dark and inert. A battery leaks into every bundle it touches, shown as a drip, whatever the links say. With a two-slot coil linked to a battery, the battery touches at least one further slot in every position, so "three bundles and a leak-free battery" is impossible: carry insulation and two bundles, leave a slot empty, or accept a battery that drains over the expedition. A placement decision with a readable consequence, and the same lesson as the district's joined channels.
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**Loadouts (three sketches; the design document gives costs and counterplay).** *Electrician:* coil, battery, insulation, two bundles; sets the panel to yard on purpose, waits for the surge to wade into the yard channel, and triggers the coil: stun, a full battery and an open hatch in one act. *Hauler:* cutter only, six bundles; leaves the panel on causeway, takes the culvert to the quiet yard, banks the most, never opens anything powered. *Shepherd:* portable beacon module plus battery; steady while powered, so an entered surge is drawn toward wherever it stands; used to pull a surge off the interior route; darken it and the pull stops; leave it lit near you and the surge comes to you; leaks unless insulated. Which fits depends on which surge is committed, what lies behind it, and which dock is dry.
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**Loadouts (three sketches; the design document gives costs and counterplay).** *Electrician:* coil, battery, insulation, two bundles; sets the panel to yard on purpose, waits for the surge to wade into the yard channel, and triggers the coil: stun, a full battery and an open hatch in one act. *Hauler:* cutter only, six bundles; leaves the panel on causeway, takes the culvert to the quiet yard, banks the most, never opens anything powered. *Shepherd:* portable beacon module plus battery; steady while powered, so a surge that can see it is drawn toward wherever it stands; carried into a surge's sight and planted, it pulls the surge off the interior route; darken it and the pull stops; leave it lit near you and the surge comes to you; its battery leaks into any bundle it touches. Which fits depends on which surge is committed, what lies behind it, and which dock is dry.
**Gathering and colony.** Bundles compete with modules for slots. A bundle is banked, or spent in the district to run a pump and dry one channel this expedition only. The colony is the dock and its pump. Pump capacity is one exclusive standing choice: which dock it holds dry, causeway side or yard side. That inverts which panel setting is safe, because a surge sent toward your dock blocks extraction, and the flooded dock is where the coil works; changing it costs a full return's salvage. Two additive repairs, each a full return: a workshop (one extra starting module choice) and a forecast relay (the first intake known before departure). Meta-progression is deliberately small; a larger colony is a scope decision for the owner. Excluded: citizens, hunger, decoration, production chains, because none changes a decision inside an expedition.
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| 3 to 5 | Surge 1 holds at the causeway's far end | Slip under it through the culvert, or thin its edge for motes |
| 5 to 8 | Quiet 2 | The hatch decision above; inspect what opened |
| 8 to 10 | Surge 2, wherever you sent it | Trigger the coil, or shelter and repack while the clock runs |
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| 10 to 13 | Quiet 3, shorter | Extract now, or spend a bundle on the pump for a dry interior route |
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| 13 to 15 | Surge 3 and evacuation | Reach the dry dock or lose cargo |
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| 10 to 12 | Quiet 3, shorter | Extract now, or spend a bundle on the pump for a dry interior route |
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| 12 to 15 | Surge 3 and evacuation | Reach the dry dock or lose cargo |
**Persistence.** Persists: map, notes, learned rules, module recipes, colony state, banked salvage. Resets: enemies, surge state, water states, found modules, cargo, charge; the panel returns to causeway. Death loses cargo and finds, keeps notes, reissues the starting kit: no loss spiral.
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**Owner requirements (Brief a449b2, D005 to D011):** survivorlike; exploration, experimentation, mystery; the Flood is massed enemies; assume nothing exists; Unity; Steam; design only until the owner authorizes development after reviewing the design document; no AI-generated art; prefer existing free assets; purchases and rare custom assets need owner approval.
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**Provenance.** Inspirations are owner statements, not research. Both directions assume a solo player with automatic basic attacks. Camera, 2D/3D, controls and operating systems remain open; top-down 2D is a reversible working assumption because water, cables and surge routes must read at a glance. The dispatch and forecast fiction above (the relay calls the Flood on a fixed cycle; the forecast is the relay's own display) is a lead proposal pending the world designer's confirmation.
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**Provenance.** Inspirations are owner statements, not research. Both directions assume a solo player with automatic basic attacks. Camera, 2D/3D, controls and operating systems remain open; top-down 2D is a reversible working assumption because water, cables and surge routes must read at a glance. The dispatch and forecast fiction above (the relay calls the Flood on a fixed cycle; the forecast is the relay's own display; the colony's pump burns salvage) agrees in substance with the world designer's own answers in World and Mystery r6, written independently against the r2 body; treat r6's wording as the shared text for the owner document.
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**What r3 changes (r2 and integration notes 1 to 3 are page history c9b2ed, ea4248, db8c5c).** Design Review r4 closed the concept-packet review, so the reason for keeping the r2 body frozen has expired; r3 folds the three integration notes into the body and adopts World and Mystery r5: intake chosen by the panel, path toward the nearest energised beacon evaluated continuously, beacons at each branch's far end, the sluice, the flooded yard dock, charge motes, the battery link. It answers the Clarity Questions page (CLR101 r1): a glossary (Q1 to Q9), combat and health (Q10, Q11), the whole-game shape (Q12), motive and colony (Q13), title fit (Q14), the body-versus-notes contradiction (Q17, resolved by folding), and the leak-versus-link collision (Q18: leaking is conduction and ignores links; the link only chooses which neighbour is powered). "Build" is renamed loadout (Q3); "run" is expedition (Q4). No canonical decision changed. Length grew by the glossary only; the owner-facing document will move all codes to an appendix (Q21).
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**What r4 changes (r3 is page history 0b4039).** Answers Clarity Questions round 2 and Design Review r5. Q22: the panel never moves an arrived surge, because a beacon pulls only within its glow and the fixed beacons are out of each other's sight; only a carried beacon does. That keeps the world designer's W2 and cost-of-diversion argument literally true and asks them to amend the one r5 topology sentence that says the panel drags an arrived surge, or to state the live-lever reading if they prefer it. Q23: the yard intake is the channel beside the pump hall, so the electrician's stun happens as written. Q24: quiet 3 is now actually shorter. N11: modules do not conduct; only wet salvage leaks. Added: a surge splits if two fixed beacons pulse at one dispatch.
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**Acknowledgment and PM report.** Lead Game and Systems Designer, new session of the role; DES101 / Design r3 / In review. Read Hub f55be6, Brief a449b2, Tasks 254220, Team 3ddc81, World and Mystery r5 (33dc2a), Design Review r4 (3fd6df) and Clarity Questions r1 (cc0ee7) at 2026-09-06 14:12 UTC. D011 and D012 acknowledged; design-only gate and asset restrictions accepted; no build, prototype, asset or test was made. Evidence is written reasoning against the cited revisions, not player data. Open items for PM: record the working direction (OWN101); name which of the two lead sessions is canonical (Clarity Q20); Tasks and the Hub still show DES101 and WLD101 as not started (Clarity Q15, Q16, Q19 are PM's). Next handoff: PM records the direction; the lead then writes the design document (DES102) carrying everything above; the critic reviews it when it exists; the world designer confirms the dispatch fiction and checks the integrated draft. No owner relay, agent creation, development or testing is requested.
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**What r3 changed (r2 and integration notes 1 to 3 are page history c9b2ed, ea4248, db8c5c).** Design Review r4 closed the concept-packet review, so the reason for keeping the r2 body frozen has expired; r3 folds the three integration notes into the body and adopts World and Mystery r5: intake chosen by the panel, path toward the nearest energised beacon evaluated continuously, beacons at each branch's far end, the sluice, the flooded yard dock, charge motes, the battery link. It answers the Clarity Questions page (CLR101 r1): a glossary (Q1 to Q9), combat and health (Q10, Q11), the whole-game shape (Q12), motive and colony (Q13), title fit (Q14), the body-versus-notes contradiction (Q17, resolved by folding), and the leak-versus-link collision (Q18: leaking is conduction and ignores links; the link only chooses which neighbour is powered). "Build" is renamed loadout (Q3); "run" is expedition (Q4). No canonical decision changed. Length grew by the glossary only; the owner-facing document will move all codes to an appendix (Q21).
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**Acknowledgment and PM report.** Lead Game and Systems Designer, new session of the role; DES101 / Design r4 / In review. Read Hub f55be6, Brief a449b2, Tasks 254220, Team 3ddc81, World and Mystery r6 (430206), Design Review r5 (d3679b) and Clarity Questions r2 (cba5eb) at 2026-09-06 14:24 UTC. The reader's r2 overwrote the lead's status marks on that page (87a011); they are re-applied after this save. D011 and D012 acknowledged; design-only gate and asset restrictions accepted; no build, prototype, asset or test was made. Evidence is written reasoning against the cited revisions, not player data. Open items for PM: record the working direction (OWN101); name which of the two lead sessions is canonical (Clarity Q20); Tasks and the Hub still show DES101 and WLD101 as not started (Clarity Q15, Q16, Q19 are PM's). Next handoff: PM records the direction; the lead then writes the design document (DES102) carrying everything above; the critic reviews it when it exists; the world designer aligns W1's path clause and the r5 topology sentence with the beacon-sight rule, or states the live-lever reading if preferred, and checks the integrated draft. No owner relay, agent creation, development or testing is requested.
