2026-09-07 13:22:01
Anonymous:
Owner answers: prioritize discovery and expressive builds; reject harvesting twist and supersede prior scope
hold the flood/brief.md ..
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## Game vision
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**Owner direction — 2026-09-07: discovery first, extraordinary builds second, a refuge worth caring about.** These are the owner's answers to the design questions, replacing incompatible assumptions in the earlier vision below. A replacement setting and central mystery are still to be proposed; this is not approval of a new fiction or permission to develop.
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### Intended experience
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The first desired reaction is **“I discovered something incredible.”** The second is **“I made a ridiculous build work.”** Hold the Flood remains a survivorlike, but understanding enemy routing is not intended to be its central science.
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The owner described three kinds of discovery worth pursuing: clues that were visible all along acquire meaning when the player gains context; opening a new area reveals that the world is much larger than it appeared; and searching for practical power unexpectedly uncovers history and mythology. The example of a satisfying build payoff was finally making a full screen-wipe combination work in Magcraft. These are the owner's descriptions of desired experiences, not externally verified analyses of those reference games.
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Equipment combinations, environmental experimentation and unprompted discoveries all matter. Drawing enemies somewhere, distracting or tanking them can support those activities, but enemy manipulation is the least interesting experimental focus to this owner. Spectacular crowd-clearing combinations need a place in the design; do not reduce build expression to choosing a route-opening tool.
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### Exploration and mystery
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A return is worthwhile when something has changed: environment, enemies, player knowledge and interpretation, abilities, or objective. An easier visit earned through understanding is compatible with this direction. No single form of novelty is mandatory on every return.
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The mystery should support hidden rules, connected clues, unexpected places and discovering what happened. The owner would be delighted to finish with a notebook full of notes. History and mythology can be meaningful discoveries in themselves; the earlier rule that every piece of lore must also operate a machine is not a requirement of this direction.
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**Clear immediate goals and deep uncertainty must coexist.** The player should know what they are trying to accomplish now, even if that initial goal changes as discoveries deepen. Unclear controls, poor feedback and confusing next steps are UX failures, not mystery. Notes should help deduction, not compensate for unexplained basic interactions.
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### The refuge and equipment
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**Confirmed points of enthusiasm:** salvage competing with equipment space, and the refuge. This supports the tradeoff, not automatic approval of the existing rack dimensions or catalogue.
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**The owner's strongest current instinct, still open to refinement:** a settlement the player grows and manages, inhabited by a deliberately authored, non-procedural cast. The player talks with and cares about its people, wants to help and defend them, and uses the settlement to improve their capabilities. It should be the game's moral and emotional centre—the reason for going out—not merely an upgrade menu. The owner explicitly said they are not yet certain about the precise settlement model. No particular cast size, relationship subsystem, defence schedule, upkeep loop, voice acting or custom asset production is approved by this preference.
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### Campaign ambition
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| Milestone | Owner's desired scale | Required meaning |
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| First credits | About 30 hours | An apparent ending with many questions still unanswered; a concrete initial goal can be fulfilled without exhausting the world |
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| Second credits | About 90 hours total, including the first 30 | The real ending, with roughly 60 further hours of meaningful discovery and play |
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| Deepest secrets | Continued play reaching roughly 100–200 hours total | Optional pursuit of the final secrets after the real ending |
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These are the owner's design ambition, not measured duration, proven feasibility, a production commitment or permission to pad encounters. The earlier seven-district / roughly eight-hour expedition outline does not meet this brief and is superseded as the proposed complete-game scope. Designers must explain the discoveries, build development, world changes and optional depth that could sustain this structure before claiming a matching hour total. District count follows that content; it is not solved by multiplying the existing template.
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### Rejected and undecided
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- **Rejected for now:** “the city depends on the creatures” as the central revelation. The owner finds it a cliché masquerading as a twist. D024 / Answer A and the harvest-dependent Stop–Keep–Leave ending are withdrawn from the active direction. Do not reintroduce the same revelation under different names without a new owner decision.
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- **Undecided:** the drowned industrial city and machinery that redirects hordes. They may or may not serve the desired experience. Neither is a mandatory identity for the replacement proposal.
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- **Superseded framing:** responsibility for maintaining the harvesting system is no longer the governing theme. A new premise must earn the owner's interest through discovery, expressive builds and the refuge's people.
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- **Deal-breakers:** bad UX, unclear immediate goals, and a game without heart that feels like slop. Coherent rules and lots of documentation alone do not satisfy this brief.
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Unity and Steam remain selected. Work remains design-only. Prefer free existing assets; purchases and rare authored game assets need owner approval. No AI-generated art. These answers authorize design redirection, not game code, builds, prototypes, implementation, simulations, playtests or asset production. Discussion belongs in project chat; settled direction belongs here.
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## Previous vision — superseded by owner direction
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**2026-09-07 · Game Visionary · Working design direction.** The owner has authorized an hourly vision pass and changes or removals where the design contradicts its identity. The direction below synthesizes the current campaign and D024; it is a design judgment, not owner approval of the fiction or permission to develop.
**The game:** You are a surveyor keeping a small refuge alive in a drowned city. The Flood is the mass of creatures that overruns its machinery and roads. Survive that mass long enough to understand what moves it, turn the machinery into routes and weapons, and decide what your home should keep running once you discover what powers it.
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| ID | Decision | Authority | Status |
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| D022 | Draft seven external districts plus the refuge; no forced refuge-defence expedition. Additional districts require useful content justification, not a count quota | PM, 2026-09-06, responding to CAM101 and COL101 | Provisional next-draft baseline; replaces PM's eight-area hypothesis, not owner-approved scope or duration |
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| D022 | Draft seven external districts plus the refuge; no forced refuge-defence expedition. Additional districts require useful content justification, not a count quota | PM, 2026-09-06, responding to CAM101 and COL101 | Superseded as the proposed complete-game scope by the owner’s 2026-09-07 30/90/100–200-hour ambition. Existing areas are reusable candidates, not an accepted campaign size. |
| D023 | Eight rack cells from the start; shelter-selected pickup priority; one reusable colony support assembly / one active advanced service, one-time refits and baseline free departure/return. Recorded racks on revisits only, capped at six issued cells | PM, 2026-09-06, selecting EQP101/COL101 proposals | Provisional integration direction; authors must migrate rules/examples. Prices, electrical durations and balance remain unapproved |
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| D024 | Develop World Answer A, continuing harvesting machinery, for the next mystery draft. Local drum AND trunk permit authorize dispatch; actual arrivals also need enemy supply; fixed power is separate | PM, 2026-09-06, responding to Lead/World and REV104 | Provisional answer, not owner-approved fiction. Lead/World must still define source, distribution and Stop/return consequences; alternative B preserved |
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| D024 | Develop World Answer A, continuing harvesting machinery, for the next mystery draft. Local drum AND trunk permit authorize dispatch; actual arrivals also need enemy supply; fixed power is separate | PM, 2026-09-06, responding to Lead/World and REV104 | Rejected for now by the owner on 2026-09-07: the city depending on the creatures is not the active revelation. Its harvesting theme and dependent ending require replacement; prior text is historical design material. |
| D025 | Reconcile one presentation-category list before asset escalation; then audit specific free sources and licence/edit limits. Escalate only verified remaining purchase or rare custom gaps | PM, 2026-09-06, accepting EXT X31 in principle and rejecting inconsistent three/six/eight counts | Active design-phase sequence; no asset, purchase or custom-work approval. No new agent required |
**Owner scope is known; motive beyond it is not (TRL104).** The owner explicitly wants more content and districts. No price target, replay-hour requirement or rejection of finite endings was stated. Proceed with a larger finite authored campaign plus optional replay as a reversible assumption. Do not turn review-playtime comparisons into proof of a minimum length.
