2026-09-07 15:30:08
Anonymous:
Owner premise: assign integrated station sortie, oxygen/persistence, portable builds, survivor colony and two-language design
hold the flood/tasks.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Design Tasks
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[Earlier assignments and submission history](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Tasks/Archive). The prior archive index and retired task tables remain in [Tasks 003dcc](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Tasks?revision=003dcc).
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## Current priority — integrate the owner-set space-station premise
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## Current priority — apply the owner's discovery-first direction
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**[Canonical owner premise](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision), 2026-09-07.** The astronaut, broken ship, warning station, finite carried oxygen/unlimited ship production, hostile creatures, death/revival, rescued ship colony and at least two alien languages are fixed premises. Their exact systems and mystery answers are not. Earlier setting-selection and Choir/song integration tasks are superseded. No new agents are needed for this first integration.
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**2026-09-07 · [Canonical owner answers](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision).** This priority supersedes incompatible assignments below. The harvest-dependence twist is rejected; routing enemies is a supporting tool; the prior complete-game scope is insufficient for the owner's 30/90/100–200-hour ambition. Earlier accepted contributions remain evidence, not a requirement to preserve their fiction or mechanics.
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**Next integrated delivery:** one concise written first sortie and changed return, using a clear immediate goal. Show oxygen preparation and visible danger; survivorlike combat and two genuinely different developing builds; an optional clue or language inference; encountering a survivor; retreat or death and what persists; and the consequence aboard the ship. These need not all be mandatory events in one tutorial trip. Separate owner facts, proposed rules and unresolved choices. Do not expand a content catalogue before these connections work.
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**Latest owner correction:** [survivorlike identity and song rejection](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#latest-owner-correction-survivorlike-identity-and-songs) supersedes incompatible PMR011/Visionary directions. Water is not mandated by the title; the song-led clue framework is rejected. Domain statuses below record prior-stage work, not permission to expand rejected dependencies.
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| Owner | Next bounded contribution |
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| Owner | Status and bounded next contribution |
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| Visionary | **Playable foundation submitted for review** on [Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#visionary-playable-foundation--earn-the-power-bring-it-home): one horde expedition, field-bench component growth and two portable paths through the same human objective. Songs, literal-water identity and the one-room Choir proof are retired. Owner review remains open |
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| Lead + Campaign designer | **Integrate the playable foundation before further campaign expansion.** Show component-family development across multiple expeditions, field benches without combat inventory churn, and a clear refuge consequence. Do not turn caches into a fixed checklist or random offers into build failure. Old layered-water geography and furnace/verse progression are not requirements |
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| World + Colony designers | Preserve useful authored-person/refuge and persistent-discovery ideas as candidates. Support the revised play account with a concrete human consequence and discovery arising from observation/experimentation. **Stop expanding encoded songs/verse variants.** No lyric-writing request to owner or replacement coded poetry; no new lore framework before playable identity is convincing |
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| Equipment + Combat | **Reconcile the two submitted portable paths:** Coil/Arc's two-bank proximity wipe and Beacon/Driver's sustained line clear. Simplify old water/Choir exceptions, state field acquisition and previews, preserve Heavy/Crust/flank countercases, and compare legal racks. Existing Choir/network fixes are historical source material, not a mandatory system |
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| Independent Critic, External Critic, Reader, Troll | Judge the actual revision against survivorlike identity, discovery, build agency and heart. Clear prose alone does not establish owner fit. Distinguish authored one-off spectacle from player-developed combinations; do not demand genre features the owner has not specified. Old positive clarity/PM verdicts do not overrule the latest feedback |
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| PM + Wiki Editor | PMR011 provisional direction and exact evidence live in [PM Reviews](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews#pmr011-current-review-checkpoint). Current design first; discussion in project chat. Retire stale current labels and obsolete correspondence to immutable history while preserving unique author material. No word-count or page-count quality claims |
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**Existing queue:** pause polishing the old harvest ending, the one-road refuge example, Exchange encounter accounting and the exclusive-service comparison until the Visionary identifies which systems and scenes survive the new direction. Clear factual corrections may still be applied to retained material, but old correction tickets must not drive the new design. No new agent or owner relay is needed for this first redirection pass.
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**Acceptance is creative, not numerical:** the owner should be able to picture the game, its heart and a discovery they want to pursue. The hour targets require a defensible content plan later; they are not satisfied by asserted playtime or grind. Design-only and asset approval gates remain.
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**Discussion has moved to the hold-the-flood room in [Chat](/chat/).** Follow the [team workflow](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Team#collaboration-chat-for-discussion-articles-for-design): discuss and announce there; keep this board to current assignments and concise outcomes. Existing design-only constraints remain.
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**Equipment owner-correction submission:** [Build Paths dd4746](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment/Build%20Paths?revision=dd4746#owner-correction-proof--one-horde-objective-two-portable-build-paths) compares Storm Cutter and Needle Queue against the same refuge-critical depot objective. It specifies acquisition, literal racks, horde-fed charge, early/middle/late choices, portable payoff, exploration use, counterplay, return cargo and failure; [Equipment 579de8](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment?revision=579de8) now leads with the corrected disposition. Equipment recommends no new item, keeps a six-item portable proof set (including Kit), makes Coil a conditional seventh candidate if recurring conductive spaces earn it, and defers Choir/water-specialist additions until the successor vision earns them. Submitted for Lead/Visionary/Combat and PM review; no acceptance or tested survivorlike feel is claimed.
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### CLR102 — current clarity status
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**In review; PM owns acceptance.** [Review 0b1b4b](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions?revision=0b1b4b#current-first-read-review-game-vision) finds [Brief 51e58b's owner correction](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief?revision=51e58b#latest-owner-correction-survivorlike-identity-and-songs) clear as a revision brief, but there is no longer a current owner-facing game proposal to judge clear enough. The detailed World Below account is expressly prior and partly rejected, so its positive clarity verdict is historical. The revised player's identity, first goal, ordinary expedition loop, two build paths, broadly applicable discovery and concrete return motive remain an openly missing design deliverable, not a prose ambiguity. **Next:** review the requested short player-experience account and two materially different paths when supplied; do not substitute the rejected proposal or reopen its answered clarity issues. Existing review cadence and design-only gates are unchanged.
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### CMB102 — Choir Cascade disposition
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**Combat r13 / 600893 supplied useful arithmetic but its four-origin/sixteen-body cap is superseded.** It openly missed the owner's screen-wipe target, and PMR011 correctly observed that a finite encounter can be cleared without unbounded global propagation. The one-use Echo Relay item is also retired: its only job was permitting an authored interaction the Choir environment expresses more clearly.
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**Current integration rule:** a full, separately banked Coil and Arc fired through the central furnace's tuned Choir network empties both banks and strikes every Coil-stunned ordinary body in the finite lit wet footprint once, killing it. This lethality is network-specific; ordinary Coil plus Arc keeps Combat's standard chain cap and damage. Crust, Heavy, dry/outside bodies and a later wave survive; the network trips for the expedition. Lead/Combat should mirror this exception without reopening it into a global chain rule. Counts, performance, readability and feel remain untested.
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**Equipment countersign:** [Equipment 9aae07](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment?revision=9aae07#current-direction-combination--choir-cascade) accepts the environmental network, retires the portable Relay and compares the same furnace scene with and without the Choir exception. It preserves the five-cell/twenty-charge commitment, ordinary Coil/Arc outside the footprint and the named survivor cases. This records Equipment's bounded contribution; PM owns acceptance, and the Combat designer's independent countersign remains open under REV106-8.
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**Combat's countersign, 2026-09-07 — REV106-8's open item closed.** [Combat Rules r14 c6daab](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat?revision=c6daab). **The Choir exception is countersigned without reservation.** Bounding the *crowd* rather than the effect is the tradeoff Combat named and resolved the other way, and Equipment's and the Visionary's way delivers the owner's payoff where the four-origin cap openly did not. The lethal result is correctly kept network-specific: away from a tuned footprint, Coil and Arc keep §§0.2/6, so it does not leak into a global chain rule. Crust untouched because it does not conduct; a Heavy conducts and takes one strike, not ten. **Mirrored on Combat §12, which the Visionary revised while r13 was current — a correct disposition that credited this page's reasoning and preserved its substance, and which this role does not contest.** Only the general "no armoured class" statement moved, into §6 beside the rest of the chain geometry, since it was never Choir-specific.
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**And two owner corrections answered, both of which cost this page something.** *(1) "Water is not a requirement derived from the title."* Counted honestly: **four of seven roles and the coil are water-defined** — Anchor, Spark, Crust, Floater, and the paid action everything else is priced against. **[R14] proposes stating the shared rules over "a conductive medium"**, with water as the pumping district's instance. Nothing else changes: not the precedence stack, not the effect contract, not one role's behaviour, and a district that wants a flooded yard still has one. The medium is the shared contract's word, so this is the Lead's to rule.
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*(2) "A one-off authored room wipe does not by itself demonstrate build expression."* **This retires the evidence Combat r12 used to hold [R8](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), and the page records that rather than waiting to be told.** r12 argued no damage ladder was needed because the Cascade reached spectacle with no damage value in it; the Cascade has since become a *place*, which is exactly what PM says does not demonstrate build expression. **So where does outrageous portable power come from? [R15] proposes: targeting geometry, not damage.** R8 forbids damage values, resistances and multipliers — **it does not forbid a component changing where a chain can go.** Hops per hit, hop reach, origins per hit, eligibility (a chain that passes *through* a Crust), re-entry. Stacked, those are outrageous, none is a bigger number on a weapon, and they are portable by construction because they live in the rack. **Proposed to Equipment, whose catalogue it is.** The honest limit is stated: if targeting geometry cannot reach "outrageous", **R8 is the thing to reopen deliberately, rather than eroded one exception at a time — and Combat no longer has evidence that R8 is free.**
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## EXT102 — current review status
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[External Critique r20 / c081e8](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique?revision=c081e8): **promising and ready for owner consideration as a creative direction, not a full-product case.** Brief 6fd398's environmental Choir correction is credited; the portable Relay/key objection is not reopened. **X38 open:** the flagship now honestly demonstrates an authored environmental set piece, but not yet the broader promise of player-made build expression. Smallest next proof: one same-objective solution using a different legal selection of retained tools, with its inference, result and sacrifice shown. Campaign 4fbfc2 supplies a real-resolution and content spine; stated duration remains unproven scope. X37 remains withdrawn, X35 closed and X36 withdrawn. PM owns acceptance; Lead/Visionary/Equipment own design revisions; discussion is in project chat.
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| Visionary | **Owner premise received; integration due.** Protect the astronaut/station identity and discovery-first survivorlike experience. Assess each retained mechanic by player value here, not prior approval. No new competing premise, predetermined revival explanation or lore device replacing the rejected songs |
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| Lead Game and Systems Designer | **Integrated first-sortie design due.** Own oxygen/death/persistence interfaces and build progression across expeditions. Include a legible immediate objective, meaningful voluntary retreat, oxygen and injury death, and the return-to-ship state. Propose exact values only as provisional; do not ration unlimited ship production or imply oxygen death permanently ends this character |
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| Campaign and District Designer | **Station route design due.** One connected starting area with outward/return choices, oxygen-canister opportunities, horde pressure and a changed revisit. Establish distances/pressure as written assumptions, not measured playtime. No compulsory refilling treadmill, fixed seven-deck quota or automatic inheritance of old berth rules |
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| Equipment and Build Designer + Combat and Enemy Designer | **Portable build contribution due.** Two paths through the same station objective, showing acquisition and an intermediate choice, earned power, weakness and equipment/salvage/oxygen tradeoffs. Explain what changes when patterns are already known on later trips. Oxygen storage, ammunition/charge and old rack dimensions remain proposals. Zombies/strange creatures attack on sight; do not substitute only routing puzzles or make every build depend on water |
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| World and Mystery Designer | **Station mystery/language contribution due.** One fair observable clue chain and distinct roles for at least two alien languages; show partial comprehension, survivor help and recovery from a wrong interpretation. Protect the revival question and outline competing answers as proposals. No encoded songs, instant universal translation or selected catastrophe/alien identity by implication |
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| Colony and Progression Designer | **Ship-survivor contribution due.** A small proposed authored cast, one rescue/return example and a concrete relationship/knowledge/capability consequence. Define proposed rescue transport and oxygen needs with Lead, and what happens on astronaut death. No assumed universal revival, survivor permadeath or upkeep system; make people more than upgrade dispensers |
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| Independent Critic, External Critic, Reader, Troll | **Review actual station integration when submitted.** Check premise fidelity, horde/build agency, oxygen UX versus deliberate uncertainty, fair deduction and human purpose. Challenge grind, instant reset exploits and unsupported scope without inventing playtest outcomes. Prior positive verdicts concern older proposals, not this design |
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| Wiki Editor | **Navigation and cleanup due.** Put the station premise and current domain designs first. Retire incompatible song/Choir/Hearth narratives and stale current labels to existing history, preserving useful author material. Keep settled decisions in articles and discussion in project chat; do not merely rename old lore |
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| Reference Researcher | **Targeted support only.** Pause premise-dependent song/flooded-acoustics research. Research explicit design questions raised by owners; do not infer that this setting requires hard-science simulation, a full constructed language, paid assets or extra systems. Record evidence and limits |
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| PM | Canonical premise and handoff published; check actual successor submissions against the owner's five facts. Present meaningful creative/resource/phase decisions, not routine message relays. Premise approval is not design completion or development authorization |
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## COL103 — Hearth growth proposal
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**Prior contributions:** old rules, portable-build ideas and reviews are reusable evidence, not current station acceptance. Their task receipts and exact revisions remain in [previous task history](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks/history) and [Tasks / Archive](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks/Archive); their owning design pages retain authored work until scoped reconciliation. In particular, the completed Choir countersign and proposed targeting-geometry alternatives are preserved there, not denied or re-assigned as unfinished Choir work.
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**PMR011: accepted model, timing narrowed.** Authored people, fulfilled promises, persistent knowledge, free legality feedback and no hidden decay support the direction. The first return has no fabricated capital fork: pre-credits Hearth changes through returned furnace parts, and salvage may be banked. Tavi/Senn paid projects wait until the plate/lift creates honest field or relationship consequences. Current prices, cast size, defence outcomes and production assets remain unapproved.
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**Discussion:** use the hold-the-flood room in [Chat](/chat/). Posting does not establish another agent's receipt or wake an inactive chat. Existing role boundaries, schedules and approval gates remain.
## Approval gate
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## Review criteria
A useful critique identifies the exact section/revision, the claim or interaction in question, the conflict or missing causal link, its player/scope consequence, and the smallest constructive correction. Separate violation of an owner requirement, internal contradiction, under-specified design, taste judgment, and future empirical uncertainty.
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PM requests revision when central systems compete without a resolved design, all builds amount to different damage numbers, mysteries lack a fair discovery path, scope depends on unapproved assets, or prose hides missing rules. Document review does not establish actual balance, feasibility, or fun.
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PM requests revision when central systems compete without a resolved design, build alternatives do not meaningfully change player decisions, mysteries lack a fair discovery path, scope depends on unapproved assets, or prose hides missing rules. Document review does not establish actual balance, feasibility, or fun.
## Progress report
Task ID; artifact/revision; changed decisions; sources or written reasoning; outstanding risks; next handoff; one exact PM request if blocked. Stop repetitive reports and unbounded polishing; PM decides the next useful revision.
