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2026-09-14 19:12:04 Anonymous: Remove text slop: disclaimers, process metadata, restatements and hedge tags; no rule changes (owner readability review, 14 Sep)

`hold the flood/the game.md` ..
@@ 1,6 1,6 @@
	# The Game

-	A proposed direction for the whole game, with one illustrative expedition. The rooms, people, numbers and story details are examples of the shape and remain revisable.
+	A direction for the whole game, with one example expedition. The rooms, people, numbers and story details are examples of the shape and remain revisable.

	## The pitch

@@ 16,9 16,9 @@

	You pack, and it costs you. Air, equipment and space for what you find come out of one carrying capacity. A spare canister lets you push deeper, but costs you either the spare part you meant to try or the room to carry anything home. Take the part instead and you are betting on a shorter, cleverer route. Neither is the right answer. Today you take a small manual switch you want to try, leaving less room for spare air.

-	Getting anywhere means getting through. The concourse between you and the ward is inhabited, and crossing it is the ordinary work of the game, not an interruption of it. Bodies wake in ones and twos, then in a slow crowd across the broad lane; faster things take the side routes; something heavy shoulders through and makes you change your line. Your projector fires on its own throughout — you are choosing ground, not aiming. At the thickest point you take the dense line deliberately, because your rig eats dense lines. When the ward's announced release is cleared, the silence is enormous. You choose Echoing Arc: your electrical discharge can now jump to more nearby bodies. That temporary change lasts until you return aboard.
+	Getting anywhere means getting through. The concourse between you and the ward is inhabited, and crossing it is the ordinary work of the game. Bodies wake in ones and twos, then in a slow crowd across the broad lane; faster things take the side routes; something heavy shoulders through and makes you change your line. Your projector fires on its own throughout — you are choosing ground, not aiming. At the thickest point you take the dense line deliberately, because your rig eats dense lines. When the ward's announced release is cleared, the silence is enormous. You choose Echoing Arc: your electrical discharge can now jump to more nearby bodies. That temporary change lasts until you return aboard.

-	The lull is where you look. In that quiet you find a service main running the length of the spine, dead at a pulled fitting — and the missing fitting is the splitter in your rig. It currently lets one sensor signal reach both your automatic gun and your protective barrier. You have been carrying the answer all along.
+	The lull is where you look. In that quiet you find a service main running the length of the spine, dead at a pulled fitting — and the missing fitting is the Fork Relay (the splitter) in your rig. It currently lets one sensor signal reach both your automatic gun and your protective barrier. You have been carrying the answer all along.

	The discovery is that your fighting equipment and the station machinery use the same kinds of parts. A familiar object suddenly has much greater possibilities.

@@ 28,7 28,7 @@

	Keeping the route open demands a fight. You need the main live to reach the ward; kill it and the doors seal again. So you hold ground you would never have chosen while the crowd closes from a direction you only just learned existed. You trigger the barrier too early, against the first ranks, because you panicked. Its brief protection ends while more bodies are still coming. This is going badly.

-	Your rig turns over. An impact collector attached to the barrier has banked energy from separate incoming strikes in a capacitor. The meter is full. You turn toward the packed lane and press the stored discharge: blue-white arcs spread through the front ranks, including the extra jumps you chose earlier. A line of bodies buckles and a gap opens where you had been trapped. There is another pulse in the store. When the emitter is ready again, you can spend it to widen that opening or save it for the fast pack circling behind. The proposed visual goal is a violent reversal from being surrounded to forcing a path through the tide; its reach and damage still need design and later testing.
+	Your rig turns over. An impact collector attached to the barrier has banked energy from separate incoming strikes in a capacitor. The meter is full. You turn toward the packed lane and press the stored discharge: blue-white arcs spread through the front ranks, including the extra jumps you chose earlier. A line of bodies buckles and a gap opens where you had been trapped. There is another pulse in the store. When the emitter is ready again, you can spend it to widen that opening or save it for the fast pack circling behind. The visual goal is a violent reversal from being surrounded to forcing a path through the tide.

	The crowd gives the build its payoff: the pressure that nearly trapped you becomes energy for a spectacular clear. You chose the parts and the moment to release them.

@@ 66,7 66,7 @@

	Temporary combat upgrades reset whenever an expedition ends aboard, alive or revived. Physical parts carried home remain available; parts left installed in the station remain there. Power must be earned again in occupied spaces, so a return through cleared corridors can begin quietly. Home gives you a chance to choose another combination and a new frontier.

-	The current growth proposal awards a temporary choice for clearing an announced horde release or sealing its access after it begins. Closing the source before it releases instead buys lasting safety and access. An alternative under consideration gives regular upgrades during fighting and larger transformations at milestones. Both reset aboard. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) explains the current proposal and its costs.
+	The current growth model awards a temporary choice for clearing an announced horde release or sealing its access after it begins. Closing the source before it releases instead buys lasting safety and access. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) explains this model and its costs.

	## How this keeps working

@@ 84,4 84,9 @@

	The design challenge is variety: crowds need different movement patterns and spaces, and each major discovery needs a payoff worth anticipating. If every revelation requires the same noisy machine sequence, curiosity becomes routine. A cautious player should still encounter meaningful discoveries and substantial combat, while someone who deliberately wakes a larger danger can pursue a more dramatic reward.

+	## Open questions
+
+	- The stored discharge's reach and damage still need design and testing.
+	- An alternative growth model is under consideration: regular upgrades during fighting and larger transformations at milestones. Both models reset aboard.
+
	Continue with [Hordes and Builds](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Hordes%20and%20Builds) for three concrete equipment combinations and their power growth.

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