| Trap or station-mechanism families / placed instances across both occupant eras | 5 / 12 | 9 / 24 | 14 / 40 |
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| Trap or station-mechanism families / placed instances across both occupant eras | 5 / 13 | 9 / 24 | 14 / 40 |
| Language discovery chains, split across at least two languages | 4 | 8 | 12 |
| Colony projects with a person-specific consequence | 5 | 9 | 14 |
| Major mystery or personal investigation chains | 4 | 7 | 11 |
| Special converter sites or authored connection challenges; mechanism TBD, not the total number of ordinary joins | 2 | 4 | 6 |
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The table retains the original SMALL band definition. The prepared SMALL planning candidate now has **13 major mechanism instances**, including the cross-listed core isolation **P13**, in [Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory). This is one documented increment to the original twelve, not a selected final game size or a count of every interactive object.
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The SMALL planning candidate includes **13 major mechanism instances**, including the cross-listed core isolation **P13**, in [Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory). This is not a selected final game size or a count of every interactive object.
The 2/4/6 connection count refers to special authored sites or challenges only. It is not a cap on ordinary joins or an estimate of total graph edges; all placed playable rooms remain within the eventual station-wide connection goal.
Even the STRETCH column does not justify 30, 90 or 100–200 hours. Counts still missing include oxygen canister and carrying-capacity variants, starting loadout alternatives, resource sinks, objective reuse, branch scenes, clue permutations and technical state combinations. Measurements still missing include average expedition and revisit length; how often death creates a genuinely new route rather than repetition; clue discovery and correction rates; viable-build count after dominance testing; horde encounter variety; dialogue/state volume per survivor; gating and backtracking costs; accessibility pacing; and the proportion of players who pursue secrets. Only later implementation, play evidence and production costing can relate inventory to duration or feasibility.
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## Missing design work and rough active-work estimates
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**Dated 8 September planning inventory.** The original author-hour ranges below are retained as history, not current remaining work; recording the prepared thirteen-instance increment does not recalculate those ranges. The PM must assign ownership; the roles below are recommendations. Unless labelled “rules only,” each range covers a **SMALL-band specification**, not all authored content in that band. Author rows estimate focused author time and exclude waiting, independent review, implementation, assets and playtesting; the Reviewer row estimates review itself. Each row produces only its named specification and cross-references its predecessor rather than rewriting that predecessor’s rules. Ranges overlap in calendar time and are planning guesses, not proven throughput, deadlines or a complete schedule.
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| Missing area | Proposed owner | Band / depth | Predecessor | Completion criterion | Rough active work |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---:|
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| Expedition/region topology and gates | Systems | SMALL; 4 regions/12 objectives, outline not room scripts | This outline; selected opening | Every layer has entry condition, return value, alternate route and explicit dependency; no circular gate | 8–14 h |
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| Shift, latching and final station connection | Systems | All bands; rules only | Connecting the Station; owner’s full-station behavior answer | Death transition, permanent local bindings, joining limits and whole-station completion are one contradiction-free rule set | 6–12 h |
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| Build acquisition and part catalogue | Systems | SMALL; 12 behavioral part briefs | Progression Options; Build Rules; band choice | Each part has source, reusable behavior, counter-cost and at least two candidate combinations; no generic stat ladder | 10–18 h |
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| Horde encounter progression | Systems | SMALL; 4 regional pressure briefs, no balance tuning | Combat Rules; Horde Creature Proposals; topology | Each region has readable pressures, build interactions, retreat case and escalation purpose | 8–14 h |
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| Survival economy and starting loadout | Systems | SMALL; paper rules and one opening loadout only | Oxygen and Observation; Build Rules; topology | Capacity model, canister behavior, loot competition, replenishment, survival readouts and starting kit are explicit without claiming balance | 6–12 h |
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| Trap and station-mechanism progression | Systems | SMALL; 5 families/13 major placed-instance briefs, now provided by [Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory) | Story direction; language map; topology | Both occupant eras have distinct readable logic, counterplay, reset/persistence behavior and at least one discovery consequence per family | 6–12 h |
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| Apparent/deeper story path | Design Lead | SMALL; beat/evidence map, not scripts | Hospital Story Directions; owner story choice | Map supports proposed departure and continued investigation without declaring an unchosen truth | 10–18 h |
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| Corruption/treatment consequences | Systems | All bands; rules only | Resurrection and Corruption; owner corruption choice | Access, consent, benefits, hazards, reversibility and ending interaction are explicit; ordinary death is not silently made a punishment | 5–9 h |
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| Survivor cast and rescue/home arcs | Design Lead | SMALL; 5 cast arcs/3 scenes each, no final dialogue | First Survivor; Rescue Rules; Coming Home | Each has a distinct short rescue, contribution, relationship change and bounded knowledge | 12–22 h |
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| Two-language discovery map | Design Lead | SMALL; 4 chains, relationship of registers resolved | Language and Journal; Language Expedition; Utterance Discovery | Each chain records evidence, test, correction path and action unlocked; neither language becomes exposition | 8–15 h |
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| UI and accessibility information contract | Design Lead (current assignment) | All bands; paper states/flows, no usability claim | Survival, combat, journal and language specifications | Immediate goal, oxygen, capacity, target, build causality, pause and journal-history states are specified with accessibility requirements and failure messaging | 8–16 h |
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| Save/persistence and authoring constraints | Technical Design specialist, if staffed | All bands; technical-design discovery/spec only | Shift/persistence rules; topology; content schemas | Save authority, death transaction, persistent-world state, content identifiers and authoring constraints are testable on paper without implementing them | 8–16 h |
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| Content feasibility pass | PM | SMALL; dependency/cost roll-up | Owner chooses a band; preceding specifications | Reuse assumptions, authoring load, overlaps and unvalidated duration claims are recorded for owner decision | 6–10 h |
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| Development/validation handoff scope | PM | All bands; plan only, phase remains gated | Stable v1 specifications and owner phase decision | Required prototypes, technical spikes, usability/balance/performance checks, staffing and approval gates are named without performing them | 6–12 h |
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| Whole-game coherence review | Reviewer | SMALL specification set; one focused review | Readable versions of selected specifications | Finds missing pillars, hidden dependencies, unsupported duration claims and contradictory player rules, or records no material objection | 4–8 h |
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The superseded first estimate table summed arithmetically to **77–140 role-hours** for a SMALL-cast specification: Systems 37–67, Lead 30–55, PM 6–10 and Reviewer 4–8. Adding the previously omitted survival, traps, UI, technical-persistence and handoff scopes makes this planning inventory **111–208 role-hours**: Systems 49–91, Lead 38–71, future Technical Design 8–16, PM 12–22 and Reviewer 4–8. The sum is an audit of listed labor, not elapsed time or a completeness proof. This retains the outline author’s rough 8–16-hour UI allowance; the separate Player Information estimate needs scope/unit reconciliation before forecast roll-up. Author-response and PM-integration coverage, and unique estimated deliverables for cross-listed colony projects and mystery chains, also remain to be mapped. TARGET/STRETCH content authoring and all implementation and validation effort remain unestimated; SMALL specifications and later authorized evidence must establish per-unit work and reuse, so multiplying only survivor hours would be misleading.
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## Decision backlog for PM sequencing
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These should not be sent to the owner as one questionnaire. The PM should sequence each when it blocks its named successor while other independent work continues.
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## Specification coverage
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These are the scope and completion criteria for the proposed design. They describe what each area must explain; they do not report current assignments or completion.
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| Design area | Scope and depth | Dependencies | Required behavior |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Expedition/region topology and gates | SMALL; 4 regions/12 objectives, outline not room scripts | This outline; selected opening | Every layer has entry condition, return value, alternate route and explicit dependency; no circular gate |
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| Shift, latching and final station connection | All bands; rules only | Connecting the Station; owner’s full-station behavior answer | Death transition, permanent local bindings, joining limits and whole-station completion are one contradiction-free rule set |
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| Build acquisition and part catalogue | SMALL; 12 behavioral part briefs | Progression Options; Build Rules; band choice | Each part has source, reusable behavior, counter-cost and at least two candidate combinations; no generic stat ladder |
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| Horde encounter progression | SMALL; 4 regional pressure briefs, no balance tuning | Combat Rules; Horde Creature Proposals; topology | Each region has readable pressures, build interactions, retreat case and escalation purpose |
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| Survival economy and starting loadout | SMALL; paper rules and one opening loadout only | Oxygen and Observation; Build Rules; topology | Capacity model, canister behavior, loot competition, replenishment, survival readouts and starting kit are explicit without claiming balance |
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| Trap and station-mechanism progression | SMALL; 5 families/13 major placed-instance briefs, now provided by [Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory) | Story direction; language map; topology | Both occupant eras have distinct readable logic, counterplay, reset/persistence behavior and at least one discovery consequence per family |
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| Apparent/deeper story path | SMALL; beat/evidence map, not scripts | Hospital Story Directions; owner story choice | Map supports proposed departure and continued investigation without declaring an unchosen truth |
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| Corruption/treatment consequences | All bands; rules only | Resurrection and Corruption; owner corruption choice | Access, consent, benefits, hazards, reversibility and ending interaction are explicit; ordinary death is not silently made a punishment |
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| Survivor cast and rescue/home arcs | SMALL; 5 cast arcs/3 scenes each, no final dialogue | First Survivor; Rescue Rules; Coming Home | Each has a distinct short rescue, contribution, relationship change and bounded knowledge |
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| Two-language discovery map | SMALL; 4 chains, relationship of registers resolved | Language and Journal; Language Expedition; Utterance Discovery | Each chain records evidence, test, correction path and action unlocked; neither language becomes exposition |
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| UI and accessibility information contract | All bands; paper states/flows, no usability claim | Survival, combat, journal and language specifications | Immediate goal, oxygen, capacity, target, build causality, pause and journal-history states are specified with accessibility requirements and failure messaging |
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| Save/persistence and authoring constraints | All bands; technical-design discovery/spec only | Shift/persistence rules; topology; content schemas | Save authority, death transaction, persistent-world state, content identifiers and authoring constraints are testable on paper without implementing them |
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| Content feasibility pass | SMALL; dependency/cost roll-up | Owner chooses a band; preceding specifications | Reuse assumptions, authoring load, overlaps and unvalidated duration claims are recorded for owner decision |
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| Development/validation handoff scope | All bands; plan only, phase remains gated | Stable v1 specifications and owner phase decision | Required prototypes, technical spikes, usability/balance/performance checks, staffing and approval gates are named without performing them |
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| Whole-game coherence review | SMALL specification set; one focused review | Readable versions of selected specifications | Finds missing pillars, hidden dependencies, unsupported duration claims and contradictory player rules, or records no material objection |
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[Production Scope](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Production%20Scope) owns the current scope accounting and detailed-campaign workload allowance. [Progress](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Progress) owns work status and forecasts; milestone dates are suspended during the owner's pause. TARGET/STRETCH content authoring and all implementation and validation effort remain unestimated; per-unit work and reuse need to be established before extrapolating from SMALL.
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## Open design choices
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These choices remain unresolved; the outline's examples do not settle them.
1. **Whole-station behavior:** local room/group bindings already remain connected through shifts. After the *entire* station is connected, does the whole layout stabilize, or do rooms keep moving while every established connection survives? The station-wide mechanism cannot close until this is answered.
2. Which hospital-story direction, if any, should lead: captive ascendant, departed being/template engine, or a revision? No exact explanation or ending is canon.
