Hold The Horde — Design Plan
We are correcting the design so that ordinary play delivers a discovery-focused survivorslike: massed enemies, expressive builds, urgency, surprising discoveries and a growing home. The owner resumed work on 9 September after finding that the earlier design was too small and deliberate, difficult to read, and weak on the player's experience.
The current proposal
The corrected pitch, representative expedition and three build examples are ready for owner reaction in The Game and Hordes and Builds. The expedition must let a reader picture preparation, crowd pressure, a build breakthrough, a consequential discovery, a climax and relief. The builds must show visible behavior, player choices, growth and an earned payoff.
The two designers completed independent first drafts, the Reviewer supplied one combined critique, and each author completed a bounded response. PM checked the actual sources and integrated the result. The owner has selected resetting temporary combat upgrades on every return home, with physical equipment and loot retained. Dates and worker states are on Progress.
What makes the proposal ready for reaction
- The ordinary expedition, not just an exceptional scene, is recognizably a survivorslike with massed enemies and consequential movement.
- Three builds create substantially different visible results and choices. Their power is understandable as something the player constructed and developed.
- Discovery changes what the player understands or can attempt. At least one substantial payoff goes beyond completing maintenance.
- The explanation connects events and mechanics to intended fun, challenge, pressure, release and emotion, and names credible ways those experiences could fall flat.
- A first-time reader can follow the proposal without chat history, unexplained codes or a tour through technical reference pages.
- The proposal respects the Owner Brief and labels new choices as proposals. Agreement between agents and coverage counts do not establish readiness.
Rewrite the wiki around the game
The reading path will run from the promise and an expedition to combat/builds, discovery and the changing station, people/home/story, and finally detailed reference. Main articles begin with player actions and examples. Each rule has one owning location; useful dependencies are linked and unfamiliar terms defined where introduced. Older debates and versions stay in revision history. Source hashes, review exchanges and delivery records stay in project administration or chat.
The four-page reading route now covers an expedition, hordes/builds, discovery in the shifting station, and people/home. Both new discovery and home articles completed their combined critique, one author response and PM verification on 10 September. Eight reference pages received scoped dependency repairs.
Combat Rules and Build Rules now have readable replacements, with scoped repairs to acquisition, mechanical interfaces, the roster and all ten encounter placements. A single combined review, author response and PM integration are complete. The revised written proposals allow massed ordinary encounters, multiple ordinary weapons, paused link editing and temporary combat upgrades that reset on every return home. Thunderhead now works as one manual special with automatic restoration of charging. Exact populations, effects and growth cadence remain proposals.
The station-space and player-information batch is integrated after one combined review, one response per author and PM verification. It preserves physical crowd sources, short rescue routes, the twelve equipment parts and the five save examples. Two concrete living-return traces now expose the cost of repeatedly walking farther to fresh combat. Existing detailed samples remain parked.
The next parallel assignments address the remaining player-experience gaps. Systems will give the three builds actual broad coverage, supply, heat and control rules. The Design Lead will replace the older Expedition Proposal with three successive outings and at most two ways to keep living returns worthwhile, making any proposed travel-rule changes explicit. The Reviewer will save fresh criteria before inspecting their new drafts, then provide one combined critique. The next reviewed proposal packet is targeted for 15:30 on 10 September, with a 14:30–16:30 range; see Progress.
The main pitch and three build examples now distinguish actual equipment behavior from the further rules needed for a developed build to transform a substantial visible horde. Storm Choir needs a convincing branching payoff, Ricochet Foundry needs overlapping shots to create its dense pattern, and Gravity Furnace proposes temporary pull and thermal-burst effects. These are concrete design targets; the current conservation rules alone do not establish the promised spectacle.
Scope and next decision
This is design work. The selected engine is Unity and intended platform is Steam. Implementation, simulations, playtests and game assets await their relevant owner authorization. The hospital/godhood story remains a revisable leading proposal. The five earlier owner questions remain open. The additional current choice is whether temporary power grows regularly during fighting with milestone transformations, or only on clearing or sealing a horde. The latter remains provisional; silence settles neither this choice nor the earlier ones.
PM is carrying forward independent corrections while keeping specific unanswered owner choices open. An unanswered choice blocks only the work that depends on it. Actual new submissions will inform the detailed-campaign estimate. Additional permanent agents will be proposed only for a concrete independent workload. The earlier readiness declaration is withdrawn; the readiness page records the current decision.