Hold The Horde — Design Plan

The team is designing a discovery-first survivorlike under the Owner Brief, with expressive builds, meaningful hordes and an authored colony. The work below is design only. Written comparisons establish a proposal and its dependencies; they do not demonstrate fun, readability, balance, production feasibility or campaign duration.

Current milestone: a concrete language expedition

All independent language originals were saved before peer new conclusions, verified and released233–235. Assignment241 gives Lead sole ownership of Language Expedition and Systems sole ownership of Language and Journal. These forthcoming articles will connect two distinct alien languages, observable clues, competing interpretations, useful assistance and a consequential player choice with the actual journal interactions. Feedback and help remain provisional; neither automatic certainty nor withheld confirmation is inherently superior. The owner-required journal pause remains fixed.

Reviewer retains Language Design Evidence, with a focused source correction assigned before a preauthorised review of the two submitted language articles. Heaven's Vault permits narrative progress amid uncertainty but later context can reveal wrong guesses; Chants of Sennaar has developer-reported playtesting, not a public validation dataset for this project. Fixed geography does not rule out adaptive content selection, and confirmation/help need not eliminate interpretation. The exact evidence corrections and review completion boundaries are in241. Reviewer host delivery is currently unavailable; author work can proceed, with PM tracking review recovery.

Authors write substantial parallel outcomes with an early shared example and final actual-source coherence check. No full conlang, artwork, implementation, prototype, simulation or playtest is assigned. PM verifies sources and accepts integration; author submission or agreement does not establish fun, accessibility, balance or content feasibility.

Parallel work: final mystery comparison

Mystery Directions and Mystery Consequences have completed one review230 and coordinated response232, with final submissions238/240 actually read. PM temporarily owns both stopped articles under241 for narrow final integration and a concrete owner comparison. No central direction is adopted and no second broad review is pending.

Remaining integration distinguishes departure permission from ending revival service, reconciles the hidden unit's individual eligibility, completes the Registry's separate cause of hostile creatures, and makes the Clinic's deeper consequence and clue test consistent. Ordinary revival continues while the player pursues the deeper path; final departure ends it. Causal eligibility does not adopt global survivor mortality. The owner will receive concrete story alternatives before commitment, not an abstract forced choice.

Coming Home and Home Projects are provisionally integrated after review204, response206 and final integration, disposition222. The cooperative loan/preparation scene allows listening, preparing canisters and reclaiming the same part; produced charge and communicated knowledge persist. Known panel location differs from uncertain pressure-line sampling, giving a concrete inspection without asserting remote safety or cause. Human reactions and contributions are explicit; emotional effect and the wider colony economy remain unvalidated. Lead owns the scene and Systems the contract; no second broad home review is pending.

Completed written foundations

Expedition Proposal and Build Comparison: a provisional sortie with observed glyph evidence, contrasting equipment/cargo builds, carrying choices and a survivor interpreting a player-shown clue. The particular notebook use and survivor contribution do not prohibit other uses or cast roles. The comparison's inspection and activation wording now matches the later build rules.
Oxygen and Observation: provisionally integrated record/display proposal. The owner decided that opening the journal pauses the rest of the game, including enemies and oxygen during combat; that requirement is in the brief. Other journal details and the wider oxygen rhythm remain proposed.
Death and Persistence: working proposal for persistent recoverable caches and retained records. Equipment availability and recovery journeys are costs. The suit baseline proposed in Build Rules answers the minimum-expedition dependency on paper; actual reach, part supply, abandonment and recovery viability remain unvalidated.
Exploration Structure: provisionally integrated fixed geometry with varying state, reach and access, concrete goal examples and narrative reinterpretation. Stable anchors with varying connections remain a credible alternative. Player changes survive ordinary resets, but operating infrastructure depends on its stated power and installed parts.
Build Rules: provisionally integrated connected equipment grammar, illustrative shared-part builds, causal-event rules and suit baseline. Navigation records traversed breadcrumbs without promising an unseen safe route; local equipment previews remain understandable while learned families help with unfamiliar objects and preparation. Fields, capacities and performance are not tuned or validated.

The foundations milestone closed after review125, coordinated responses and final PM consistency edits, disposition137. Article ownership is Lead for Expedition, Exploration and Death; Systems for Build Comparison, Build Rules and Oxygen. No further broad foundations review is pending. Their working proposals can be reopened for a concrete contradiction, owner preference or later authorized evidence.

Rescue and Home and Rescue Rules are provisionally integrated after focused review and response, disposition158. The Dorn example combines traces, an expressed route preference, cooperative crossings and a home contribution. Air handover, current-refuge death, a finite route and a resealable final abort vestibule are explicit. Continuous escort remains credible; no global survivor-loss rule or proven emotional impact follows. Ownership is Lead for the story and Systems for the rules.

Horde Encounters and Combat Rules are provisionally integrated after focused review, response and final consistency edits, disposition174. Route crowds and selectively contested work are the working rhythm; a cleared route does not erase a door caller or prevent later cued movement. Completed work persists and withdrawal depends on actual occupants and pursuit. The owner's mostly automatic ordinary fire and manual specials are required; nearest-valid targeting and readiness are proposed details. The observed alcove anomaly is available to avoidance too. Carrying, salvage and condition costs are explicit, with no guaranteed escape or established cheapness claim. Lead owns the encounters and Systems the rules. No broad second combat review is pending; fun, frequency, balance and control readability remain unvalidated.

Discovery Chain and Clues and Help are provisionally integrated after review184, response186 and final PM corrections, disposition194. Repeated marked crawlways and an ordinary marked passage support candidate wall access; they do not prove translation or builder intent. A landmark sightline makes attempting a bypass reasoned without guaranteeing connectivity. Early truthful survivor interpretation and an unaided route both remain available. Panel checkpoints and records persist; failed expectations must be interpreted from visible evidence, not automatically explained away. One small fragment/use case does not fulfil a language requirement. Ownership returns to Lead for the chain and Systems for the help contract. No broad second review is pending. Older build examples now reflect the owner's mostly automatic ordinary fire and manual specials.

Acceptance and remaining scope

A useful design preserves the astronaut, hostile station, limited carried oxygen, unexplained revival and growing authored colony. It gives clear information and immediate options while leaving room for open-ended exploration and discoveries about people, history and mechanisms. Builds may become spectacular without manufactured symmetrical weaknesses. Requirements, proposals, dependencies and observations must remain distinct.

The revival cause, station history, escape solution, language details, full rescue/colony systems, exact equipment economy, numerical oxygen rules and campaign content scope remain open. The 30/90/100–200 hour ambitions remain unproven. No implementation, simulations, prototypes, playtests or game assets are authorized.

PM coordinates ready handoffs during active sessions, with one-minute scheduled checks as a fallback while useful authorized work remains. Hourly checks apply only when no such work can continue. The Team page records the working agreement. Add specialist capacity only for a concrete useful need; duplicate work and idle queues are not progress.