Hold the Flood — Design Review

REV105 · r1 · 2026-09-07 06:55 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review — first review under the assignment Tasks 575001 states: "Judge the exact integrated sequence against exploration, experimentation, mystery and survivorlike combat. Can the later visit be played by repeating the first solution? Are alternate builds real choices under the written rules? Does evidence change action before the finale? Does colony investment matter? Report the strongest failure and smallest useful repair; do not claim empirical enjoyment or balance." The integrated sequence exists: DES105 r1, on the Campaign page at r6 (ee4202, 06:33 UTC), §3.2, the Tram Incline across a first visit, a changed return and a later return, with three ledgers, built on EQP102 (Build Paths 6bc3f7), COL102 (Colony fe7d88), WLD104 (World r25 e99445), CMB102 (Combat r7 e3ad2b §12) and the contract r7 (5322f4). Every beat was re-tallied with the method the campaign's districts are held to. REV104's status at the same revisions is carried below: PMR007's qualification of r6 is accepted and its named copies verified; the Exchange r3 closes REV104-16 and -18 and most of -17. REV104 r6–r1 are on the REV104 archive; REV103 r5–r1 on the REV103 archive; REV102 r6–r1 on the REV102 archive; REV101 r8–r1 on the REV101 archive; every revision is in page history (REV104 r6 ce94e4 · r5 4508fd · … · REV101 r1 7ad187).

What was reviewed

REV104 — status at these revisions

PMR007 accepted REV104 r6 "as a substantive independent review of the expanded package, not a whole-game approval" and qualified its "blanket closure of crossed copies": r6 closed REV104-15 on Combat's header and §0.5 without checking §6, and the qualification was right. Verified now:

REV104-17's four cells. (1) Issue. The cacher issues coil (2), two batteries, the beacon, insulation and the kit — seven cells — against "capped at six issued cells" (contract §5; COL-I2); drop the kit, which the dry hand carries, or the second battery. (2) The bundle. S sits in the rack at 0:00 and no beat picks one up; bundles are never issued. (3) The relink. At 4:30 "the player links B1 to the beacon": links change only at shelters (§5); b1 is at the dock end and the dock is the shelter — say the player steps into it. (4) Distances. The lure is planted "twenty metres up the floor from b1" and "two Carriers in the crowd take it" — a Carrier's acquisition range is twelve metres (contract §3; Carrier r3), so the plant point must be within twelve of the crowd's edge; and at 7:00 "the landing's marker flashes beside them and the surge enters there" while the surge "sets off south — away from the player" — pursuit is ten metres, so the bank must stand farther than that from the landing, and the page should say so. Also for the lead: the Exchange r3 proposes "Two dispatches, not three… a ten-minute district" and asks the lead to confirm; contract §6 reads "Fifteen minutes; three dispatches", and whether those numbers are the frame or the pumping district's shape is a ruling the contract should make in one sentence.

REV105 — DES105 r1 against the four questions

The three ledgers, re-tallied

First visit (approach A). . . . K / . . . ., the default battery declined (E5 allows it; one issued cell). 3:30: the heavy's mote fades, no battery ✓. 4:30: six kills fade ✓, three hits, the kit spent ✓ (five hits; two left; restored). 5:30: lamp off, lever down; the crowd spreads on the road where it stands (R12) ✓. 6:00: one bundle into a free cell ✓; the Siphon and the kit inspected, neither taken ✓. 8:00: eighty spread in a dark yard ✓. 8:20–8:40: the crank, ten seconds ✓; "one hit still showing" — a hit taken after the kit, not narrated. Closes: dropped 11, collected 0, lost 11 to fade.

Changed return (approach B, path B). . C C B / . . . I, B→coil; four issued cells ✓ (tooling's Circuit set; the record made at a shelter — see minor). 3:30: ten kills at the crowd's edge in insulation, two hits ✓ 10. 4:00: discharge; 50 stunned; 25 dropped; two motes collected = 10; 15 fade ✓; "the yard's water was already energised by Gates, so the two seconds added no hazard" ✓ (contract §2). 4:10: Rail; the yard beacon dies; the lamp is off, so no lit beacon: spread ✓. 5:30: the Exchange's door; the Siphon taken and fitted at the summit shelter ✓; six cells used, two free ✓. 8:30: one bundle, the Siphon, ten lost at the dock ✓. Closes: 35 / 20 / 10 / 15 fade / 10 dock. The alternative (approach C, path A): the lure armed at the apron, then Rail; the crowd retargets to the only lit beacon ✓; the dark tram tows nothing ✓; a hundred seconds outlasts the boarding and the crowd spreads from the apron after (R12) ✓; extraction at the summit berth ✓ (one berth city-wide, the assembly on the berth, not tooling ✓).

Later return. . . S B / . . L . — three issued cells ✓ (here S is the Siphon; everywhere else on the page S is a salvage bundle — see minor). 0:00: the heavy "beside the tram, not on the rail" (see REV105-2). 3:00: the empty flash — the Collector holds this district's first supply; the second dispatch is normal (Collector r3–r5 §6) ✓. 3:30: the bundle into the cell beside the Siphon, "touching it and not the battery" ✓; at the shelter the Siphon consumes the bundle and itself: 3 units ✓ (U5; "once"); two cells freed ✓. 6:00: extraction, 3 lost at the dock ✓. Contingency at 8:00: 3 units = 30 lit seconds = 5 + 20 + 5 ✓. Closes: 3 by conversion; 3 at the dock, or 3 on the lure.

The four questions

1. Can the later visit be played by repeating the first solution? Yes — and more easily. The first solution is: throw Rail, ride the lit tram up, read the board, crank the gate home. The later return is: throw nothing (Rail is as left), ride the tram up with "no crowd behind it, no heavy ahead: an empty ride", flip the lamp on at the top, crank the gate home. The opposition the first visit had — a surge following the lamp, a heavy on the rail — is removed by the player's own Collector hold (the first surge withheld) and by the heavy having stepped off the rail; the page's own summary says a trip "whose only purpose would be to watch the empty flash again is cut", and this trip's only played purpose is the standing state, a switch flipped at the summit. The new tool (a bundle burnt for thirty seconds of light) and the new choice (the Siphon over the kit) are exercised only in "the contingency, priced", which the written path avoids by leaving at 6:00, before the second dispatch. So the depth is real on paper and optional in play: the later return, as written, is the first visit unopposed with a contingency the player is not made to face. This is the strongest failure. Smallest useful repair: make the contingency the main line. The district can supply the reason without a new rule: copying the Head-works' cadence from the timetable takes the interval between dispatches (the board shows the network's cadence only across two ticks), so the surveyor is at the summit past 8:00; the second surge enters the yard while they descend; the thirty-second lure on the apron is the crossing, and "the Kit would have healed one mistake; the Siphon bought a way not to make it" becomes something the player did rather than something the page says they could have done. Then the later return cannot be played as the first visit, because the first visit never had to cross an entering surge at the foot of the stairs with no coil.

2. Are alternate builds real choices under the written rules? Yes, at the changed return; thin at the first visit. A, B and C are legal issues (one, four and three cells against the six-cell cap; batteries empty), Combat has countersigned their grammar, and they buy different things at a stated price: A pays exposure and loses eleven units; B pays four cells and a wade into energised water for a stun and a refilled bank; C pays a bank and two planted items for a destination and a summit extraction. Nothing in the written rules makes one dominate: B's coil cannot touch the heavy on the dry rail, C's lure cannot outlast the ride and buys separation only, A cannot collect. Two qualifications. On the first visit A's stated advantage — seven free cells — is empty in this district, which holds one bundle; the choice there is a kit against nothing, which is the honest first-visit choice but not three. And the changed return's ride is "blocked by its heavy" only by a sentence the later return contradicts (REV105-2): if the heavy is beside the rail, the first solution is available on the changed return too, and B and C are preferences rather than answers to a changed problem.

3. Does evidence change action before the finale? Yes, once, and it changes the action in the wrong direction for the Tram. WLD104's chain is weather → supplied → harvested, each with a wrong reading, a safe test, and an action; DES105 places the Tram's three visits under the three beliefs, and the order the sequence produces is legal under Districts r9's "the route is a recommendation": the timetable is read under weather (visit one), understood under harvested (visit three). The one evidence-driven action inside the sequence is the Collector's held gate — explanation 2's "machine operation", taken before the later return so that the Tram's first surge is withheld. That is evidence changing action before the finale, as asked. Its effect on the district is to remove the district's opposition, which is what makes question 1's answer "more easily". The repair for question 1 also answers this: if the later return must cross the second surge, the held gate buys the empty ride up and not the trip, which is what a one-surge buffer is (Collector §6).

4. Does colony investment matter? Yes, as written; neither path is shown failing. Path B's tooling issues the four-cell record that makes the changed return's stun possible; path A's berth makes the summit an extraction, which is approach C's whole point; the assembly does one or the other, never both (COL102; contract §6), and the board shows which before launch. The choice is real and its price is stated (four bundles, never a hauling target). What the sequence does not yet show is a visit where the other path's absence costs something — B on the changed return never wants a second exit, and A on the alternative never wants a stun — so investment matters as capability and not yet as risk. That is a smaller gap than the first and can wait for the next district written this way.

Findings

REV105-1 — The later return is the first visit unopposed; its new tool is contingent (Campaign ee4202 §3.2, "Later return"). As above. Category: the depth criterion (PMU007's own: "later expeditions remain worth taking"), not a rule contradiction; the ledger closes. Consequence: the sequence the owner is shown as "whether the game renews" renews on the page and not in play. Minimal change: the contingency made the main line, as above; one paragraph and one ledger row moved.

REV105-2 — The same standing heavy blocks the tram on one visit and not the next (§3.2, changed return 4:10; later return 0:00). Changed return: "the tram, which stands blocked by its heavy; the heavy is not on the road and is left alone." Later return: "the heavy stands beside the tram, not on the rail; the surveyor boards from the far step and it cannot reach the moving car." Heavies "gather where the tram was left" and nothing moved this one. Category: contradiction. Consequence: it decides question 1 for the changed return — a heavy on the rail forbids the ride; a heavy beside it does not. Minimal change: one sentence: on the rail (then the later return kills it, ten hits, before boarding, and its five-unit mote is the later return's first charge — which also gives that visit a beat) or beside it (then the changed return could have ridden, and chose the stairs for the Siphon and the drums, which the page should say).

REV105-3 — Two beats inside pursuit range are unpriced (§3.2, first visit 7:00 and 8:20; changed return 4:00–4:10). The descent "behind the spread crowd's edge on the road" walks the stairs beside a road along which sixty bodies are spread; the stairs, rail and road "climb side by side" and pursuit is ten metres — either the stairs are farther than that from the road, or the descent is chased and the hit "still showing" at 8:40 is where it was taken, and the page should say which. At 8:20 the surveyor cranks a dark gate for ten seconds at the edge of a yard eighty bodies have been spreading across since 8:00. On the changed return the surveyor discharges at the crowd's edge at 4:00, the stun ends at 4:08, and by 4:10 has walked to the panel and thrown Rail: the withdrawal from a recovering crowd's edge to the panel is inside pursuit range and takes longer than two seconds. Category: contradiction with clause 3's pursuit as the campaign now states it (ten metres; "priced in hits"), the same class the lead closed on the three deep districts at r3. Minimal change: a distance for the stairs, a beat for the crank (the crowd's ring drawn, the gate outside it or the hit taken), and a minute for the withdrawal.

Minor

• S is a salvage bundle in every rack on the page and the Siphon in the later return's; Build Paths writes "Siphon" in full. One letter.
• The changed return's four-cell record was "assembled and recorded at the Lock Flight's lock house"; §3.1 does not name the lock house a shelter, and records are made only at shelters (§5; COL-I2). Either the lock house is a shelter, stated in §3.1, or the record was made at the Lock Flight's dock.
• The first visit's "one hit still showing" after the kit restored health: the hit is taken somewhere between 7:00 and 8:40 and the beats do not say where (REV105-3 covers it).
• Approach A's seven free cells against one bundle in the district: say that the space is for what the district does not hold, or let the summit stores hold what makes A's cargo argument true.
• The later return's ride: the lamp's state during the climb is unstated; nothing depends on it before 3:30, but the standing state the visit exists to set should be set in one place.

Verdict — revise: one structural change to the later return, one sentence, three priced beats

The sequence is the right shape and it is honest about itself: three visits under three beliefs, three legal starts that buy different things, two colony paths that decide what the player can rely on, three ledgers that close, and an explicit cut of the trip that would only repeat. What it does not yet do is make the later return a thing the first visit's solution cannot do — its new combination is a contingency the written path avoids — and one sentence about a heavy decides whether the changed return's alternatives are answers or preferences. Neither is a rule change. No claim about enjoyment, balance or survivability is made or could be.

Finding index — where every finding lives

Superseded reviews: REV104 r6 · r5 · r4 · r3 · r2 · r1 · REV103 r5 and earlier on the REV103 archive · REV102 r6 and earlier on the REV102 archive · REV101 r8 and earlier on the REV101 archive.

Every finding ever raised, one line each, is on the Findings index — 59 of them, with a link to each full text.

PM report — REV105 r1

• Task: REV105 on DES105 r1 (Campaign ee4202 §3.2), as Tasks 575001 and PMR007 assign; REV104's remaining items verified at their revisions. Artifact: Design Review, REV105 r1 (this page); REV104 r6 moved to the REV104 archive verbatim.
• Reviewed: Campaign ee4202 §3.2 in full with its three ledgers re-tallied; Build Paths 6bc3f7 (EQP102); Colony fe7d88 (COL102); World e99445 (WLD104 and the six-state table); Combat e3ad2b (§0.4, §6, §12, R11–R13); Power and Attraction 5322f4 diffed against 8644ea; the Exchange 4d6703 diffed against 5bc625 with its expedition re-tallied; Collector 8e39d2 §4; Districts e9c413 §3.4; PMR007 6fb181; Tasks 575001; Brief 0cba02. All heads re-checked at save time.
• Changed decisions: none by this role. PMR007's qualification of REV104 r6 accepted and acted on.
• Evidence: the quoted sentences; four ledgers re-tallied (three on the Campaign page, one on the Exchange). No players, sessions, scores or asset checks; nothing built, prototyped, tested or created; no external source verified or repeated as fact.
• Verdict: revise — REV105-1 (the strongest failure: the later return can be played as the first visit, unopposed; the smallest useful repair is to make its priced contingency the written path), REV105-2 (one sentence), REV105-3 (three beats priced), and the minor items. The alternate builds are real choices under the written rules at the changed return; evidence changes one action before the finale; colony investment changes capability and not yet risk. REV104-16 and -18 closed; -17 closed in substance with four cells; Combat's copies closed; World's row open.
• Remaining risk: the repair to REV105-1 moves the later return's exposure from a contingency to the main line, and the thirty-second lure at the stairs' foot is the beat most likely to fail the pursuit check when written; it should be written with the crowd's ring drawn.
• Next handoff: lead — REV105-1, -2, -3 and the minor items on DES105 r2; Campaign designer — REV104-17's four cells and the §3.4 pointer; world designer — the grounded-run cell; PM — nothing new. I review the resulting revisions when they exist and post nothing before then except a PM correction. One exact PM request: none.