Hold the Flood — Design Review

REV101 · r5 · 2026-09-06 14:15 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review — short note on two non-design revisions: the Hub's new PM-review policy and an outside reader's Clarity Questions page. No design page changed. r4, r3, r2 and r1 are retained verbatim below and in page history (3fd6df, 698c13, 47d51d, 7ad187). Next planned review: DES102 when it exists.

What was checked

How CLR101 is treated here. As observed input, checked against the pages — not as an assignment or a requirement (its own header says the same). Nothing on it is followed as an instruction. Its design-consistency claims that fall inside REV101's mandate are verified below; its readability questions are classified against the Tasks criteria they will be judged by; its PM-page items are left to PM.

Verdict — unchanged, with its scope made explicit

Ready for OWN101 concept steering as Tasks defines it: PM "will review the recorded work and bring the owner a coherent recommendation." The design is coherent enough to steer.

The outside reader is right about a different question: the raw packet is not yet owner-readable. Its vocabulary (survivorlike, build, rack, coil, dispatch, forecast, bundle, sluice…) is undefined on the wiki, and Design's body is deliberately out of date with its own notes. That does not change the OWN101 verdict, because OWN101 runs through PM's recommendation. It does become a hard criterion at DES102/DES103 — Tasks criterion 1 ("explain it in its own terms") and the Tasks instruction that "the owner packet should open with a short pitch and concrete play example." I have added it to the DES102 checklist below. If PM instead intends the owner to read DES101 r2 directly for OWN101, then the packet needs a two-paragraph plain-language opening and a glossary first — a PM routing decision, not a critic's verdict.

CLR101 items inside REV101's mandate — verified

N11 — Links versus leaks (CLR101 Q18): not a contradiction as written, but one case is unstated

• Where: Design c9b2ed §"The rack" ("a charged battery touching a bundle leaks charge into it… powered modules do not leak; insulation is the only blocker") versus Design db8c5c note 3, N7 ("the player draws one link from each battery; a module touching a battery without a link is unpowered and shown dark").
• Check: links govern which module a battery powers; leaks concern bundles (wet salvage), which were never linkable. Read together, the two rules do not collide: a bundle touching a battery leaks whether or not any link exists, so the Finding 3 placement dilemma survives. The reader's worry ("simply do not link the bundles") does not arise, because bundles are not link targets.
• What is genuinely unstated: whether an unpowered (dark, unlinked) module conducts. "Powered modules do not leak" leaves the unpowered case open; if a dark module conducts like a bundle, a battery touching two modules drains through the one it does not power.
• Consequence: small, but it decides whether a second module is a free neighbour or a leak — which is the rack's whole decision.
• Category: missing design detail (one sentence). Credit: CLR101 Q18.
• Minimal change: in DES102's rack rules: "Links select which module a battery powers. Conduction into wet salvage is automatic and ignores links. Modules, powered or not, do not conduct; insulation blocks conduction."

Q17 — The frozen Design body: the critic releases the constraint

Design notes 2 and 3 say the r2 body was left unedited "so the critic's re-review can cite it." That constraint is now unnecessary: every citation in this review is pinned to a revision hash (c340f6, 4343a2, c9b2ed, ea4248, db8c5c), all of which stay in page history. The lead may fold notes 1–3 into a single current body whenever convenient. If the lead prefers not to rewrite before OWN101, the reader's alternative — one line at the top listing what the body says that is no longer true (one dock; "pulses while powered"; the note 2 override) — is enough. Category: housekeeping; not a design finding.

CLR101 readability questions — classified for DES102, not answered here

These are not defects in the concept packet; they are what the integrated document must contain, mapped to the Tasks criterion that will judge them. I will check each on DES102.

CLR101 items outside REV101's mandate — for PM

Q15 (Tasks/Hub still show DES101/WLD101 "Ready" and REV101 "Waiting for first submission"; Hub says acknowledgments pending), Q16 (Hub does not link the work pages), Q19 (Brief D010 "access verified" versus Hub "not verified"), Q20 (two live lead sessions — raised in r2, r3 and r4 here). Presumably the hourly PM review will pick these up; noting them once so they are on the record from this side.

PM-review policy — effect on REV101

None on the mandate. Two practical notes: (1) "Hold the Flood/PM Reviews" will be read on each check from now on and treated as PM's canonical feedback channel; (2) per the Hub's working agreement ("avoid repeated updates without a new decision or artifact"), REV101 revisions will now be issued only for DES102, a PM/owner decision on Tasks/Brief, PM feedback on PM Reviews, or a material DES101/WLD101 change — not for further clarity or cross-reference traffic.

PM report — r5

• Task: REV101 (concept packet review complete since r4; this is a note, not a re-review). Artifact: Design Review r5, In review; r4–r1 retained.
• Checked: Hub 75c3c3/f55be6, Clarity Questions cc0ee7. No design page changed. Design Document still 404.
• Changed decisions: none. Verdict unchanged; scope made explicit.
• Evidence: written comparison of CLR101's design claims (Q17, Q18) against Design c9b2ed and db8c5c; classification of Q1–Q14 against Tasks criteria. No players, sessions, scores or asset checks; nothing built, prototyped, tested or created.
• Remaining risk: N10, N11 (one sentence each) and Finding 5 for DES102; owner-readability of the eventual document (now a checklist item). PM pages remain stale (Q15/Q16/Q19) and the lead's two sessions unnamed (Q20).
• Next handoff: PM — record the working direction under OWN101, and state whether the owner reads DES101 r2 directly (then: plain-language opening + glossary first) or receives PM's recommendation (then: proceed). Lead — free to fold notes into the Design body; carry N10/N11 into DES102. I review DES102 when it exists. One exact PM request: record the working direction (A, B, or premise change) and confirm whether the spine rule, W1–W4 and S1–S3 are carried into DES102 as candidate rules.

REV101 r4 — retained verbatim (closing addendum for the concept packet)

REV101 · r4 · 2026-09-06 14:05 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review — closing addendum for the concept packet: WLD101 r4 and DES101 integration note 3. r3, r2 and r1 are retained verbatim below and in page history (698c13, 47d51d, 7ad187). No further REV101 revision is planned for DES101/WLD101; the next review is DES102 when it exists.

What was re-reviewed

Verdict — unchanged: ready for owner concept steering (OWN101)

Every carry-forward from r2 and r3 is now closed on the pages except one new wording ambiguity (N10, below), which is a one-sentence DES102 fix and does not change what "A" is. This closes REV101's review of the concept packet.

Status of open items after r4 / note 3

One new item — N10: "pulsing" in the path clause

• Where: e54d6a W1 Path ("after entry, a surge moves toward the nearest pulsing beacon it can reach"), repeated verbatim in db8c5c ("toward the nearest pulsing beacon it can reach"); versus e54d6a W1 and item 2 ("an energised beacon is lit steady and pulses at each dispatch"; the portable beacon is "steady while powered, pulsing only at a dispatch").
• Why it fails: beacons pulse only at dispatch instants, so between dispatches nothing is pulsing and the path target is undefined. Read literally, the shepherd's pull works only at the next dispatch instant and competes on distance with the panel's lit fixed beacon; read as intended (probably "energised" or "steady"), the pull is continuous. Both pages now carry the same word, so the ambiguity is shared. Also unstated: what a surge does when no energised beacon is reachable (Off, no planted beacon) — r4 implies the interior route, but W1 should say so.
• Consequence: the shepherd build's entire verb depends on which reading is meant, and the two readings give very different counterplay (a momentary bait versus a persistent lure). The same reason N1 was ranked first in r2.
• Category: missing design detail (wording).
• Minimal change: one sentence in DES102's W1: "after entry a surge moves toward the nearest energised beacon it can reach, re-evaluated continuously [or: at each dispatch]; with none reachable it follows its intake's default route." Either choice is fine; the design needs exactly one.

Expedition-trace request, not a finding

Both pages claim "withdrawal never requires solving this." With the panel left on Causeway (the default), surge 3 arrives on the causeway toward the held causeway dock during the evacuation window. DES102's written expedition should include the first-expedition, no-panel extraction: dock → culvert → yard → culvert → dock under the surge, with the dock's S2 hard-stop as the finish. If that trace holds on paper, the fairness claim holds; if it does not, the claim needs the culvert's exit moved or the sentence removed.

What works in r4 / note 3

• The tie-break was withdrawn for a better rule, not defended. r3 proposed an override, the lead accepted it, r4 replaced it with the intake/path split, note 3 called its own acceptance moot. That is the collaboration behaving well.
• Charge motes give kills a reason without XP. The survivorlike pulse — fight, pick up, grow — is back, but the currency is fuel for experiments rather than power for its own sake.
• Every fix so far has reused an existing rule (conduction for the flooded dock, the sluice as the Flood's own way in, one sign asset rotated) rather than adding a mechanism. The system count has not grown since r2.

Recorded for later empirical validation — not defects

• Shepherd path-pull dominating corridor defence (both authors).
• Off as a trap for new players; the forecast marker must show the sluice as clearly as the branches (WLD101 r4).
• Everything listed under r2 and r3.

PM report — r4

• Task: REV101 — review of the concept packet complete, pending OWN101. Artifact: Design Review r4 (this page), In review; r3, r2, r1 retained.
• Reviewed: World and Mystery e54d6a; Design db8c5c (note 3 only; r2 body unchanged; confirmed by diff). Design Document still 404. Brief/Tasks unchanged.
• Changed decisions: none by this role. Verdict unchanged since r2.
• Evidence: written comparison; diff of db8c5c against ea4248. No players, sessions, scores or asset checks; nothing built, prototyped, tested or created.
• Remaining risk: N10 (one word, one sentence) and Finding 5 (the DES102 table). Two live sessions of the lead role are still unnamed by PM. No working direction is recorded.
• Next handoff: PM records the working direction under OWN101; lead writes DES102 carrying the spine rule, W1–W4 (with N10 fixed), S1–S3, the r4 topology and note 3's items; I review DES102 against Tasks criteria 1–10 when it exists. One exact PM request: unchanged — record the working direction (A, B, or premise change) and confirm whether the spine rule, W1–W4 and S1–S3 are carried into DES102 as candidate rules.

REV101 r3 — retained verbatim (closed by r4 above)

REV101 · r3 · 2026-09-06 13:55 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review — addendum for WLD101 r3 and DES101 integration note 2, both saved before r2 could read them. r2 and r1 are retained verbatim below and in page history (47d51d, 7ad187).

What was re-reviewed

Verdict — unchanged: ready for owner concept steering (OWN101)

Nothing in r3 or note 2 changes what "A" is; both tighten it. The carry-forward list for DES102 shrinks from six items to three-and-a-half, plus three new one-liners.

Status of r2 carry-forwards after r3 / note 2

New one-liners from r3 / note 2 (DES102 scope)

• N7 — A battery powers one module; which one when it touches two? ea4248 proposes "a battery powers only one module at a time" to stop the shepherd luring and harvesting from one battery. Sound, and it tightens the rack. It needs one rule for the case where a battery touches two powered modules (player-designated, first placed, or nearest). Missing design detail.
• N8 — The culvert sign. c9b2ed §Topology: "a sign turned to the wall." c92838 W4 and §Compare: turned "to face the yard," and W4 makes the direction the clue. DES102 carries r3's version. Contradiction (wording).
• N9 — Stale cross-reference. c9b2ed §Integration adopts "438f1b contradiction-check items 1–6"; those are superseded by c92838's items 1–6, which ea4248 accepts. DES102 should cite r3 only. Housekeeping.
• Expedition-example request, not a finding: hatches are open only while powered (c9b2ed coil route; c92838 item 4). DES102's written expedition should show a player inside the pump hall when the invited surge arrives at the yard — where they go, and whether a hatch can shut with them inside. That is the moment the "key and lure" cost is paid, so the example should be that moment.

What works in r3 / note 2, and why

• The two-path rule discovery. Observation (pulse→turn) and intervention (switch→marker jump) both teach W1 without a label. A mystery that can be solved by either looking or trying is fair to both player temperaments, and it is the first place the packet makes experimentation itself a clue path.
• The reachable answer changes action. Tally board plus inked route plus W4: the fiction's answer is also a navigation tool. That is the Blue Prince aim as the Brief phrased it — an understood clue changes the next decision "rather than only reveal more text."
• W4 is cheap. One reused sign asset, rotated, becomes a district-wide clue vocabulary. This is the reuse strategy Tasks criterion 8 asks for, arrived at from the design side.
• Off is not a safe default. Closing both hatches makes "turn it off" a choice with a cost, which removes the last free position on the panel.
• The lead accepted a correction to its own r2 (beacon light wording) and constrained its own new build (shepherd) rather than defending it.

Recorded for later empirical validation — not defects

• Whether the planted-beacon override reopens Finding 2 (both authors flag it; DES102's counterplay section is where it gets argued on paper, and play is where it gets settled).
• Whether the unlabelled panel is fair for players who never switch experimentally (mitigated by the marker-jump path and escalating hints).
• Pulse/turn correlation on a crowded survivorlike screen.
• Everything listed under r2.

Coordination note

WLD101 r3 was written against Design Review r1; REV101 r2's N2, N3 and N4 have not yet been seen by the world designer, and N2 belongs to the lead. No fault — the revisions crossed within minutes — but the next reads should be: world designer → Design Review r3 (this) for N3/N4; lead → N2, N3, N7, N8, N9.

PM report — r3

• Task: REV101. Artifact: Design Review r3 (this page), In review; r2 and r1 retained below.
• Reviewed: World and Mystery c92838; Design ea4248 (note 2 only; r2 body unchanged). Design Document still 404. Brief/Tasks unchanged.
• Changed decisions: none by this role. Verdict unchanged from r2.
• Evidence: written comparison of the two revisions against r2's findings; diff of ea4248 against c9b2ed to confirm only note 2 was added. No players, sessions, scores or asset checks; nothing built, prototyped, tested or created.
• Remaining risk: the open items (N1 residual, N2, N3, N4 location, N7, N8, N9) are each one sentence and none blocks steering. Two live sessions of the lead role remain unnamed by PM.
• Next handoff: PM records the working direction under OWN101; lead starts DES102 carrying the open one-liners; world designer reads this r3 for N3/N4. I re-review DES102 when it exists; I will not issue further REV101 revisions for DES101/WLD101 unless a change is material, to avoid repetitive reports. One exact PM request: unchanged — record the working direction (A, B, or premise change) and confirm whether the spine rule, W1–W4 and S1–S3 are carried into DES102 as candidate rules.

REV101 r2 — retained verbatim (verdict restated by r3 above)

REV101 · r2 · 2026-09-06 13:50 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review — re-review of DES101 r2 and WLD101 r2. Supersedes the r1 verdict; r1 is retained in full below this section and in page history (7ad187).

What was re-reviewed

Correction to r1 — Secondary 3 withdrawn

In r1 I stated that the changelog stamps were UTC and that both DES101 r1 and WLD101 r1 cited read times earlier than the revisions they read. That was wrong. Verified at re-review: the wiki's HTTP Date header read 13:48:53 GMT while the changelog's newest entry showed 16:39:22, so the changelog displays local time, UTC+3, as DES101 r2 states and the Home page patch note ("15:30 and 15:50 UTC+3") indicates. Brief a449b2 was therefore saved at 13:05:31 UTC, and r1's "13:08:30 UTC" and WLD101 r1's "13:08:59 UTC" read times are consistent with it. The "still 404 on recheck" line in DES101 r1 (saved 13:11:59 UTC) against WLD101 r1 (saved 13:10:33 UTC) is a plausible 90-second gap, not a contradiction. The r1 table below is mislabelled "(UTC, wiki changelog)"; those stamps are UTC+3. No record contradiction exists.

Verdict — ready for owner concept steering (OWN101)

The two findings I said gated OWN101 (r1 Findings 1 and 2) are resolved, and resolved by reducing the system count rather than patching: beacons now sit on the same power circuit as hatches and lamps, so one rule decides what fights, what opens, where the Flood goes, how the rack packs, and which dock the colony holds dry. The concept the owner would steer is now the concept the page describes. The lead's stated reason for recommending A holds on the page; choosing A, B, or a premise change remains the owner's steer, not mine.

This is a verdict on the concept packet. It is not a verdict on the integrated design document (DES102 does not exist) and it is not development authorization (Brief D007). Six carry-forward items for DES102 are listed under "New findings"; only N1 has build-space consequence, and none changes what "A" is.

Status of r1 findings against r2

What works in r2, and why

• The fix reduced systems instead of adding one. r1 had two machine families; r2 has one rule used four ways. That is the shape of correction that survives further design.
• The rack leak mirrors district conduction. The same lesson taught in two places is how a rule becomes player knowledge rather than a tooltip.
• The signature interaction is now an experimentation example, not just a shortcut. Three routes to the same hatch (panel, coil, bait) with three different costs (surge time, charge, exposure), and a legible failure mode: discharge during a dispatch pulse and the beacon fires anyway. That is the "plausible experiment fails for an understandable reason" case Tasks criterion 4 asks for, already on the page.
• The colony choice inverts a known rule. Which dock is dry flips which panel setting is safe — meta-progression that changes the value of learned knowledge without chores.
• WLD101 r2 withdrew its own rule when it contradicted the schedule, named the consequence, and marked the feel question as empirical. That is the honesty criterion working.
• The lead surfaced a duplicated-session risk for its own role to PM instead of leaving two sessions to collide (PM item below).

New findings in r2 — priority order (all DES102 scope; none blocks OWN101)

N1 — Two pulsing beacons, no priority rule

• Where: Design c9b2ed §Spine rule 3 ("a surge enters by the pulsing beacon"; "the district's one live circuit"); §Builds Shepherd ("portable beacon module plus battery; pulses while powered, so the next dispatch comes to wherever it is planted"); §Signature interaction, coil route ("if a dispatch pulse lands inside your discharge window the beacon fires").
• Claim: attraction follows "the pulsing beacon", singular.
• Why unclear: r2 introduces up to three simultaneous power sources — the panel's circuit, a coil discharge, and the Shepherd's battery beacon — so two beacons can pulse at once, and nothing says which wins (nearest, strongest, first energised, or the surge splits). Separately, "enters by" (choice of intake) and "comes to wherever it is planted" (pathing after entry) are two different effects under one word.
• Consequence: the Shepherd — one third of the stated build space and the only build that manipulates routing after entry — has no defined behaviour, and the coil-route risk in the signature interaction depends on the same unstated rule.
• Category: missing design detail.
• Minimal change: one sentence in DES102, e.g. "A dispatch chooses the intake nearest the strongest pulsing beacon; after entry a surge paths toward the nearest pulsing beacon it can reach; a planted beacon therefore never changes the intake, only the path." Any consistent rule will do; the design needs exactly one.

N2 — What sheds charge: stunned only, or killed too?

• Where: c9b2ed §Spine rule 4 ("Stunned organisms shed charge") versus §Comparison, decision 3 ("charge is the only kill yield") and §Rhythm, minutes 3–5 ("meet it at the causeway head for charge" — on a dry causeway, on expedition one, with the stated starting kit of cutter, empty battery, empty rack, and no coil).
• Why it fails: only the coil stuns. If only stunning sheds charge, a player who has not yet found a coil can never charge the battery, and the minute-3 rhythm row is impossible on a first expedition. If kills shed charge, rule 4 is missing a word.
• Consequence: decides whether the "front-loaded arc" can start before a coil is found — i.e. whether expedition one can power anything at all.
• Category: contradiction (three sentences; small).
• Minimal change: rewrite rule 4 to say which ("Stunned or killed organisms shed charge; stuns shed more"), and state how charge enters a battery without a coil (the cutter conducts; or charge is a pickup).

N3 — Topology lists one dock; the colony rule needs two

• Where: c9b2ed §Topology ("Elevated dock") versus §"Gathering and colony" ("which dock it holds dry, causeway side or yard side"; "a surge sent toward your dock blocks extraction") and §Rhythm ("Reach the held dock").
• Why: the exclusive colony choice exists only if both docks are in the district and one is flooded.
• Consequence: small, but this is the colony's only expressive choice; it must be on the map.
• Category: missing design detail.
• Minimal change: add the second dock (flooded by default) to the topology line and say what a flooded dock does (unusable, or wet and therefore conducting).

N4 — The Off intake has no place

• Where: c9b2ed §Topology ("Three intakes: Causeway, Yard, and the forecast's default when the panel is Off"); 438f1b W1 ("Off (the forecast's own default entrance)") and §Mapping ("Off ... restores the forecast's varying entrances").
• Why: "default" is described once as a third intake and once as "varying entrances"; where it opens onto the district is unstated.
• Consequence: small; but Off is the setting that preserves A's "surges enter through different passages", so DES102 must place it.
• Category: missing design detail.
• Minimal change: name the third intake's location, or state that Off selects among the existing intakes per forecast.

N5 — "Coil optional" adopted alongside a coil-dependent spine

• Where: c9b2ed §Integration adopts 438f1b contradiction-check items 1–6 "as proposals"; item 2 reads "the coil is an optional extension"; but c9b2ed makes charge "the only fuel for powered experiments" and two of three builds use the coil.
• Why: WLD101 r2 was written against Design 4343a2 (it lists Design Review as 404 and predates c9b2ed), so item 2 reflects the superseded r1 position.
• Consequence: a reader cannot tell whether the coil is core or optional.
• Category: contradiction (cross-page wording).
• Minimal change: restate item 2 as "the false-refuge chain never requires the coil" — which both pages already guarantee (culvert dry without payment; panel needs no item) — when the world designer confirms against c9b2ed, which the lead has already requested.

N6 — Two build vocabularies (minor)

c9b2ed: Electrician / Hauler / Shepherd. 438f1b: Hauler / Explorer / Controller. Not contradictory (Controller ≈ Electrician; Explorer is a light Hauler), but DES102 should settle one set: the world designer's triad has no Shepherd and the lead's has no Explorer.

Recorded for later empirical validation — not defects

• Whether the invited-surge cost is heavy enough that the panel and the Shepherd's beacon do not dominate (the lead's own listed risk).
• Whether a fifteen-minute, three-surge expedition leaves observation time (WLD101 r2 lists this).
• Deadline anxiety versus planning.
• Readability of live water, current, and a surge's destination at survivorlike screen density; the DES102 table will narrow but not settle this.
• Battery leak rate and the charge economy.
• Whether a "moderate, front-loaded arc" reads as survivorlike — the owner's judgment first, then play.

What I will check on DES102

Tasks criteria 1–10 in full, plus: N1–N6 closed; the Finding 5 readable-state table delivered with its owner-approval residue named; three builds with costs and counterplay in one vocabulary; the written failed experiment (already sketched in the signature interaction); one complete expedition and a later one changed by learning; the persistence table; the mystery example with spoilers marked; scope cuts; and the decisions the owner actually needs to make.

PM report — r2

• Task: REV101. Artifact: Design Review r2 (this page), In review. r1 retained below.
• Reviewed: Design c9b2ed; World and Mystery 438f1b. Design Document still 404. Brief/Tasks unchanged.
• Changed decisions: none by this role. Verdict changed from r1's "revise before OWN101" to "ready for OWN101 concept steering", because the two gating findings are resolved on the page.
• Correction: r1 Secondary 3 withdrawn; the changelog is UTC+3, verified against the server's own clock.
• Evidence: written comparison of c9b2ed and 438f1b against Brief a449b2 and Tasks 254220; grid arithmetic re-verified for the leak rule; timezone verified with the HTTP Date header. No players, sessions, scores, or asset checks are claimed; nothing was built, prototyped, tested, or created.
• Remaining risk: N1 is the only new gap with build-space consequence; it is DES102 scope. The lead reports two live sessions of its own role and asks PM to name which is canonical — PM should do that before DES102 starts, or the integrated draft may fork.
• Next handoff: PM records the working direction under OWN101; lead proceeds to DES102; world designer confirms the chain against c9b2ed's light convention and restates item 2 (N5); I re-review DES102 when saved. One exact PM request: record the working direction (A, B, or premise change) and confirm whether the spine rule, W1–W3 and S1–S3 are carried into DES102 as candidate rules.

REV101 r1 — original review, retained verbatim (verdict superseded by r2 above)

REV101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 UTC · Independent Design Critic · In review

Acknowledgment

Role: Independent Design Critic. First task: REV101. Own work page: this page. I reviewed Brief D011/D012 (Brief revision a449b2, saved 2026-09-06 16:05:31 UTC per the wiki changelog) and Tasks revision 254220 and Team revision 3ddc81. I acknowledge the design-only gate (Brief D007): this page is document critique only. I did not and will not build, prototype, simulate, run a spike, playtest, or create or request game assets. I do not own the design; every correction below is a question or a minimal change for the lead and world designer to accept, adapt or reject, not a replacement.

Labels used: Owner requirement = Brief confirmed requirements / decision log. Proposal = a designer's suggestion. Illustration = a written scenario that can expose a contradiction but cannot prove feel, balance or enjoyment. Empirical = an unknown that writing cannot settle; recorded for later, not raised as a defect.

What was reviewed

REV101 therefore covers DES101 and WLD101 only. The integrated document will be re-reviewed when it exists. No prior critique existed on this page; nothing here is inferred from other agents' activity beyond the saved revisions above.

Verdict — revise (narrowly, before OWN101)

The packet is substantive, honest about its unknowns, and compliant with the owner gate and asset rules. It is not blocked. It is not yet ready for owner steering, for one reason: the coordination note (Design r 4343a2) proposes an integration that removes the stated reason Concept A was recommended (Finding 1) and imports a free, unlimited enemy-routing control that is never reconciled with A's only escalating pressure (Finding 2). If the owner steers "A" now, the choice would not bind what "A" is.

Smallest path forward: resolve Findings 1 and 2 with a short DES101 r2 (a few sentences each), then proceed to OWN101. Findings 3–5 are DES102 scope and should not delay steering.

What already works, and why

• The pressure-versus-curiosity problem is answered by a rule, not a promise. Design r c340f6 §A "Rhythm and tradeoff": "Thinking is free; obtaining new evidence spends exposure and route time." This is a stated, checkable principle that directly addresses the Brief's named central tension, and the coordination note keeps it ("New evidence and experiments occur in live play"). Whether it feels right is empirical; that it is defined is what this phase needs.
• Gathering, route and meta-progression are causally joined in one rule. Design r c340f6 §A "Inventory": a salvage bundle can power a local pump, draining a channel for a dry crossing "but forfeiting that colony contribution." One decision touches survival, route, cargo and colony. This is exactly the causal connection the mandate asks for and the best single rule in either document.
• Kill farming is removed on purpose. "Repeated kills yield no farmable progression" (both concepts). This commits the reward channel to exploration and discovery rather than grinding. It creates a gap (Finding 4) but the instinct is right.
• The colony explicitly refuses chores. "Exclude citizen schedules, hunger and passive stat grinding" (r c340f6 §A "Persistence and colony"). Correct reading of the Cult of the Lamb aim as meta-progression, not simulation. What remains is thin (Secondary 2) but nothing wrong was added.
• WLD101's clue chain is the strongest section in the packet. World and Mystery r 01378d §"Illustrative design": every clue is a physically observable, non-symbolic thing (a beacon flashing before groups turn; a dark beacon; cart wear; a sign turned to the wall; visible wiring). The knowledge-gate versus item-gate distinction is explicit, the recovery path is specified (committed groups stay put and the display says why; journal keeps facts after death; hints escalate; withdrawal never requires the solution), and replay after the answer is addressed. This is a fair mystery in the sense the Team quality bar demands.
• W3 — Stable evidence is a small rule with large value: variation may change the best route "never the rule." This is what lets learned knowledge persist as player knowledge rather than a journal flag.
• Neither document invents anything it is not allowed to invent. No playtests, no asset availability, no teammates, no approvals. Scope cuts are stated as content boundaries "not a feasibility claim." This is the honesty criterion (Tasks §10) met.
• The lead flagged its own contradiction (shelter versus landing rules, r 4343a2) instead of papering over it. Good practice; Secondary 1 only sharpens what must be decided.

Five most consequential findings

Finding 1 — The proposed integration removes the reason A was recommended

• Where: Design r c340f6 §"Recommendation, risks and PM handoff" and §A "Discovery and signature interaction"; Design r 4343a2 §"Lead's written assessment".
• Claim: r c340f6 recommends A because "A makes one environmental rule serve combat, access and route timing." The rule that does that work is the water/current rule: a valve joins channels, "connected water carries power," the coil stuns enemies in the channel and powers the hatch, insulation protects the wearer. r 4343a2 then proposes WLD101's beacon-attraction chain as "the candidate central mystery for DES102" and "treating the coil interaction as an optional environmental experiment."
• Why it fails: The recommendation's only stated advantage over B is transferred to an optional subsystem, and a second environmental rule with no causal link to the first (relay beacons, WLD101 W1–W2) is promoted into the centre. Nothing in W1–W3 depends on wet or dry ground, power, the coil, insulation or pumps; nothing in A's coil chain depends on beacons, pulses or group destinations. The settings are also unreconciled: "derelict pumping district" (r c340f6 §A) versus "abandoned relay district" (r 01378d §Proposal). The lead's own caution — "Review scope before including both machine types" — names the problem but does not resolve it.
• Consequence: OWN101 would ask the owner to steer "A" while A's defining rule is being demoted. Two independent machine families in one compact district is the "several reference-inspired systems with no causal connection" failure the critic brief warns against, and roughly doubles the readable-state burden in Finding 5.
• Category: Contradiction (between revisions c340f6 and 4343a2 of the same page).
• Minimal change / question: Before OWN101, state one spine rule and derive the other from it, or drop one. Concrete question for the lead and world designer: can the beacon relay run on the same channel rule — a beacon only broadcasts while its channel is energised, so opening a valve, draining a channel, or discharging the coil is also how the player changes where the Flood goes? That keeps WLD101's false-refuge chain intact, keeps the "one rule serves combat, access and routing" claim true, and is one sentence. If rejected, say plainly which rule is optional and rewrite the recommendation paragraph to match.

Finding 2 — Free, unlimited diversion versus A's only escalating pressure

• Where: World and Mystery r 01378d §"Proposed world rules" W1/W2, §Illustrative "Experiment" row, §"Fair recovery"; Design r c340f6 §A "Actions and pressure".
• Claim: A's pressure is "Three announced enemy surges enter through different passages, making direct routes increasingly dangerous." W1 gives a Road/Yard/Off selector that redirects approaching unengaged groups. The Experiment row states this requires no "item, stat, resource payment, or journal flag"; §"Fair recovery" states "Free switching permits another observation on subsequent pulses."
• Why it fails: No cost, cooldown, use limit, distance, or contested state is specified for the selector, and neither document says how it interacts with A's announced surge entrances — whether the beacon overrides the forecast or only picks between two of three passages (WLD101's district has two branches; A has three passages). W2's commitment rule constrains only late switches; a player who sets the branch before each pulse pays nothing.
• Consequence: The dominant line is "always divert the next group to the half of the district I am not using," which converts A's escalating three-surge structure into a schedule the player disarms for free. The stated counter-cost — r 01378d §"Resources": "diversion trades safer transit for harder salvage collection" — only binds if the player must gather in the diverted branch during the same interval; nothing stated prevents gathering the yard first and diverting afterwards. This is the "one obviously dominant strategy" failure, and it also erodes the false-refuge mystery's consequence, since the answer becomes a free switch rather than a decision.
• Category: Missing design detail, with a contradiction between W1's free selector and A's stated escalation.
• Minimal change / question: Name the cost that makes diversion a decision. Two cheap candidates, either of which preserves WLD101's chain: (a) the selector is at a fixed junction, so switching costs the travel to reach it and exposes the branch you are standing in when the pulse fires; (b) diversion is committed for the rest of the expedition, not per pulse, so choosing which branch absorbs pressure is a once-per-outing plan. Question to answer before OWN101: does the beacon choose the entrance of an announced surge, or only reroute groups after they have arrived? The answer determines whether A's surge schedule is still the pressure.

Finding 3 — The 2×3 rack cannot produce a placement decision

• Where: Design r c340f6 §A "Inventory, builds and gathering".
• Claim: "A proposed 2-by-3 equipment rack also holds salvage: each bundle occupies one square. Powered modules must share an edge with a one-square battery." Modules named: two-square coil (powered), one-square insulation, one-square battery; a cutter needing no rack space.
• Why it fails: Six cells, one adjacency rule, one battery, one powered module. In a 2×3 grid a battery is edge-adjacent to up to three cells, and a two-square coil can be placed beside it in nearly every orientation; the constraint essentially never binds. The only decision the section actually describes is scalar — spend four squares on coil + battery + insulation, or carry six salvage bundles. Where things go never changes an outcome.
• Consequence: The inventory invokes the Backpack Hero aim (Brief §Inspiration map: "inventory management as expression") but delivers a single power-versus-cargo dial plus per-expedition repacking at shelters — the "inventory busywork" outcome, with UI cost and no expressive choice. It also under-delivers Tasks criterion 4 ("at least three genuinely different build examples") when DES102 arrives, since only one axis currently exists. WLD101's build contribution (r 01378d §"Build expression") is explicitly "proposed behaviors, not established abilities" and does not add an axis.
• Category: Missing design detail; taste judgment on whether a grid is the right form.
• Minimal change / question: Either (a) give the grid a second constraint that can conflict with the first — modules with shapes, a battery that powers only a limited number of adjacent modules, insulation that must touch the coil it protects, or damage that destroys a specific square — and show one arrangement where two desirable modules cannot both be placed; or (b) drop the grid, use B's named sockets plus a cargo count, and say in one line that spatial packing was cut. Question: is there any arrangement under the current rules where a player wants two modules and cannot fit both? If not, the grid is presentation and should be labelled or removed.

Finding 4 — In-run progression is denied for kills and unspecified for everything else

• Where: Design r c340f6 §A "Actions and pressure" ("Combat protects movement; repeated kills yield no farmable progression") and §A "Persistence and colony" ("Starting equipment is reissued; found modules, cargo, enemies, pumps and surge state reset").
• Claim: Modules are "found" during an expedition and reset afterwards; repacking requires a shelter; kills give nothing.
• Why it remains unclear: The document never states where found modules come from (drops, fixed rooms, salvage conversion, machinery), how many an expedition yields, or whether the player becomes meaningfully stronger between surge one and surge three. The genre is an owner requirement (Brief D005: survivorlike) and is conventionally defined by an in-run power curve; the owner-named reference Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has one. A reader cannot tell whether an expedition is an escalating build arc or a fixed-loadout extraction trip against a rising threat.
• Consequence: The survivorlike requirement cannot be assessed from the packet. Depending on the unstated answer, the third surge is either unsurvivable (no growth) or trivial (unbounded growth). It also decides whether the rack's cargo-versus-power tradeoff tightens or loosens over a run, which Finding 3 depends on.
• Category: Missing design detail; owner-requirement legibility risk (D005).
• Minimal change: One paragraph in DES102 stating what the player gains inside a single expedition, from what source, at roughly what rate, and how that curve is meant to sit against surges one, two and three. If the intended answer is "very little, and that is the point," say so plainly so the owner judges it against the survivorlike requirement now rather than discovering it later.

Finding 5 — Readability demands concentrate exactly where free assets are least likely to fit

• Where: Design r c340f6 §A (blinking paired lamps, discrete wet/dry channel states, live current, visible surge entrances) and §Unresolved ("unclear water/current feedback"; "Presentation must fit verified existing free assets; none have been shortlisted or licensed here"); World and Mystery r 01378d §"Content/assets" ("Essential readable states, wiring, destinations, cart wear, and signs create asset needs; no compatible free set or terms are verified").
• Claim: Both documents defer presentation to verified existing free assets, none identified.
• Why it is a risk rather than an error: Both authors correctly decline to invent availability or terms; that is compliant, and I am not asking for asset work. The issue is that nearly every state the design leans on is a project-specific readable condition — this channel is energised and will hurt you; this beacon is the live one; this group is committed to the yard; the next surge enters here — not a generic character, tile or prop. Free packs commonly supply the latter; they do not supply the former. So the design's core comprehension load falls into the category most likely to need authored art, which Brief D009 requires to be rare, minimal and owner-approved.
• Consequence: Either scope pressure toward authored art and an owner approval request, or a fallback to text and UI readouts, which changes the feel of a survivorlike. Finding 1, if unresolved, doubles this burden by keeping two machine families. This is a decision better made before DES102 fills a district with machinery.
• Category: Missing design detail with scope consequence; not an owner-requirement violation.
• Minimal change: In DES102, a short table: each state the player must read → the cheapest medium that could plausibly carry it (tint/colour, particle or animation on a reused prop, UI overlay, diegetic readout, or authored art) → whether it would need an owner approval request. WLD101 §"Content/assets" already points this way ("propose existing-prop or plain-text inspection alternatives"); the correction is to do it per state, now, and name the residue that would need approval. No asset is to be sourced or made in this phase.

Secondary findings (real, but not in the top five)

1. Shelter safety rule is still open — sharpen what must be decided. Design r c340f6 §A: "Shelters stop attacks." Design r 4343a2 §"Specific rule difference": proposed integration requires "clearing or evading pursuers before repacking or using the landing's observation position," under which shelters do not stop attacks. A's rhythm ("reach a shelter and reconsider") depends on which is true. Category: contradiction, already flagged by the lead. Minimal change: one sentence in DES101 r2 or DES102 stating whether a shelter is a hard stop or a no-spawn zone that must be cleared.
2. Colony choice is an ordering delay, not a decision. Design r c340f6 §A "Persistence and colony": workshop or dock repair, "Limited salvage delays the other." Concept B likewise: "Both remain attainable." Tasks criterion 6 asks for the colony loop's "actual decisions and cost." A choice whose branches both resolve is a queue; salvage's only meta use is feeding it, which is the "gathering grind" risk in a mild form. Category: missing design detail. Minimal change: make one standing colony choice exclusive or reversible only at real cost so it shapes expeditions differently, or tell the owner plainly that meta-progression is deliberately minimal against the Cult of the Lamb aim and ask whether that is acceptable.
3. Provenance timestamps precede the revisions they cite. Design r c340f6: "Read Brief D011/D012 at 2026-09-06 13:08:30 UTC." World and Mystery r 01378d: "Brief reread: 2026-09-06 13:08:59 UTC," citing Brief a449b2. Per the wiki changelog, Brief a449b2 — the revision introducing D011/D012 — was saved at 16:05:31 UTC. Also r c340f6 (saved 16:11:59) states "World and Mystery ... still returned 404 on recheck," but r 01378d was saved at 16:10:33. Process-record errors, not design errors; they matter because both documents rest their credibility on precise provenance. Category: contradiction (record). Minimal change: correct or remove the timestamps.
4. Three passages versus two branches. r c340f6 §A: three surges through different passages; r 01378d W1: Road/Yard/Off. Part of Findings 1–2; DES102 should state the district's actual topology once.
5. The false-refuge panel gives the rule away; the fiction has no answer. r 01378d §Illustrative "Understand": the selector is "plainly labeled Road / Yard / Off" and "its display shows the next pulse and current group's committed destination." Fairness is well served, but the mechanical inference ("perhaps the beacon attracts the Flood") is largely read off the label, and the narrative question ("who used it remains unresolved") is left without a reachable answer. Neither half fully lands as discovery. Category: taste judgment. Minimal change: keep the destination display (it carries fairness of consequence) but let the player correlate pulse → turn before the label makes sense (worn label, or the display reads only after the first observed pulse); and give the fiction one reachable answer, even a small one.

Recorded for later empirical validation — not defects

These cannot be settled by writing and should not delay this phase.

• Whether a player can notice and correlate a beacon pulse with a group's turn (r 01378d "Notice") while a surge is inbound and basic attacks are automatic. The design gives structural room — inter-surge scouting, a cleared landing, a free notebook pause — so this is feel, not a gap.
• Whether "thinking is free; evidence costs exposure" produces curiosity or hesitation in play.
• Whether removing kill rewards leaves enough moment-to-moment survivorlike satisfaction (depends on Finding 4's answer).
• Balance of any diversion cost chosen under Finding 2.
• Readability of energised water and current at survivorlike screen density (the lead already lists this).

PM report

• Task: REV101. Artifact: Design Review r1 (this page), In review.
• Reviewed: Design c340f6 + 4343a2 (DES101 r1 and coordination note); World and Mystery 01378d (WLD101 r1). DES102 does not exist; not reviewed.
• Changed decisions: none. Nothing canonical altered; no rule replaced.
• Evidence / reasoning: written comparison of the saved revisions against Brief a449b2 requirements and Tasks 254220 criteria; wiki changelog for revision times; grid-adjacency reasoning in Finding 3 is arithmetic on the stated rules. No players, sessions, scores, or asset checks are claimed.
• Recommendation: revise — narrowly. Resolve Findings 1 and 2 in a short DES101 r2 before OWN101; Findings 3–5 and Secondary 1–5 belong in DES102.
• Remaining risk: if the owner steers on the current packet, the steered concept is underdetermined (Finding 1). Everything under "empirical validation" stays unknown until the owner authorizes a later phase; I am not requesting that.
• Next handoff: lead and world designer respond on their pages; PM decides whether DES101 r2 precedes OWN101. I will re-review DES101 r2 and DES102 when saved. One exact PM request: confirm whether Findings 1–2 gate OWN101, or whether PM prefers to take the packet to the owner as-is with those two findings attached.