**WLD101 · r4 · 2026-09-06 13:56 UTC · In review** — supersedes r3 (c92838c), r2 (438f1bf), r1 (01378d), all in page history. Author: World and Mystery Designer. Handoff: Lead (DES102), Independent Design Critic (re-review of r3/r4), PM. PM accepts.

**Owner requirements.** Survivorlike; exploration, experimentation, mystery; the Flood is massed enemies (Brief D011); Unity; Steam; assume nothing exists. Design only until the owner explicitly authorizes development after reviewing the design document. No AI-generated art; prefer verified free assets; purchases and rare authored assets need owner approval. This revision creates no assets, code, prototypes, or tests.

**Sources.** Reread 13:56 UTC: [Hub](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood), [Brief a449b2](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief?revision=a449b2), [Tasks 254220](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks?revision=254220), [Design ea42489](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design?revision=ea42489) (DES101 r2 plus integration notes 1 and 2), [Design Review 47d51da](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review?revision=47d51da) (REV101 r2, verdict "ready for OWN101"; it re-reviewed WLD101 **r2**, not r3). PM has not yet recorded a working direction (OWN101 open); no Design Document page exists. No comparative research and no asset verification. Setting, enemy identity, and every mechanic below remain proposals.

**Revision history.** r1: the false-refuge chain and W1–W3 in a setting-neutral relay district. r2: mapped onto DES101 A; withdrew r1's clock-freezing observation view for S1–S3. r3: answered the lead's integration note and REV101 r1 (W1 dispatch-instant, W4 turned signs, unlabelled panel with forecast marker, reachable answer, four-part cost of diversion). **r4:** answers REV101 r2 and integration note 2. Changes W1 to separate *intake* from *path* (N1), places the Off intake and the second dock in the topology (N3, N4), and records that N5 and N6 were already resolved in r3. Everything else is r3 text.

DES101 r2 states one spine rule (conduction, power, attraction, charge). W1–W4 sit inside its *attraction* clause; the wording below is what this page asks DES102 to carry.

- **W1 — Attraction (revised r4).** An energised beacon is lit steady and pulses at each dispatch. *Intake:* a surge enters by the fixed beacon that pulses at the dispatch instant, which the panel alone decides (*Causeway*, *Yard*, or *Off*: no fixed beacon lit, so the surge uses the sluice, below). *Path:* after entry, a surge moves toward the nearest pulsing beacon it can reach; a planted beacon therefore changes where a surge goes, never where it enters. The panel needs no item, rack space, resource, or journal flag; what it costs is stated under Finding 2 below.

- **W4 — Turned signs.** Every refuge sign in the district that has been turned faces the way the last crew actually went. First seen in the culvert (facing the yard); confirmed by the reachable answer below; thereafter a navigation clue wherever the prop recurs. Same sign asset, rotated. Under W3 it never changes.

**Topology (one statement; r4 adds the sluice and the second dock for N3 and N4).** Two docks at the district's rim: the *causeway dock*, held dry by default, and the *yard dock*, flooded by default and unusable until the colony's pump holds it dry instead (DES101 r2's exclusive choice; while flooded it is wet ground and therefore conducts). Between them the raised dry causeway, signed as the evacuation route, beacon live by default; the culvert beneath it, dry without payment, with cart wear and a turned sign; the pump hall and salvage yard beside a shallow channel, beacon dark, hatch on the yard circuit. At the district's low end, where the two branches meet, the *sluice*: the Flood's own way in, no beacon, opening straight onto the interior route. Three intakes: Causeway, Yard, and the sluice when the panel is Off. Panel resets to *Causeway*; the first dispatch follows a short scouting interval the lead sets.

Proposed play, not a playtest. Light convention throughout: steady = powered, pulsing = dispatching, dark = unpowered.

| --- | --- |

| Understand | Cabling runs from the panel to both beacons and on to the yard hatch. The panel's three positions carry no words: each is a cable heading off toward its branch, plus a closed position. The forecast shows the next surge as a countdown and a marker at an intake. Switching moves the marker at once, so the rule can be learned two ways: watch a pulse and the surge's turn, or switch and watch the marker jump. After the first observed pulse-and-turn, the notebook records the observation in the player's own terms ("the surge came in by the pulsing beacon"). No label states the rule. |

| Experiment | Set *Yard*. The yard beacon goes steady, the hatch opens, the forecast marker moves to the yard intake with the countdown still running. Retreat to a shelter or stay; watch the dispatch. *Off* darkens both branches, shuts both hatches, and moves the marker to the sluice. |

| Change later play | Each of the three dispatches reopens the choice: keep *Causeway* and haul through the culvert to a quiet, closed yard; set *Yard* to open the hall and walk the causeway into the interior while the surge is elsewhere; set *Off* to keep both branches quiet and give up the interior; or invite the surge to the yard channel on purpose (the lead's electrician). Turned signs (W4) now read as a route. |

**The reachable answer (spoiler; proposal).** Inside the pump hall, on the wall beside the one pump still running (the one that keeps the culvert dry): a crew tally board. Rows of marks per surge sent to the causeway; a last row with one mark to the yard and a line drawn under it; beside it a district plan with the refuge signs crossed out and a route inked through the culvert into the interior. Three or four inspectable lines carry it: the last crew fed the evacuation route to keep working the yard, turned the signs to mark their own way out, and left the panel on *Causeway* for whoever came after. Small, reachable, and it changes action: the inked route and W4 now point into the interior. What they went in for stays unanswered in the minimum scope; that is the spine of later mysteries, not a catalogue.

**Knowledge gate vs item/stat gate.** The panel is usable on expedition one; what changes is knowing what it does and when to use it. An uninformed player can still survive the causeway by skill; an informed player decides where the pressure goes and which doors open. Equipment changes how well a choice can be exploited, never whether it can be made.

**Fair recovery.** Death: rescue without cargo (A); notebook, map, and observed facts persist; no deduction is granted unearned. Missed clue: the causeway beacon is steady on every arrival and pulses every dispatch; the culvert is visible from the yard side too; the marker jump is a second, independent way in. Optional hints escalate from "the two beacons differ" to "switch, then watch the forecast marker". Late switch: the locked marker explains why nothing changed. Switching costs no resource, but it is never without consequence (below). Withdrawal never requires solving this.

The critic's question: does the beacon choose the entrance of an announced surge, or reroute groups that have arrived? **Answer: the panel chooses the intake of the next announced surge, at the dispatch instant; nothing moves a surge that has arrived except a beacon it can path to (W1 *path*).** A's surge schedule stays the pressure; the player steers where it lands. Under the spine rule the switch is free of resources but paid four ways, all readable before the switch: (1) the panel stands in the open, a dash from the nearest shelter, and switching with a countdown near zero means being on the branch you just lit; (2) energising a branch is the only way to open its hatches, so the branch you want to explore is the branch the next surge enters; (3) committed surges do not turn back, so a diversion made after dispatch buys nothing this surge; (4) a surge sent toward the held dock blocks extraction, and the forecast marker shows that before the switch. "Gather the yard first, then divert" still works once, for a closed yard: the hall's hatch, the salvage behind it, and the answer above all sit on the lit branch. Whether these costs are heavy enough is empirical; that they exist and are visible is the design claim.

- **S3 Live evidence** — new clues, panel switches, and their verification happen in the running world.