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7d0069 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:15:55
PM: record confirmed instructions and unresolved game brief
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# Hold the Flood — Brief and Decisions
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cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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Maintainer: PM. Owner input recorded 2026-09-06 UTC.
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## Confirmed requirements
1bd68a Anonymous 2026-09-06 19:38:12
PMU004 D019–D021: owner rejects short scope; expanded campaign, topic ownership and proposed designers
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- Owner expansion request, 2026-09-06: three to four hours is far too little; design a substantially larger campaign with many districts. The owner expects detailed mechanic, enemy and weapon pages. The premise was called promising, not approved for development. See D019–D021 and the [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief).
28fb1c Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:19:35
PMU002: owner-added team, bounded assignments and explicit coordination rulings — Brief
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- The owner confirms adding extra members (2026-09-06 follow-up). PM identified and recorded Naive Design Reader, Wiki Editor, External Critic, Reference Researcher and The Troll through their published wiki work; see Team and D015.
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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- Genre: survivorlike.
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- Central priorities: exploration, experimentation, mystery.
a449b2 Anonymous 2026-09-06 16:05:31
PM: confirm enemy Flood and started design team; assign first wiki handoffs
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- The Flood is an overwhelming mass of enemies. Zombies and aliens are examples, not a selected enemy roster or setting.
3cf14c Anonymous 2026-09-06 17:34:13
PMR001: review concept submissions, select provisional A and assign integrated design corrections — Brief
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- The owner has started all three revised design agents in the same ChatGPT project. The original proposed agents were not created; all three now have wiki submissions reviewed in PMR001; this progress observation is PM-verified, not additional owner input.
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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- Starting assumption: no existing game materials.
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- Engine: Unity. Release destination: Steam. Operating systems, controls, Unity version, 2D/3D, camera, and multiplayer are not yet specified.
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- Mostly AI-agent design/development, coordinated through the wiki; the owner creates agents and PM manages them.
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- Current phase is design only. The owner's explicit approval of a compelling design document and transition to development is required before any building, implementation, or testing.
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- Prefer free assets. Purchases need owner approval. Authored game assets must be rare, minimal, and owner-approved before creation.
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- No AI-generated art.
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- Wiki moved to https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net; it is the same site according to the owner.
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- Existing wiki administrator continues its hourly health routine; no duplicate routine is requested.
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## Inspiration map
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The middle column records the owner's stated intent. The right column is a PM design question, not an adopted feature or a claim about the reference game's full design.
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| Reference | Owner-stated inspiration | Question for Hold the Flood |
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| --- | --- | --- |
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| Noita | Exploration and experimentation | What consistent rules can players discover and recombine, and how do those discoveries change where they can go? |
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| Backpack Hero (owner wrote “Backpack Heros”) | Inventory management as expression | Could what players carry and how they arrange it express a strategy rather than add routine sorting? |
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| Pathogenic | Build expression and experimentation | Can combinations change behavior and play style, with readable causes and worthwhile tradeoffs? |
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| Cult of the Lamb | Colony management as meta-progression | How could colony choices change later expeditions and discoveries without becoming a disconnected chore? |
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Survivorlike combined with resource gathering | How could gathering change route, risk, or build decisions during survival? |
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| Blue Prince | Mystery and exploration | How can an understood clue or rule change a player's next decision, rather than only reveal more text? |
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These references are inspiration, not a specification to reproduce each game's systems. Colony management, inventory structure, resource gathering, and other mechanics need a concrete place in the proposed design; inclusion and scope remain design decisions.
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Reference identity checks: [Backpack Hero's Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1970580/Backpack_Hero/) and [Pathogenic's official site](https://pathogenicgame.com/) were located. The inspiration meanings above come from the owner. Detailed comparative research has not been completed.
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## PM synthesis — proposed, not yet approved
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The strongest common direction is a survivorlike where **learning how the world works creates new ways to survive and explore**. A worthwhile discovery could change a build or route; a new build could make a previously puzzling place understandable or reachable.
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This is a working design thesis, not an approved mechanic or a finalized setting. Designers must explain the causal connections and alternatives.
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The central tension is pressure versus curiosity: if survival demands uninterrupted attention, exploration and deduction may be crowded out. The design must specify when, where, and at what cost the player can observe, decide, reorganize, or investigate.
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## Open decisions
a449b2 Anonymous 2026-09-06 16:05:31
PM: confirm enemy Flood and started design team; assign first wiki handoffs
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- Enemy identity and behavior, origin of the Flood, and setting remain open. Its meaning as an overwhelming enemy threat is now established.
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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- Player identity, setting, tone, and the main unanswered question of the world.
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- Expedition structure, retreat/failure conditions, world persistence, and how knowledge survives between runs.
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- Main form of build expression; role and scope of inventory and colony progression.
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- Control and presentation assumptions, intended audience and session length.
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- Schedule, agent/tool budget, and permitted asset budget.
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Do useful design work under explicitly labeled reversible assumptions. PM consolidates owner questions; do not make every unknown a blocker.
7d0069 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:15:55
PM: record confirmed instructions and unresolved game brief
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## Decision log
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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| ID | Decision | Authority | Status |
7d0069 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:15:55
PM: record confirmed instructions and unresolved game brief
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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| D001 | Owner manually creates agents; PM supplies prompts and coordinates | Owner kickoff | Confirmed |
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| D002 | Retain wiki administrator and existing hourly health routine | Owner kickoff | Confirmed |
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| D003 | Initial designer / prototype engineer / QA staffing proposal | Earlier PM recommendation | Superseded by D008 |
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| D004 | Initial prototype-first milestones | Earlier PM process | Superseded by D007 |
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| D005 | Survivorlike; exploration, experimentation, mystery; six inspirations | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed |
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| D006 | Unity, Steam, assume nothing exists | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed |
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| D007 | Design document and explicit owner go-ahead before development/testing | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed; active gate |
3cf14c Anonymous 2026-09-06 17:34:13
PMR001: review concept submissions, select provisional A and assign integrated design corrections — Brief
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| D008 | Lead Game and Systems Designer + World and Mystery Designer + Independent Design Critic | PM recommendation; owner subsequently confirmed starting all three | Staffed; acknowledgments and submissions observed in PMR001 |
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
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| D009 | Free assets preferred; paid/authored assets require approval; no AI-generated art | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed |
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| D010 | Wiki moves to the new owner-supplied address | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed address; agent-interface access verified at the new address |
a449b2 Anonymous 2026-09-06 16:05:31
PM: confirm enemy Flood and started design team; assign first wiki handoffs
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| D011 | The Flood means massed enemies; zombies/aliens are illustrative, with identity and setting still open | Owner clarification, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed |
3cf14c Anonymous 2026-09-06 17:34:13
PMR001: review concept submissions, select provisional A and assign integrated design corrections — Brief
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| D012 | Owner started the three revised design agents in this ChatGPT project; original agents were not created | Owner clarification, 2026-09-06 | Confirmed; first handoffs reviewed in PMR001 |
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| D013 | Use A: The Borrowed Route as the provisional working direction for DES102; retain B as alternative and accept concept-stage contributions with PMR001 corrections | PM, 2026-09-06; Design 42f653, World 430206, Review a89227 | Reversible drafting direction, not owner endorsement; OWN101 no longer blocks drafting; D007 unchanged |
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| D014 | Canonical lead/integrator is the existing session that authored DES101 r2 c9b2ed and notes through db8c5c; sole writer of Design and Design Document | PM, 2026-09-06, resolving the session-ownership request in Design/Design Review | Active coordination decision; other lead sessions contribute separately without overwriting |
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28fb1c Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:19:35
PMU002: owner-added team, bounded assignments and explicit coordination rulings — Brief
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| D015 | Record five owner-added contributors: Naive Design Reader, Wiki Editor, External Critic, Reference Researcher, The Troll | Owner follow-up, 2026-09-06; PM identifies role names from their work pages | Active expanded roster on Team; previous unrecorded/outside labels are historical; existing design-only/asset rules apply |
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| D016 | Confirm D013's continuous post-entry attraction and panel-only entrance selection after the designers' sight-limited alternative | PM, 2026-09-06, Tasks PMU002 response to Q28 / World r9–r12 / TRL C11 | Current drafting baseline; alternative remains available for argued revision; no further confirmation needed to continue |
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| D017 | Hold the Flood is the owner-supplied working project title; final commercial naming is not locked | PM correction, 2026-09-06, EXT X9 / TRL C2 | Corrects PMR001's overstatement; no title change performed; final naming belongs to owner |
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| D018 | Add audience/value evidence as document criterion 11; combine related product choices into a recommendation | PM, 2026-09-06, accepting External Critic X18 and addressing X20 | Revises PM's criteria, not owner requirements; no price, content expansion or commercial viability accepted |
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1bd68a Anonymous 2026-09-06 19:38:12
PMU004 D019–D021: owner rejects short scope; expanded campaign, topic ownership and proposed designers
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**D013 rationale and limits.** A currently connects investigation, enemy routing, equipment arrangement and hauling through electricity more concretely than B. The current packet still contradicts itself on movement after entry, coil-powered intake, dock safety and newly implied colony upkeep; Tasks PMR001 assigns the smallest corrections rather than accepting those claims as settled. Carry S1–S3 and W3–W4 as candidate foundations, revise W1/W2/topology and equipment rules consistently. Earlier provisional scope defaults included one fixed district and an ending; that complete-product limit is superseded by owner direction D019. No kill XP (charge as combat yield), top-down 2D, and no mandatory colony upkeep or decay remain revisable design assumptions; assess them against the expanded campaign. Panel alone chooses the entrance; movement after entry follows the nearest reachable energised beacon continuously. Do not carry Design r4's split-surge or glow-range exceptions into this baseline; Tasks explains the reconciliation. Use r4's nonconductive modules and wet-salvage leakage. All are revisable design assumptions, not owner approvals. Bioelectric enemies, the drowned-city setting, a small colony and moderate equipment growth remain proposals for the owner to assess in a complete document. A is not an approved production scope. This updates the earlier PM milestone sequencing only; the owner's design/development gate is unchanged.
7d0069 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:15:55
PM: record confirmed instructions and unresolved game brief
79
cc61a3 Anonymous 2026-09-06 15:54:03
PM: record owner brief, design-only gate, asset restrictions, and revised team
80
Record each consequential decision's maker, date/source, rationale, affected tasks, and superseded decision. Concept acceptance is not approval to build.
1bd68a Anonymous 2026-09-06 19:38:12
PMU004 D019–D021: owner rejects short scope; expanded campaign, topic ownership and proposed designers
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## PMU004 — expanded campaign and content ownership
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| ID | Decision | Authority | Status |
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| D019 | Replace one-district/3–4h complete-product scope with a substantially larger campaign and many districts | Owner, 2026-09-06 follow-up | Confirmed direction; supersedes that part of D013; exact count/hours not specified; D007/D009 unchanged |
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| D020 | Use linked domain/entity pages for detailed design and a concise integrated owner document; PM owns prior underscoping and missing assignments | PM responding to owner, 2026-09-06 | Active coordination change; Editor maintains structure, designers author content; no page quota |
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| D021 | Propose four additional designers: Campaign/Districts, Combat/Enemies, Equipment/Builds, Colony/Progression | PM, 2026-09-06 | Opening prompts ready; roles not created or staffed; existing Lead remains integrator |
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PM proposes eight districts as the first planning target, subject to a content-backed recommendation. This is not an owner-approved count, production budget or duration promise. Existing pumping district becomes an opening-area candidate. [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief) states quality criteria, ownership and the next milestone; [Tasks](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks) carries DES104/WLD103/EDT102 and proposed CAM101/CMB101/EQP101/COL101.