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1 | # Hold the Flood — Design Tasks |
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3 | Maintainer: PM. Revision: PMR001 concept review, 2026-09-06 UTC. |
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4 | States: Ready, In progress, In review, Accepted, Blocked, Deferred, Superseded. |
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5 | All three owner-started design agents have submitted work; PMR001 reviewed their actual revisions on 2026-09-06. Task execution and submission are tracked through wiki evidence. PM accepts design work; the owner authorizes a phase change. |
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| 7 | ## Active design sequence |
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| 8 | | ID | Deliverable | Responsible role | Current state | Dependencies / review criteria | |
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| 9 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | |
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| 10 | | PM001 | Original wiki kickoff | PM | Accepted historically | Four original pages published and checked at the previous address | |
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| 11 | | OWN001 | Initial creative and production brief | Owner | Accepted | Follow-up supplies genre, priorities, references, engine, platform, asset rules, and phase gate | |
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| 12 | | PM002 | Revised brief, team prompts, tasks, approval gate | PM | Accepted | Four revised pages published via the wiki's documented agent interface and their saved source verified | |
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13 | | DES101 | Two concept directions and recommendation | Lead Game and Systems Designer | Accepted: concept contribution | Design 42f653; A provisionally selected by PM, corrections carried into DES102 | |
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| 14 | | WLD101 | Exploration and mystery contribution | World and Mystery Designer | Accepted: concept contribution | World and Mystery 430206; integration contradictions remain explicitly assigned below | |
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| 15 | | OWN101 | Owner steering of recommended concept | Owner, facilitated by PM | Ready; nonblocking for drafting | A is PM's provisional recommendation; no owner concept endorsement recorded | |
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| 16 | | DES102 | Integrated game design document draft | Canonical Lead (D014) | Ready | PM direction D013 recorded; follow PMR001 below and document criteria; submit Design Document | |
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| 17 | | WLD102 | Routing/mystery correction and whole-game contribution | World and Mystery Designer | Ready | PMR001 items 1, 2, 5; bounded contribution to DES102 on own page | |
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| 18 | | REV101 | Independent concept critique | Independent Design Critic | Accepted: review delivered | Design Review a89227; Independent review delivered; its current material findings are carried into PMR001 | |
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| 19 | | REV102 | Independent integrated-document critique | Independent Design Critic | Blocked | Requires actual DES102 submission; review PMR001 findings and criteria 1–10 | |
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| 20 | | CLR101 | Outside-reader clarity questions | Outside-reader contribution; PM/Lead/World answer | In review | Clarity Questions b0658c; routing and four coordination answers below | |
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| 21 | | DES103 | Revised owner-facing design document | Canonical Lead | Blocked | DES102 + REV102; resolve material findings and retain honest unknowns | |
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| 22 | | OWN102 | Design verdict and possible development authorization | Owner | Blocked | Requires reviewed document; explicit owner authorization still required before development | |
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| 24 | ## PMR001 — concept review and next assignments |
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| 26 | **PM verdict, 2026-09-06:** DES101, WLD101 and REV101 are accepted as completed concept-stage submissions. This accepts their contribution and independent review, not every rule or a complete game design. DES102 is now **Ready**. No Design Document was submitted in this review. Owner design approval and development authorization remain absent. |
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| 28 | **Working direction: A, The Borrowed Route, provisionally selected by PM for drafting (Brief D013).** Electricity opening routes while attracting the enemy mass gives experimentation a concrete consequence; the same district can change meaning after a discovery. B, The Listening Below, remains the documented alternative. The owner may steer either premise; OWN101 is not a prerequisite for useful, reversible writing. Do not represent A's bioelectric enemies, drowned-city setting, small colony, or moderate equipment growth as owner-approved. |
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| 30 | **Canonical lead:** the existing lead session that authored DES101 r2 at c9b2ed and its integration notes through db8c5c is the sole integrator/writer of Design and Design Document (Brief D014). This identifies an existing session by its work, not an invented agent identity. Any other session of that role should leave those pages to that integrator and put bounded proposals on a separate, clearly attributed page linked from Tasks. No replacement agent, extra staffing or owner relay is requested. Wiki assignments do not wake chats; Ready means assigned, not executing. |
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| 32 | **Evidence read:** [Design 42f653](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design?revision=42f653), [World and Mystery 430206](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=430206), [Design Review a89227](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review?revision=a89227), [Clarity Questions b0658c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions?revision=b0658c). Full processed-content fingerprints are recorded on [PM Reviews](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews). |
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| 34 | ### Required corrections for the integrated draft |
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| 36 | 1. **Choose one routing model — Lead + World, highest priority (REV101 N12).** World r6 W1 makes entered enemies continuously follow the nearest reachable energised beacon, yet W2, the Discover row and diversion cost (3) say the panel cannot affect that group. Design r4 now proposes limited beacon sight to preserve that claim, plus split surges if two fixed beacons pulse; its spine still says the panel alone chooses the intake, while its coil example changes the intake without changing the panel. These are competing models. **PM's reversible DES102 baseline: the panel alone selects the entrance at dispatch; after entry enemies continuously follow the nearest reachable energised beacon.** Keep that simpler rule; do not add r4's glow-range restriction or split-surge exception to this draft. Reword W2 to preserve only entrance commitment and rewrite every scene accordingly. A mid-surge switch can change movement: price it by the route the enemies cross and the hatch that loses power, as the critic suggests; remove the false claim that it buys nothing this surge. The coil can temporarily open a device and attract an existing group, but cannot override the panel's next-intake selection. State how locally injected current powers a fixed beacon without changing the relay's selected dispatch output, or simplify the circuit layout to make that separation legible. Re-read the signature scene and forecast under this exact model. This is a provisional coherence/scope choice, not proven balance. |
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| 38 | 2. **The new extraction solution removes a claimed threat — World + Lead.** World r6 Topology places arriving enemies at their lit target and says they hold there, leaving the default dock route passable; Cost of diversion (4) and the colony section still say choosing that branch blocks its dock. The three-line withdrawal example proves an open path only under the stationary-group assumption, not those dock-risk claims. State one consistent route and enemy behaviour, then update the dock-choice consequence. Include a small textual map or design diagram with entrances, beacon targets, culvert exits, shelters and hatch. Explain what creates survival decisions while a group holds at a beacon, whether/how it disperses before a quiet interval, and when player proximity matters. Show both an untouched-panel retreat and the player inside the pump hall when power ends/the next surge arrives. Specify hatch closure and a recoverable exit without requiring the mystery solution. Design r4 now places the yard intake in the channel beside the hall, answering CLR Q23/REV101 N13 on the lead's page. Carry that same location into World's topology and the diagram; do not ask the lead to invent it again. Do not add enemy classes merely to patch the example. This is a logical mismatch and missing design, not a claim about actual difficulty. |
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| 40 | 3. **Carry the newest rack answer consistently — Lead.** Design r4 reverses r3's conductive-module rule: powered or unpowered modules are nonconductive; only touching wet salvage leaks, regardless of the selected link. That answers N11/Q18 and the indirect-through-coil concern under a clear exception. Carry r4 into DES102 and explain nonconductive module housings with selected power connections; do not import r3's dark-module-leak rule from the critic's older dependency. Specify whether adjacent wet bundles pass current onward. Show three actual 2-by-3 loadouts with item shapes and legal links, resolve the starting empty-battery versus empty-rack wording, and state how planted beacon/battery placement and retrieval work. Preserve the cargo-versus-powered-equipment tradeoff, give one readable failed arrangement, and label numeric costs as proposed. |
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| 42 | 4. **Charge harvesting needs a finite-yield rule — Lead.** Design r3 now explains automatic nearest-target cutter attacks, contact/electric-water harm, no regeneration, recovery on extraction and a one-use healing kit. Those previously missing basics are answered. Its small kill motes versus large water-stun motes still do not say whether the same living mass can shed a large mote on every stun. Finite enemies alone do not prove finite charge. Specify repeat-harvest eligibility and discharge fuel cost so the electrician's stun/harvest loop is intelligible. Replace the categorical claim that kill XP makes standing still optimal with the intended reason for choosing exploration-based growth and its uncertainty. Carry the combat rules into the expedition examples; do not infer enjoyable escalation or genre fit from a written timeline. |
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| 44 | 5. **Develop the proposed ending without inventing a survival tax — Lead + World.** Design r3 now proposes a one-district game with three mystery tiers and a final choice at the relay's source; World r6 supplies the automated-relay motive. These answer the missing broad shape, but twelve to twenty expeditions is an unsupported design target, not established content coverage. Show early/middle/final changes and one concrete path to the minimum scope's ending, including how the later mystery tiers use the existing district. Both new motive paragraphs say hauling stops -> pump fails -> dock floods, while Persistence promises colony state and a no-loss-spiral rescue. That introduces an undefined upkeep/failure rule. PM's reversible drafting default: salvage repairs/improves the colony; do not impose mandatory upkeep, off-session decay or colony loss on repeated failed expeditions. Rewrite the motive accordingly unless presenting a clearly separated alternative for owner judgment. Explain whether the dock/workshop/relay decisions supply the intended colony-management expression; present the small-colony tradeoff honestly. Keep Hold the Flood as the owner-supplied title and relate it to holding enemies off the refuge; do not recast the Flood as literal water. |
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| 46 | 6. **Build on the readability improvements — Lead.** Design r3 consolidated its notes, introduced a glossary, named the physical equipment and renamed equipment combinations loadouts. Q17's frozen-body issue is resolved; preserve that progress. DES102 must still be a standalone owner-facing document, with revision codes/finding bookkeeping in an appendix and terms introduced at first use. Complete missing glossary entries rather than claiming Q1's whole list is covered: XP, telegraphed, counterplay, stat gate and loadout expression; World r6 now supplies the geographical definitions and dispatch/forecast fiction. The editor has also published Glossary f28f34: use it as a reference and update its glow-range/colony-upkeep entries after the owning design pages adopt this review; it currently repeats those disputed proposals. Its undefined-terms list confirms the remaining vocabulary gap. CLR Q9's unclear phrase is replaced, but Design now says no pump is needed for the culvert while World's reachable answer explicitly locates the pump keeping it dry: pick one account. CLR Q24/REV101 N15 is fixed by Design r4's minutes 10–12 Quiet 3; carry that shorter interval, with timing still illustrative. Include the readable-state table promised for REV101 Finding 5: information, visual/text cue, reused asset category, verified source/terms if researched, and fallback/approval gap. Text inspection alone does not establish readable live combat cues. Read-only asset research and licensing checks are allowed; creating art, purchasing, commissioning or making game assets is not authorized by this task. No AI art of any kind. |
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| 48 | ### Bounded handoff sequence |
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| 50 | - **DES102 — Lead, Ready:** write one integrated draft on Design Document, with the six corrections above, all ten existing document criteria, a complete illustrative first expedition and a later one changed by knowledge. Explicitly label unresolved choices and empirical unknowns. S1–S3 and stable clues/signs W3–W4 are candidate foundations; W1/W2/current/rack/topology must be reconciled as above, not copied as certified rules. A document is the deliverable; no executable scenario, simulation or playtest. |
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| 51 | - **WLD102 — World, Ready:** on the existing World and Mystery page, provide a bounded correction of routing/topology/mystery consequences for items 1–2 and the motive/ending contribution in item 5. Preserve author ownership; hand exact revision to the lead. Then check the integrated draft once it exists. No more full concept rewrites just to repeat acceptance requests. |
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| 52 | - **REV102 — Independent Critic, Blocked on DES102:** review the integrated artifact, especially items 1–4, colony upkeep versus failure/persistence, the whole-game scope, the asset/readability table and newcomer comprehension. Reopen an old finding when a new rule invalidates its reasoning; closed finding IDs do not establish consistency. Return the five most consequential remaining issues, or an evidenced readiness verdict. Do not re-review the unchanged concept packet merely for a heartbeat. |
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| 53 | - **CLR101 — outside-reader contribution received:** retain the lead's restored answer statuses and the maintenance note about its concurrent overwrite. PM resolves Q15/Q16/Q19/Q20 and creates the first review checkpoint for Q25. Q7/Q8 have world-side answers in r6. Q18/N11 is answered by r4's nonconductive modules and automatic salvage leakage; Q23's wet intake and Q24's shorter interval are supplied in r4. Carry those answers consistently. Q1 is partly answered; Q12's ending is proposed but undeveloped; Q21 needs the integrated artifact. Lead owns remaining integration gaps and Q22 with World; World integrates Q23's existing correction. No additional outside-reader agent or ongoing assignment is assumed. |
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| 55 | **Next owner-facing milestone:** a coherent integrated draft and independent review, followed by DES103 if revisions are needed. The owner receives A as a recommendation now, not a request to unblock routine drafting. No asset purchase, custom asset creation, additional agent, or development approval is requested in this review. |
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| 57 | ## Superseded or deferred work |
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| 58 | | Previous ID / assignment | New status | Reason | |
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| 59 | | --- | --- | --- | |
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| 60 | | DES001: smallest playable experiment specification | Superseded by DES101 and DES102 | Current deliverable is a compelling game design | |
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| 61 | | ENG001: build inventory / technical experiment | Deferred | Assume nothing exists; written feasibility only if PM assigns it | |
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| 62 | | QA001: prototype checks | Superseded by REV101 | Current review concerns design documents | |
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| 63 | | ENG002: playable implementation | Deferred; not authorized | D007 owner gate | |
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| 64 | | QA002: executed prototype review | Deferred; not authorized | D007 owner gate | |
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| 65 | | OWN002: prototype play session | Deferred; not authorized | D007 owner gate | |
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| 67 | Do not take old Ready/Blocked build tasks as authorization to execute them. No technical spike, prototype, playable mockup, simulation, or build setup is an exception. |
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| 69 | ## What the design document must make clear |
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| 70 | 1. **Identity:** player fantasy, intended experience, premise, and a compelling reason this game exists. Explain it in its own terms, with references as supporting context. |
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| 71 | 2. **Core play:** player actions, controls as a design proposal, readable feedback, immediate decisions, pressure, failure, retreat/end conditions, and return/retry. |
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| 72 | 3. **Exploration:** world organization, route choices, landmarks, revisiting, and how a discovery changes future action. |
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| 73 | 4. **Experimentation:** proposed rules and combinations, limits/costs, at least three genuinely different build examples, and an example where a plausible experiment fails for an understandable reason. |
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| 74 | 5. **Mystery:** one fully specified example with clues, a fair deduction, the action it enables, and the consequence. Mark solutions as designer spoilers. Explain what knowledge persists and how discovery avoids simple stat locks. |
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| 75 | 6. **Progression:** separate what resets, what remains as resources/world/colony state, and what persists as player knowledge. Explain any colony loop's actual decisions and cost. |
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| 76 | 7. **Integration:** one clearly labeled illustrative expedition, followed by a later expedition changed by what was learned. Show causal links between pressure, gathering, build choices, exploration, and mystery. Do not invent playtest outcomes. |
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| 77 | 8. **Presentation and assets:** coherent direction, essential asset categories and reuse strategy, plausible existing-asset routes, coverage gaps, and requests needing owner approval. Asset availability and usage terms must not be invented. |
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| 78 | 9. **Scope:** minimum complete intended experience, optional extensions, explicit cuts, complexity drivers, and cheap alternatives. Avoid huge item/lore catalogues before the rules justify them. |
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| 79 | 10. **Honesty:** contradictions resolved or explicitly presented for a decision; uncertain runtime feel/balance/performance marked for later validation. No claims of tested enjoyment. |
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| 81 | The owner packet should open with a short pitch and concrete play example, followed by enough detail to assess the game. Quality is determined by specificity, coherence, and appeal to the owner, not document length. |
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| 83 | ## Review criteria |
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| 84 | A useful critique identifies the exact section/revision, the claim or interaction in question, the conflict or missing causal link, its player/scope consequence, and the smallest constructive correction. Separate violation of an owner requirement, internal contradiction, under-specified design, taste judgment, and future empirical uncertainty. |
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| 86 | PM requests revision when central systems compete without a resolved design, all builds amount to different damage numbers, mysteries lack a fair discovery path, scope depends on unapproved assets, or prose hides missing rules. Document review does not establish actual balance, feasibility, or fun. |
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| 88 | ## Progress report |
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| 89 | Task ID; artifact/revision; changed decisions; sources or written reasoning; outstanding risks; next handoff; one exact PM request if blocked. Stop repetitive reports and unbounded polishing; PM decides the next useful revision. |
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