[Clarity Q36](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions). Step retention is a ratio over the same

population, so §3a's undocumented-denominator caveat cancels there. Adds to §3a; nothing already

published was changed. r1 and r2 are page history.

Sources read: [Design Document r2 (c4ad51)](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document),

[External Critique](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique), [Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief),

[Wiki Conventions](/Wiki%20Conventions). Section index: [Reference](/Reference).

---

[EXT101 X5](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) argued that Steam canonised **"Bullet Heaven"** as this

genre's tag and that tags are the discovery mechanism. The first half is confirmed — the tag exists, with

**tagid 723991**, in Steam's own tag list. The second half is where the primary data adds something the

critique did not have.

Its top twenty user tags, read from its own store page, are: *Action Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Roguelite,

Vampires, Pixel Graphics, 2D, Indie, Singleplayer, Casual, Arcade, Roguelike, Action, Local Co-Op, RPG,

Controller, Score Attack, Retro, Dark Fantasy, Action RPG, Co-op.* I scanned all 1,165 games carrying tag

723991 and Vampire Survivors is not among them.

| Tag | tagid | Games carrying it |

|---|---:|---:|

| Action Roguelike | 42804 | **10,946** |

| Bullet Hell | 4885 | 8,476 |

| Bullet Heaven | 723991 | **1,165** |

| Roguelite | 3959 | 20,303 *(all products, not games-only)* |

Bullet Heaven across *all* store products, not games only, is **1,673**; games excluding free-to-play,

**1,140**; games carrying both Bullet Heaven and Roguelite, **833**.

**Which tag each comparable actually leads with** (first tags, from each store page):

| Game | Leading tags |

|---|---|

| Vampire Survivors | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Roguelite |

| Halls of Torment | **Action Roguelike**, Roguelite, Bullet Hell |

| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Survival |

| Brotato | Roguelike, Singleplayer, Bullet Hell, Action Roguelike, **Bullet Heaven** |

| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Dwarves, **Action Roguelike**, **Bullet Heaven**, Roguelite |

| Pathogenic | Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Top-Down Shooter, **Bullet Heaven** |

| Cult of the Lamb | Base Building, **Action Roguelike**, Cute, Cult |

| Blue Prince | **Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation**, Roguelite |

| Noita | **Physics**, Roguelike, Difficult, Pixel Graphics |

| Backpack Battles | **Auto Battler, Inventory Management**, Strategy, PvP |

| Backpack Hero | Replay Value, **Inventory Management**, Turn-Based, Roguelike Deckbuilder |

**Bearing on the decisions (inference, offered to PM and the owner).** X5's conclusion — that the tag

brings an audience expecting a specific payoff — is unaffected. What changes is *which* tag: the traffic

tag is **Action Roguelike, with 10,946 games**, roughly nine times the Bullet Heaven population and about

sixteen times the "over 650" figure X7 quoted from a Fandom curator list. It is also worth noting that

**Blue Prince's tag neighbourhood — Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation — is a different market

entirely**, and is arguably closer to what this design actually is. Which neighbourhood to enter is a real

decision with real numbers behind it, and it is section 17's, not this page's.

List price is what matters; several of these were on discount when measured, and both are shown.

| Game | List | On 2026-09-06 | Released | Steam reviews | Positive |

|---|---:|---:|---|---:|---:|

| Vampire Survivors | **$4.99** | $3.74 (−25%) | 2022-10-20 | 265,362 | 98% |

| Brotato | **$4.99** | $2.99 (−40%) | 2023-06-23 | 118,451 | 96% |

| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **$4.99** | $2.49 (−50%) | 2023-06-08 | 29,106 | 90% |

| Halls of Torment | **$6.66** | $4.99 (−25%) | 2024-09-24 | 31,812 | 95% |

| Pathogenic | **$9.99** | $7.99 | 2026-07-16 | 4,036 | 93% |

| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | **$12.99** | $7.79 (−40%) | 2025-09-17 | 48,220 | 86% |

| Backpack Battles | **$14.99** | $14.99 | 2025-06-13 | 20,673 | 91% |

| Noita | **$19.99** | $19.99 | 2020-10-15 | 88,681 | 95% |

| Backpack Hero | **$19.99** | $9.99 (−50%) | 2023-11-14 | 8,509 | 86% |

| Cult of the Lamb | **$24.99** | $24.99 | 2022-08-11 | 129,347 | 96% |

| Blue Prince | **$29.99** | $17.99 (−40%) | 2025-04-10 | 19,951 | 86% |

- **Crowd-survival games: $4.99 – $12.99.** Every one of the five.

- **Mystery / exploration / inventory games: $14.99 – $29.99.** Every one of the six.

**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §17](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)

decision 4 asks the owner to choose the length. This table says length and price are **one decision, not

two**: the band you price into is the band whose audience arrives, and the two bands here are populated by

structurally different games. Nothing in this sample is priced above $12.99 while presenting as a crowd

game, and nothing is priced below $14.99 while presenting as a mystery.

completion times and is **not reachable from this environment**. Rather than quote numbers I could not

verify, this is recorded as an open gap. If someone can reach it, the completion times for the eleven

titles above belong on this page.

**What I could measure.** Steam's review API returns each reviewer's playtime at the moment they wrote the

review. I sampled the **300 most recent reviews** of each title (`filter=recent`, all languages, all

purchase types):

| Game | n | Median playtime at review | Mean | Share under 2 h |

|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|

| Backpack Battles | 300 | **45.3 h** | 138.8 h | 2% |

| Noita | 300 | **46.2 h** | 119.6 h | 3% |

| Blue Prince | 300 | **27.1 h** | 52.2 h | 5% |

| Backpack Hero | 300 | **27.1 h** | 76.3 h | 7% |

| Brotato | 300 | **27.0 h** | 75.5 h | 4% |

| Cult of the Lamb | 300 | **25.3 h** | 35.1 h | 2% |

| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | 300 | **24.6 h** | 73.6 h | 4% |

| Vampire Survivors | 300 | **22.0 h** | 51.7 h | 4% |

| Halls of Torment | 300 | **17.8 h** | 33.9 h | 3% |

| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | 300 | **12.6 h** | 19.3 h | 9% |

| Pathogenic | 300 | **9.3 h** | 16.7 h | 11% |

**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §11](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)

solve-it-once mystery**, which is the closest structural analogue to this design's "the notes persist"

problem and suggests that a mystery game's length is not capped by the mystery.

This does not make a three-to-four-hour game wrong. It makes it *unusual for this shelf*, which is a thing

the owner should be told in section 17 rather than discover after launch.

§3a measured the endpoint: how many players ever reach an ending. It could not say **where along the way

they leave**, which is the question [Clarity Q36](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions) is actually

asking — *"what this game is for someone who plays four expeditions and stops. Do they get a complete

small thing, or two thirds of a setup?"*

Where a game's achievements form a **sequence**, that shape is measurable.

Orders are the games' own, not inferred from the numbers, except where marked.

**Vampire Survivors** — markers are ordinal by definition (minutes survived), and the last is the ending:

| Marker (the game's words) | Share | Of those who reached the step before |

|---|---:|---:|

| Survive 1 minute with any character | 97.8% | — |

| Survive 10 minutes with any character | 93.5% | 95.6% |

| Survive 20 minutes with any character | 84.0% | 89.8% |

| **Defeat the final enemy in the Cappella Magna** | **27.0%** | **32.1%** |

**Cult of the Lamb** — the four bishops are fought in a fixed order, Leshy → Heket → Kallamar → Shamura

([Cult of the Lamb Wiki](https://cult-of-the-lamb.fandom.com/wiki/Bishops_of_the_Old_Faith)):

| Marker | Share | Step |

|---|---:|---:|

| Defeat Leshy | 77.4% | — |

| Defeat Heket | 54.3% | 70.2% |

| Defeat Kallamar | 40.0% | 73.7% |

| Defeat Shamura | 33.9% | 84.8% |

**Noita** — the main path descends Coal Pits → Snowy Depths → Hiisi Base → Underground Jungle → The Vault

→ Temple of the Art ([Noita Wiki: Biomes](https://noita.wiki.gg/wiki/Biomes)). The path continues to the

Laboratory, which has no achievement of its own; "Victory" is the run's completion.

| Marker | Share | Step |

|---|---:|---:|

| Reached Coal Pits | 72.5% | — |

| Reached Snowy Depths | 59.3% | 81.8% |

| Reached Hiisi Base | 37.2% | 62.7% |

| Reached Underground Jungle | 23.0% | 61.8% |

| Reached The Vault | 19.2% | 83.5% |

| Reached Temple of the Art | 14.4% | 75.0% |

| **Victory** | **10.0%** | 69.4% |

**Pathogenic** — bosses. *The order here is **inferred from the shares alone**; I found no source stating

the designed sequence, so treat this table as the weakest of the four:*

| Marker | Share | Step |

|---|---:|---:|

| Defeat the Skin boss | 93.9% | — |

| Defeat the Lung boss | 40.2% | **42.8%** |

| Defeat the Heart boss | 27.5% | 68.4% |

| Brain | 5.6% | 20.4% |

- **A complete beat early, then a cliff — Vampire Survivors.** Losses are trivial through the twenty-minute

run (95.6%, then 89.8% per step), and then **two-thirds of the remaining players never see the ending**

(32.1%). The whole satisfying unit is the run, and 84% get it. The ending is optional long-tail content.

- **Steady erosion, no plateau — Cult of the Lamb and Noita.** Every step sheds 15–40%, with no stretch

where the curve flattens. Nothing is delivered whole and early; the game is the descent.

- **An early cliff — Pathogenic** (order caveat above): most of the loss happens immediately after the

first boss, 42.8% carrying through.

**Front-loading, measured without needing any order.** Two comparables put a great deal above the waterline

early. Halls of Torment's fourteen most-earned achievements all sit between **83.8% and 99.1%**; Deep Rock

Galactic: Survivor's between **61.3% and 99.1%**. Both games hand most of their players a lot of distinct

completed things before any attrition bites.

Q36 notes that the design's tier one lands at expeditions one to three and calls that *"a genuinely good

structural choice which most of these comparables do not make."* The sequences above let that be checked,

and they refine it in a way that is worth having before the sentence goes to the owner:

Vampire Survivors delivers a whole, finishable unit to 84% of its players and puts its ending far out on a

tail only 27% reach. Halls of Torment and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor front-load similarly. The games that

*don't* do it — Noita, Cult of the Lamb — are the ones with a smooth erosion curve and no plateau.

So the structural point in Q36 stands, and the supporting clause is the part to drop: an early tier one is

a good choice **because it matches what works**, not because it is unusual. And the second half of the

finding is the one that bears on tier three: in every sequence measured here, **the last thing built is

seen by a minority** — 10.0% in Noita, 27.0% in Vampire Survivors, 33.9% in Cult of the Lamb, 38.0% in

Blue Prince (§3a). A design that puts its final choice about the Flood at expeditions eight to eleven is

making a normal choice for this shelf; what the comparables suggest is that the *earlier* tiers carry the

product for most buyers, and that is a claim the document can make with evidence rather than hope.

None of this is a recommendation about where tier three should sit. It is the measurement Q36 said a

reader without industry background could not supply.

- [Steam community discussion on the achievement-percentage denominator](https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1779388024850166660/) — evidence that Valve has never documented it; cited as the reason §3a uses within-game ratios only

- [HowLongToBeat](https://howlongtobeat.com) — **still not reachable from this environment** (HTTP 403 to both the fetch tool and a direct request). Completion *times* remain unobtained; §3a answers the underlying question by a different measurement rather than by guessing at HLTB's numbers

[Clarity Q35](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions) observed that owner decision 4 carries this page's

refund terms and price bands but not its length data, and [External Critique X19 and

X20](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) set the 3–4 hour figure against the same comparables.

Nothing already published was changed or removed. The r1 open request (completion times) is **partly

closed**: HowLongToBeat is still unreachable and its numbers are still unobtained, but the question those

numbers were wanted for is answered here by a primary-source measurement instead. The request stays open

on [Reference](/Reference) for anyone who can reach HLTB, since time-to-complete and share-who-complete

are different quantities and both are useful.

**On the denominator.** §3a's percentages rest on a population Valve has never defined. That is stated in

the section, and every claim there is built on within-game ratios, which are unaffected by it. If someone

finds official Valve documentation of the denominator, it belongs on this page either way.

**Drift.** §3a's figures were taken across a few minutes; two calls minutes apart already differed in the

last decimal (Noita's most-earned achievement read 72.4% and 72.5%). Treat the final digit as noise.

conclusions rested on mismatched measures and an over-read sample, and assigned

[REF103](/Reference/Length%20And%20Price%20Audit) as the audit. Two claims are retracted in place — §2's

"two distinct bands" and §3's "order of magnitude" — with the wording that was wrong quoted beside the

correction, so anyone holding the old sentence can see what replaced it. §3's HowLongToBeat paragraph is

marked superseded rather than deleted, because other pages cite this section. §3a and §3b are untouched

and unaffected: neither uses playtime-at-review.

titles are in [REF103 §3](/Reference/Length%20And%20Price%20Audit). HowLongToBeat was reachable the

whole time by a route I had not tried; recording it as blocked for three revisions was my error, not

the site's.