| <!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 --> |
| <!-- Copyright 2026 alvations (Melon Lab) --> |
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| # Future plans: designs considered and deferred |
|
|
| A parking lot for mechanics that were designed but deliberately not built, so the |
| thinking is not lost. Nothing here is committed. Each entry says what it is, what |
| it would cost, and, crucially, whether it clears or breaks the game's core |
| principles: |
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|
| - resolution is server truth: `correct = (choice == "back") == has_anomaly`; |
| - confidence never enters correctness; |
| - the skill is remembering the *meaning* of a place, not its wording; |
| - the reset is hard, with no checkpoint; |
| - the look stays minimal (no HUD scores, no leaderboards, no tracking). |
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|
| An idea that *breaks* one of these is not disqualified, but it becomes an |
| explicit owner decision, not a default. |
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|
| --- |
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|
| ## 1. Recall: connecting the two verbs (deferred) |
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|
| **Status:** deferred. The owner chose to keep the Act 2 / Act 1 wall as-is; the |
| touch stays lore/atmosphere, not play. Kept here in full in case that changes. |
|
|
| **Problem it answers:** gameplay review #4 ("the second verb never touches the |
| first"). Today touching the room (Act 2) is walled off from the go-on/turn-back |
| call. The collection pays you to touch, so you touch, get a flashback, and make |
| the same untouched decision. Two verbs sharing a screen, not a system. |
|
|
| **The mechanic:** add one new touch outcome, **Recall.** You touch a detail and |
| the place tells you how that property *has always been* (its baseline), in-world: |
| "The light here has always been a steady fluorescent." You have already read this |
| loop's version, so for that one property you can now tell whether it changed. |
|
|
| **Why it is play, not content:** |
| - It rewards *partial* memory: the anomaly is one of ~5 shown details, so a blind |
| recall is a coin-flip; a recall guided by a hunch ("something's off about the |
| light") converts the hunch into knowledge. Fuzzy memory picks the target, the |
| recall confirms it. |
| - It is a real trade (see cost), so the choice to recall sits *inside* the loop, |
| next to the actual call. That is the two verbs in tension. |
| - Experts never need it; strugglers buy certainty at a price. That is a mastery |
| gradient, so it also feeds review #7/#8. |
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|
| **The important nuance:** Recall does **not** change the correctness formula. The |
| server still owns the truth; the player still does the comparison. What changes |
| is the *information available before choosing*, not the *result of a choice*. So |
| it honors the letter of the Act 2 axiom ("the action never changes the progress |
| result") while bending its spirit ("a touch now influences which choice you |
| make"). That spirit-bend is the whole decision. |
|
|
| **Cost models (it must not be a free oracle):** |
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| | Model | Feel | Notes | |
| |---|---|---| |
| | Fold risk (recommended) | Recalling risks the place folding you to level 0 | Reuses the existing fold, and redeems review #6 by turning the fold into the chosen price of prying. Self-balancing: recalling all ~5 details is >50% chance of a fold, so no brute-forcing. | |
| | Hard step cost | Each recall drops a level | Deterministic and legible, but blunt and not thematic. | |
| | Scarcity | N recalls per run, then none | Simple and gentle, but adds a counter to a minimalist screen. | |
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| In every model, recall also forfeits the "Cold" record (a touch means it was not |
| a clean escape), a soft cost on top of the hard one. |
|
|
| **Scope:** one arc only, behind a per-arc flag (like `axis: vertical`). Keep the |
| other two arcs pure-memory. This preserves the "trust only yourself" experience, |
| contains the risk, and fits the design where arcs already differ in mechanics. |
|
|
| **Fairness:** the recall returns a property's baseline value + a localized "as it |
| always is" sentence. It never returns `_has_anomaly` or `_anomaly_prop`, so the |
| payload still cannot be inspected to cheat. |
|
|
| **Build outline (small):** a per-arc `recall` block + a `recall` outcome in |
| `interact()` (return baseline sentence, roll the fold cost); one touch affordance |
| and reveal line reusing the touch-line plumbing; a Records tweak (recall forfeits |
| "Cold", maybe a new "trusted no recall" record); localize the recall sentences + |
| one or two UI strings; verify the payload still hides the answer. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## 2. Doubt as a wager (deferred) |
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|
| **Status:** deferred; **breaks a core principle** ("confidence never enters |
| correctness"). |
|
|
| **Problem it answers:** gameplay review #2 ("the certainty prompt is not a |
| mechanic"). Today rating yourself *guessing* just buys one more look and *certain* |
| just commits; the rating never touches the outcome. |
|
|
| **The mechanic:** tie certainty to stakes. A confident + correct call advances |
| (and is eligible for a "certain" feat); a confident + wrong call falls harder; |
| guessing still buys the second look but marks the run assisted. Calibration |
| becomes a skill you master and can be measured on, bridging review #7 and #8 for |
| almost no new content. |
|
|
| **Why deferred:** it reverses the documented invariant that confidence is |
| cosmetic. The *partial*, non-breaking version already shipped: the **Steady** |
| record rewards winning without ever admitting a guess, surfacing calibration |
| without changing the resolution. Promoting it to a real wager is the owner's call. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## 3. Mastery ranks / New Game+ (deferred) |
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|
| **Status:** deferred; large scope, does not break core principles. |
|
|
| **Problem it answers:** gameplay review #8 (no mastery arc) and the standing |
| retention gap (no renewable reason to return). |
|
|
| **The mechanic:** after a clean escape, a harder variant of that arc unlocks: |
| more of the depth-gated anomaly types active from the start, tighter prose, fewer |
| details shown, shorter look windows. A diegetic frame ("the place remembers you, |
| and gets harder") fits the loop-aware theme. Expert players climb ranks; the reset |
| stays hard at every rank. |
|
|
| **Why deferred:** it is a whole progression layer, best built after there is more |
| mechanical depth (see the anomaly-type work in `REVIEW_GAMEPLAY.md`) for the |
| ranks to escalate. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## Notes |
|
|
| **Shipped since (no longer deferred):** escalating anomalies **in kind** landed |
| as **hard mode** (cross-loop persistence/revert, gated by depth and difficulty), |
| and the coach **false-exit trail** (the passenger's fixed utterance arming the |
| exit) landed for Coach 8. Both cleared every core principle: the resolution |
| formula and the memory skill are untouched. See CLAUDE.md ("Difficulty & hard |
| mode") and gameplay review #3 / #5. |
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|
| **Tried and removed:** the **double change** (two simultaneous anomalies deep in |
| hard mode) was built and then pulled: turning back on either change is correct |
| and ends the loop, so the "keep scanning" skill it wanted to teach can never form |
| (gameplay review #5). It would only be fair with a post-hoc "two things moved" |
| tell; until that is designed, hard mode stays one-change-per-loop. |
|
|
| Still open here: the **legal decoy** (a property that legally drifts every loop, |
| never the anomaly) is a natural next hard-mode kind but needs per-arc decoy |
| content, so it is not built yet. |
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|
