The deeper payoff of the flora loop. A new `biofilm` level event: cross one and combat checks
BIOME STANDING — high enough (>= need), the native flora PART the biofilm, budding a wave of phage
allies + refilling coat, then spending the goodwill; too low, it stays sealed and you run the
gauntlet raw. Emits `biofilm {opened}` so E can voice both.
- combat/index.js: biofilmGate(ev) on the level:event pump (fields need/allies/coat).
- levels/index.js: the selfcheck knows the `biofilm` type now (validates need 0..100).
- L2: one demoed at s2500 — the opening flora/akkermansia/beacon let you BANK standing, and the
gate cashes it into a phage escort right before the hiatus + reflux finale.
The mechanism is complete; L5 also gets the fast-route/Appendix branch when that level + world
support land. Verified in-engine: high standing -> opened, 3 phages, coat 50->90; low -> sealed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The first ALLY, and the reputation loop that earns it — "don't shoot the biome, it helps you"
(V2_IDEAS) made mechanical.
- combat/enemies.js + balance.js: the `phage` archetype. A friendly seeker that hunts the
nearest FOE (not the player) and rams it — a bacteriophage bursts its host after `bursts`
hits. Fast (26 > every foe) so it catches things, fragile (hp 8) so it is spent, not a wall.
Entities now carry a `foe` flag (foes true; flora + phage false); kill() generalised so ANY
ally scores nothing and never combos. Fallback silhouette is a bare icosahedron = the phage's
real icosahedral capsid. Teal (EMISSIVE.ally), distinct from cyan "don't shoot" flora.
- combat/index.js: BIOME STANDING — one run-scoped float. flora:tended raises it, flora:harmed
drops it 25; at the symbiotic threshold the biome BUDS a phage near you (capped 3, 3s cooldown),
spending standing. Emits `standing {value}` for a future Lane E meter.
- levels/enemies.js: ARCHETYPES += phage; catalogue `phage`.
Verified deterministically in-engine: tending flora budded a phage, which hunted a spore_pod foe
(30hp) and rammed it dead; three-colour readability holds (amber foe / teal ally / cyan friend).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The round-2 microbe pass, vertical slice. Cross-lane (integrator call): the point was one
thread proven end to end — art pipeline in, friend and foe out.
- core/assets.js (D): the GLB loader, finally wired. GLTFLoader was vendored but never
imported and the manifest had 0 models, so enemies.js's `glb?.geometry` hook was dead code.
Now every manifest model preloads (AWAITED — pools set geometry at construction, a late load
can't retrofit an InstancedMesh) into ONE BufferGeometry normalized to a unit bounding
sphere; get('models',n).geometry lights up the hook. Optional-asset law intact: any failure
-> no geometry -> procedural fallback.
- combat/enemies.js + balance.js (B): two new archetypes.
flora — the FIRST FRIEND. Cyan (ART_BIBLE: flora reads friendly). Drifts like a
floater but its aura HEALS (sheds coat), never harms. Shootable — and shooting
it is the reputation trap: kill() gives no score, no combo, emits flora:harmed.
Verified: the aura fires player.refill({coat}); a shot flora scores 0.
spore_pod — a foe yeast cluster: the floater's drift+aura, but its OWN pool so its blobby
GLB will not reskin the food-debris floater.
Pool geometry now scales a GLB by the archetype radius (GLBs ship unit-normalized).
- levels/enemies.js (C): ARCHETYPES += flora, spore_pod; catalogue entries lacto_drifter
(Lactobacillus) + yeast_pod (Candida). L2 gets a light teach beat in the calm opening — a
friendly reef at s180, one yeast at s300, both off the racing line.
Ships playable as glowing primitives (a capsule + an icosahedron), exactly like the rest of
the round-1 roster; the Trellis/Hunyuan meshes drop in via the manifest with no code change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wired B's player/combat + event pump, D's assets, C's level pick into boot.
Fixed qa ESM gate (node --check no-op, found by B) + added spline selfcheck.
TECH: world contract FROZEN v1.1, bus events ratified, colorspace + crest-speed
laws (CREST_FACTOR 1.6 — B proved surfing lost to throttle at 1.0). Stub complies.
Verified integrated build via 60s stepped sim: 9 draws, 0 errors, 0 asset misses;
one known gap (fiction-id spawn resolve) confirmed and assigned as B's top item.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Data spine:
- Schema v1 ratified (TECH.md, C-owned). Additive over v0: schema/par/next, segment
name, cross-section placement (theta/rho as a FRACTION of safe radius), spread, span,
pickup+gate event types, hazard params. STUB_LEVEL synced (that const only, per
ROUND1 §Lane C.1) — world.hash() unchanged (1bdf001), geometry provably untouched.
- levels/index.js: registry + loader (node+browser, no THREE), real schema selfcheck
(qa's --selfcheck hook is now live) and a pacing simulator (--sim). Consumes the other
lanes' contracts live rather than restating them: A's biomes.js for ids and
wave.amp+breathe, A's SKIN, B's tuning.js hull radius, B's balance.js for scores.
- levels/enemies.js (fiction id -> archetype join table), levels/difficulty.js.
L2_esophagus — the vertical slice, complete: 3600 units, 7 beats, 47 events, 65 enemies,
10 checkpoints, 3 samples, reflux-surge finale. L1/L3 skeletons (shape only).
Anatomy is the level designer: the three real esophageal constrictions are the three
setpieces, and all three enemies are real esophageal pathology (bolus chunk, eosinophilic
esophagitis, candida esophagitis).
Measured (node web/js/levels/index.js --selfcheck|--sim; qa GREEN):
- selfcheck 3/3 valid, exit 0.
- pressure curve 0.27 -> 2.14 -> 4.35 -> 0.69 -> 4.53 -> 6.35 -> 4.40 (breather/pressure/
spike/breather/pressure/peak/finale).
- par 3:30 vs measured 2:47 speedrun / 3:19 par-pace / 4:22 timid; par.score 9000 of a
9400 kill budget (95%), computed from B's scores.
- all 10 checkpoint gaps within the <=30s death-cost law (max 28.8s); min clearance 2.73.
Two contract collisions found and resolved (LANE_C_NOTES):
- Biome ids: authored mouth/pharynx/cardia/pylorus; A's registry has six canonical ids and
rejected all four. A is right — biome = look, segments[].name = anatomy. Conformed.
- Balance: my first enemies.js restated hp/size/speed/score that B owns in balance.js.
Cut to a join table; index.js reads B's scores via scoreFor().
Caught live: A raised esophagus wave.amp 0.9 -> 1.4 mid-session, making the diaphragmatic
hiatus unflyable (2.33 vs the 2.5 floor). Widened 6.5 -> 6.8. The invariant also failed my
own aortic constriction's first draft (radius 7, symmetric squeeze) -> radius 9, directional.
No in-engine flythrough: ?stub=1&lvl= does not compose (snippet offered to F) and the stub
is single-segment, so it could only render beat 1. The pacing evidence is a kinematic model,
not a playtest — it proves L2 is flyable, paced and survivable, not that it feels good.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
