Jesse.Markowitz/TheLadder
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Add The Frontier, a second setting, and a picker to choose between them

Browse Source 
Cold Fork is a freight yard: 29 events across two stages, a four-day cycle, and
its own relationship and skill vocabulary. src/engine/ was not touched. Adding it
needed three changes outside the engine: one save slot per pack, app.js holding
the current pack, and turn.js no longer naming the mailroom (DECISIONS #34).
build.js now handles imports wrapped across lines. A conformance suite runs over
every registered pack. DECISIONS #35 records three calls on open questions.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RxdJFbLq1rBKsUeticGV1g
This commit is contained in:
JesseMarkowitz
2026-09-12 21:03:50 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 4957c24e31
commit 7f20be83e8
25 changed files with 3015 additions and 300 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files
README.md
+47 -27
View File
@@ -9,13 +9,14 @@ retrospective.
The engine knows nothing about offices, mailrooms or bosses. A **setting is a
content pack** — characters, events, choices, stat names and tuning, all data.
`corporateladder` is the default pack; a Wild West or lemonade-stand pack would
be new data and no new code.
Two ship: **Corporate Ladder**, a modern office and a mailroom, and **The
Frontier**, a freight yard at the end of a stage line. They share every line of
engine code and no content at all.
## Status
Engine and the first content pack are built and tested. No UI yet — the game is
currently playable only from a test harness.
Engine, interface and two content packs, all built and tested, and played in a
real browser.
| Piece | State |
| --- | --- |
@@ -33,7 +34,10 @@ currently playable only from a test harness.
| Repetition analytics (`npm run analyze`) | done |
| Version and build shown on screen | done |
| Keyboard play (Enter / Tab) | done |
| Played in a real browser | done — first playtest 2026-09-09 |
| Second content pack — The Frontier, 29 events, two tiers | done |
| Setting picker, one save slot per pack | done |
| Pack conformance suite (every pack, every check) | done |
| Played in a real browser | Corporate Ladder yes, first playtest 2026-09-09; **The Frontier not yet** |
The first playtest confirmed the interface, saves and the exported log all work
in a real browser. Its findings — an unexplained daily drain, no sense of the
@@ -70,9 +74,16 @@ That is one self-contained file with the stylesheet and every module inlined.
It plays by double-clicking it — no server, no network, nothing installed.
```sh
npm test # 121 tests: engine, content, UI wiring, and the build
npm test # 149 tests: engine, both packs, UI wiring, and the build
```
Tests are in three layers. `test/conformance.test.js` runs over **every pack in
the registry** and asserts only what is true of a pack because it is a pack —
validity, no dead content, the declared economic baseline, variety, replay from
seed, a way out of every event. `test/content.test.js` and
`test/frontier.test.js` hold each pack to its own tuning. The engine suite runs
against a fixture pack, so tuning a setting can never break it.
To see what a playtest actually did — turns against distinct situations, how
often each recurred, which locked gates players kept meeting, and anything they
typed into the feedback box:
@@ -90,26 +101,32 @@ used only to run the tests, the single-file build, and the log analyser.
## Where things stand
The MVP is complete and has survived three playtests. Two tiers, 31 events, a
retrospective, saves, and a feedback log that has already found one real bug.
The MVP is complete and has survived three playtests, and a second setting now
exists to prove the engine/content split holds. Adding it required **no engine
change** — and three interface changes, two of which were latent defects a
second pack made visible (a single global save slot, and the one place the UI
still named a setting). See DECISIONS.md #34.
Open questions, in the order they are likely to matter:
- **Does money stop mattering late?** A careful player ends around $8,300 over
200 turns. Tuning has been corrected twice from playtest logs and should be
judged from a session, not from simulated play — that is how the last trap got
in.
- **`skills.negotiation >= 15` gates four different early options.** The logs
show players bouncing off it repeatedly in the first thirty turns. It is
probably set too high for how slowly the skill grows.
- **Nobody uses the feedback widget.** Zero ratings across three sessions. The
locked-gate data in the log has been more useful than anything typed; the
widget may need to be more present, or may not need to exist.
- **The Frontier has never been played by a human.** Its economy is asserted by
the conformance suite and exercised by six archetypes, and that is exactly the
evidence that was not enough the last two times. It needs a session before its
numbers are believed.
- **Money stops mattering late, and it should not.** A careful player ends
around $8,300 over 200 turns. The direction is set: standing should cost
money to keep — a better car, a better place to live, better clothes — so
expenses climb as the player rises. Not built yet.
- **Dispatch is eleven events against the mailroom's nineteen.** It passes the
variety guard, but it has had far less play than the mailroom.
- **The third tier, or the second content pack.** Promotion working entirely as
data is decent evidence the engine/content split holds; a second *setting*
would be the proof.
variety guard, but it has had far less play than the mailroom. Waits on more
playtesting.
- **A third tier in either pack.** Two rungs is what both settings have. The
split is now proven across settings; it is not proven across a long ladder.
Waits until the Frontier has been played.
Settled, and not open: Corporate Ladder's negotiation gate stays as it is, and
the feedback widget stays as it is (DECISIONS #35).
## Layout
@@ -124,13 +141,16 @@ src/engine/ the game engine — imports nothing from content/, or from src/u
rng.js seeded, serializable RNG
validate.js load-time content checking
src/ui/ screens, formatting and the app controller
app.js the only module that names a content pack
screens/ the turn screen and the retrospective
app.js the only module that knows there is more than one pack
screens/ the turn screen, the retrospective, the setting picker
format.js state paths and conditions rendered as English
src/io/ local-storage save, file export/import, the feedback log
content/ content packs (settings)
src/io/ local-storage save (one slot per pack), export/import, feedback log
content/
index.js the pack registry — the only list of settings
corporateladder/ a modern office and a mailroom
frontier/ a freight yard at the end of a stage line
tools/build.js flattens everything into one self-contained HTML file
test/ engine tests against a fixture pack; content and UI tests
test/ engine tests against a fixture pack; conformance, per-pack, UI
docs/ DECISIONS.md — why things are the way they are
Planning/ the original design documents
```
content/corporateladder/index.js
+25 -4
View File
@@ -10,9 +10,17 @@ import { events } from './events/index.js';
export const corporateLadder = {
id: 'corporateladder',
name: 'Corporate Ladder',
// One sentence for the setting picker. The interface reads it and knows
// nothing else about what this pack is.
blurb:
'A modern office and a mailroom, two people who have been here longer ' +
'than you, and a laminated org chart with your name not on it.',
version: '0.1.0',
turnUnit: 'day',
startingStage: 'mailroom',
// What the interface calls the panel of people. The UI used to hardcode
// "The mailroom" here, which was the one place it named a setting.
peopleHeading: 'The mailroom',
stages: {
mailroom: { label: 'Mailroom', title: 'Mail Associate I' },
@@ -59,10 +67,11 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
// rent out every Monday, and only small change in between.
//
// Keep this arithmetic honest when tuning: wages, minus two rents, minus
// fourteen days of small change. It should come to roughly forty dollars
// down over a fortnight — a drift, not a bleed. Rent was once raised without
// re-deriving it, which quietly made the baseline four times steeper and
// trapped a real playtester below zero for 30% of a 182-turn run.
// fourteen days of small change. Per week that is 560 - 455 - 126 = -21, so
// about forty dollars down over a fortnight — a drift, not a bleed. Rent was
// once raised without re-deriving it, which quietly made the baseline four
// times steeper and trapped a real playtester below zero for 30% of a
// 182-turn run. The range is asserted from `tuning` below.
upkeep: [
{ label: 'Coffee, transit, lunch', effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -18 }] },
// Turn 1 is a Monday, so offset 4 is the first Friday and every 14 makes it
@@ -113,6 +122,18 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
},
],
// What the conformance suite holds this pack to. The numbers a setting must
// hit are the setting's business, so they are declared here rather than
// written into a test that names this pack. See DECISIONS.md #31.
tuning: {
// Net movement of `money` from upkeep alone, per calendar cycle — here a
// week — at each stage, with no debt outstanding.
baselinePerCycle: {
mailroom: [-45, 5],
dispatch: [5, 125],
},
},
// How the interface names and formats this pack's state. The UI reads only
// this map, so renaming a stat or reordering the header is content's job.
display: {
content/frontier/characters.js
+43
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
// Cold Fork, as staffed.
//
// `description` is pure colour — the engine never reads it. What it does read
// is `startingRelationship`, where a character departs from the pack defaults.
// Nobody in a freight yard trusts a new hand on sight, and Dutch has had the
// good runs to himself for two years and can count.
export const characters = [
{
id: 'hollis',
name: 'Hollis Vane',
title: 'Vane & Co. Freight',
role_type: 'boss',
description:
'Owns the outfit, the yard, and the note on both. Settles up in the ' +
'doorway of the office rather than inside it, which saves having to ' +
'offer anyone a chair.',
startingRelationship: { trusts_you: 35 },
},
{
id: 'dutch',
name: 'Dutch Rennels',
title: 'Teamster',
role_type: 'rival',
description:
'Two years on the Ridge road and has driven it in every kind of weather ' +
'there is, as he will tell you. Keeps his own tally of who took which ' +
'run, in a book, in pencil.',
startingRelationship: { trusts_you: 30, wary_of_you: 25 },
},
{
id: 'ward',
name: 'Marshal Ward',
title: 'Town Marshal',
role_type: 'authority',
description:
'Came to Cold Fork to retire and has been six years about it. Knows who ' +
'owes the store and how much, and considers that most of the job.',
startingRelationship: { trusts_you: 25, wary_of_you: 30 },
},
];
export default characters;
content/frontier/events/deputy.js
+584
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,584 @@
// The second rung: the marshal's office.
//
// `rounds`, `office_day` and `the_cells` are the floor here — no conditions,
// no cooldown, no `once` — so this stage can never run dry. The pay is real
// and the days are worse, which is the trade the offer did not mention.
export const deputy = [
{
id: 'rounds',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 100,
description:
'The evening round: the length of the street, the back of the store, ' +
'the yard gate, and the Cordwood twice. Mostly it is a walk. The ' +
'difference between the nights it is a walk and the nights it is not ' +
'announces itself late.',
options: [
{
id: 'walk_it',
label: 'Walk it properly, both ends.',
result:
'Two doors unlocked that should not have been, and the storekeeper ' +
'hears about both from you rather than from a stranger.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'sit_the_cordwood',
label: 'Do it from a chair at the Cordwood.',
result:
'You hear more in two hours than the street gives up in a week, and ' +
'everybody in the room adjusts what they say in front of you.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'walk_the_yard',
label: 'Take the long way past Vane’s yard.',
result:
'The office light is on at eleven and Vane does not come to the ' +
'window. He knows the sound of the round by now.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'office_day',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 100,
description:
'Paper. The county wants its returns, Ward has not filed since March, ' +
'and the stove is the only warm thing in the building.',
options: [
{
id: 'do_the_returns',
label: 'Do the returns.',
result:
'Four hours and a hand that will not straighten. The county sends a ' +
'letter of acknowledgement, which Ward pins up, which is the most ' +
'sentimental act you have seen from him.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
{
id: 'read_the_paper',
label: 'Read six months of the county paper instead.',
result:
'Three names in it you have loaded freight for, and one of them ' +
'twice. You start a list of your own.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
{
id: 'ride_out',
label: 'Leave the paper and ride out to the Ridge camp.',
result:
'Nothing is wrong at the Ridge camp. Being seen there when nothing ' +
'is wrong turns out to be most of the job.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_cells',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 100,
description:
'One cell, one occupant, and eleven hours until the county wagon. He ' +
'has been talking since six and has not yet said anything about why he ' +
'is in there.',
options: [
{
id: 'let_him_talk',
label: 'Let him talk.',
result:
'By the ninth hour he has told you about a horse sold twice in ' +
'Bitter Wells, and does not appear to notice that he has.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
],
},
{
id: 'feed_him_proper',
label: 'Buy him a proper dinner out of your own pocket.',
result:
'Two dollars forty. He is quiet afterwards, and the county wagon ' +
'takes a man who is not angry, which the driver notices.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
{
id: 'shut_him_up',
label: 'Tell him to be quiet.',
result:
'He is quiet. Eleven hours is a long time in a building with two ' +
'rooms in it and one of you able to leave.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'saloon_trouble',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 70,
cooldown: 4,
description:
'Something has gone wrong at the Cordwood and the noise of it reaches ' +
'the office before anybody does. Ward is at the county seat until ' +
'Thursday.',
options: [
{
id: 'wade_in',
label: 'Go in and take hold of the nearest one.',
result:
'It stops. Your sleeve does not survive it and neither does a ' +
'table, and the whole street knows by morning which it was.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -4 },
],
},
{
id: 'wait_outside',
label: 'Stand in the doorway and wait for it to come to you.',
result:
'It comes to you, in ones, which is the entire trick and takes a ' +
'nerve you did not have a year ago.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 6 },
],
},
{
id: 'send_for_dutch',
label: 'Send for Dutch.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: '>=', value: 25 }],
result:
'He arrives inside four minutes, takes one man out by the collar, ' +
'and says afterwards that the book is square now. It is not, and ' +
'both of you let that stand.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'vane_across_the_street',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 55,
cooldown: 6,
description:
'Vane has a load going out that the manifest describes as agricultural ' +
'implements, and it is going out at four in the morning, which no ' +
'agricultural implement in the county has ever needed to do.',
options: [
{
id: 'stop_it',
label: 'Be at the yard gate at four.',
result:
'He does not argue and he does not open the crate. He turns the ' +
'wagon round in front of you and takes it back inside, and that is ' +
'the last civil word between you.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 7 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -18 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 15 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Stood at Vane’s gate at four in the morning.' },
],
},
{
id: 'let_it_go',
label: 'Be somewhere else at four.',
result:
'The wagon goes. Nothing comes of it, which is the part that stays ' +
'with you, because nothing coming of it means nothing was ever ' +
'going to.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -5 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
],
},
{
id: 'go_and_ask',
label: 'Go to the office at nine and ask him straight out.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 32 }],
result:
'He tells you, in the doorway, the same as he told you about the ' +
'crate. Then he asks whether the star has changed what you intend ' +
'to do about it. It has, and you say so.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Asked Vane straight out, wearing the star.' },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'ward_tired',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 45,
cooldown: 8,
requires: [{ path: 'flags.sworn_in', op: '==', value: true }],
description:
'Ward has been six years retiring and today he says the word out loud ' +
'for the first time, sitting on the office step with his boots off.',
options: [
{
id: 'talk_him_round',
label: 'Tell him the town is not ready.',
result:
'He says the town is never ready and that is not a reason. He stays ' +
'anyway, for now, which both of you understand is a favour to you ' +
'and not to the town.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
{
id: 'tell_him_go',
label: 'Tell him to go.',
result:
'He looks at you for a while. Then he laughs, once, and puts his ' +
'boots back on, and does not mention it again for a month.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Told Ward to go and retire.' },
],
},
{
id: 'say_nothing_ward',
label: 'Let him sit.',
result: 'You sit on the step with him until it gets dark.',
effects: [
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -5 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'county_wagon',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 50,
cooldown: 5,
description:
'The county wagon is a day late, there are two men in one cell who ' +
'should not be in one cell, and the second cell has never had a lock ' +
'that works.',
options: [
{
id: 'sit_up_with_them',
label: 'Sit up all night in the office.',
result:
'Nothing happens, twice, at two and at four. In the morning the ' +
'wagon comes and you have been awake for thirty hours.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'fix_the_lock',
label: 'Spend the afternoon making the second lock work.',
result:
'It works. It has not worked since before Ward came, and he stands ' +
'in the doorway turning the key for longer than the job took.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -5 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 7 },
],
},
{
id: 'release_one',
label: 'Turn the quieter one loose on his word.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 32 }],
result:
'He comes back at eight in the morning, as he said he would, and ' +
'the county never knows there was a decision in it.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Turned a man loose on his word, and was right.' },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'dutch_in_the_cells',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 40,
cooldown: 10,
requires: [{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
description:
'Dutch is in the cell. It is the Cordwood and a table and nobody hurt, ' +
'and it is also the third time this season, and the storekeeper has ' +
'started using the word "again."',
options: [
{
id: 'let_him_out',
label: 'Let him out in the morning and say nothing to the county.',
result:
'He goes to work. Neither of you refers to it, then or later, and ' +
'the storekeeper notices that neither of you did.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 20 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
],
},
{
id: 'book_him',
label: 'Book him properly.',
result:
'Eight dollars and a night, and his name on a county return with ' +
'your hand on it. He pays the eight dollars. He reads the return ' +
'twice.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -18 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 14 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Booked Dutch on a county return.' },
],
},
{
id: 'talk_to_him',
label: 'Sit outside the cell until he says what it is about.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 50 }],
result:
'It is about two years on the Ridge road and a book with nobody ' +
'else’s name in it. He gets most of the way to saying so.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -10 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Sat outside the cell with Dutch until he talked.' },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_ridge_camp_dispute',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 45,
cooldown: 7,
description:
'Two men at the Ridge camp both hold paper on the same claim and one of ' +
'them has a brother in Bitter Wells. The camp has asked for the marshal ' +
'and the marshal has sent you.',
options: [
{
id: 'read_the_paper_claim',
label: 'Read both papers all the way through.',
result:
'Both are good. Both were issued by the same clerk eleven days ' +
'apart. The problem is in Bitter Wells and not on the Ridge, and ' +
'saying so ends it.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
{
id: 'stand_between',
label: 'Stand between them until the county can rule.',
result:
'Six weeks of standing between them, in instalments. Nobody is shot ' +
'and nobody is satisfied, which Ward says is the job described.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 4 },
],
},
{
id: 'take_a_side',
label: 'Decide it yourself, on the spot.',
result:
'You are probably right. The brother from Bitter Wells arrives on ' +
'Thursday to find out how right, and stays four days.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 8 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_star_and_the_yard',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 30,
cooldown: 14,
requires: [
{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 20 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: '<=', value: 30 },
],
description:
'Vane & Co. has a note falling due and the bank in Bitter Wells has ' +
'declined it. Vane is fifty-one and has not asked anybody in Cold Fork ' +
'for anything in nineteen years, and is standing in the office doorway ' +
'across the street looking at your building.',
options: [
{
id: 'go_over',
label: 'Cross the street.',
result:
'He does not ask. You do not offer. The two of you stand in the ' +
'doorway of the office for a while, which is where every ' +
'conversation you have ever had with him has happened.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Crossed the street to Vane when the note fell due.' },
],
},
{
id: 'lend_him',
label: 'Put your own money into the note.',
requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 60 }],
result:
'Sixty dollars, and the outfit keeps its animals. He pays it back ' +
'over a year, in the doorway, in instalments, never once in front ' +
'of Dutch.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -60 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 40 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 25 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Put sixty dollars of your own into Vane’s note.' },
],
},
{
id: 'stay_put',
label: 'Stay on your own side of the street.',
result:
'The note goes. The yard is sold in the spring and the new outfit ' +
'brings its own men, and the Ridge road is driven by somebody you ' +
'do not know.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -10 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Stayed on your own side of the street.' },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'quiet_week',
stage: 'deputy',
weight: 60,
cooldown: 4,
description:
'Nothing. Four days of nothing. The stove, the returns, the length of ' +
'the street twice a night, and a town that does not need you at all ' +
'this week and might not next week either.',
options: [
{
id: 'learn_the_law',
label: 'Read the county statutes properly.',
result:
'Most of it is fees. Some of it is not, and the part that is not is ' +
'the part nobody in Cold Fork has ever read.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
{
id: 'work_the_yard_again',
label: 'Go and load freight for a day, for the money.',
result:
'Vane pays you the hand’s rate without comment. Dutch says one ' +
'thing about the star and then works alongside you all afternoon.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 9 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
{
id: 'ride_the_county',
label: 'Ride the county line and look at it.',
result:
'Two days out. Nobody sends for you and nothing needs you, and you ' +
'come back having decided something you do not tell anybody.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
],
},
];
export default deputy;
content/frontier/events/hard-times.js
+139
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
// Running out of money.
//
// No game over and no failure mode in the engine — these are ordinary events
// whose conditions happen to be about money, weighted heavily enough to crowd
// out an ordinary day. Neither declares a stage: being broke follows you up
// the ladder rather than vanishing when you take the star.
//
// The arithmetic that matters, and the one Corporate Ladder got wrong once:
// `every_run` pays 30 against a room-and-board cycle of 20 and a fully-loaded
// store charge of 10, so there is always a way out that is worth more than the
// hole is deep. Change either number and re-derive the other.
export const hardTimes = [
{
id: 'store_cut_off',
// Heavy, but on a cooldown: being broke should colour a run, not become
// the run. Corporate Ladder learned this the expensive way at weight 5000
// with no cooldown.
weight: 900,
cooldown: 3,
requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '<', value: 0 }],
description:
'The storekeeper turns the book round on the counter so you can see ' +
'your own line in it, and does not say anything at all, which is worse ' +
'than the several things he could have said.',
options: [
{
id: 'on_the_book',
label: 'Ask him to carry you a while longer.',
// He stops eventually. Past that, the ways out cost standing and
// favours rather than interest, which is where the spiral gets real.
requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '<', value: 120 }],
result:
'He turns the book back round and writes it. The figure at the ' +
'bottom of your line is now larger than a month of runs.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 30 },
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: 32 },
{ path: 'flags.owes_the_store', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Went further into the book at the store.' },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_dutch',
label: 'Ask Dutch to settle a line of his own.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: '>=', value: 20 }],
result:
'He pays it without a word and crosses it out of the book in front ' +
'of you, and afterwards you are a man he has settled with rather ' +
'than a man he owes.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 18 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Called in what Dutch owed.' },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_hollis',
label: 'Ask Vane for the smith’s money back.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: '>=', value: 20 }],
result:
'He pays in the doorway, in full, and finds a reason not to look at ' +
'you for the rest of the week.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 22 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
],
},
{
id: 'every_run',
label: 'Take every run going.',
// Has to be worth more than a cycle of room and board plus the fully
// stepped-up store charge, or it is not a way out — it is the hole
// with extra hours in it.
result:
'Eleven days without one off. The Ridge road stops being a road ' +
'after a while and becomes a sequence of turns you take.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 30 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -1 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_book_called',
// Often enough to matter. At weight 25 Corporate Ladder's equivalent
// appeared six times in 262 turns and debt became a one-way ratchet.
weight: 45,
cooldown: 4,
requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>', value: 0 }],
description:
'The storekeeper has written to the county about three lines in his ' +
'book and yours is one of them. He mentions this to you in the street, ' +
'in daylight, in front of two other people.',
options: [
{
id: 'pay_chunk',
label: 'Pay a real piece of it down.',
requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 45 }],
result: 'He rules a line through most of it and is disappointed about it.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -45 },
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: -45 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'pay_minimum',
label: 'Pay what you have on you.',
requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result: 'Twelve dollars, ten of which is the line and two of which is coffee.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -12 },
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: -10 },
],
},
{
id: 'stall',
label: 'Tell him after the next stage.',
result:
'He says after the next stage. The two other people in the street ' +
'say nothing, and repeat all of it by evening.',
effects: [
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
],
},
],
},
];
export default hardTimes;
content/frontier/events/index.js
+8
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
import { routine } from './routine.js';
import { people } from './people.js';
import { promotion } from './promotion.js';
import { deputy } from './deputy.js';
import { hardTimes } from './hard-times.js';
export const events = [...routine, ...people, ...promotion, ...deputy, ...hardTimes];
export default events;
content/frontier/events/people.js
+415
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,415 @@
// The three people in Cold Fork who have an opinion about you.
//
// Relationship-gated content, and the counterweight to the yard: the runs pay
// the room, but Dutch's book, Vane's ledger and Ward's slow appraisal are what
// decide whether the star is ever offered.
export const people = [
{
id: 'dutch_book',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 70,
cooldown: 5,
description:
'Dutch has his tally book open on the tailgate and is working through ' +
'who took which run this month. He has arrived at a number he does not ' +
'like and is now looking for somewhere to put it.',
options: [
{
id: 'let_him_talk',
label: 'Let him get all the way to the end of it.',
result:
'It takes twenty minutes. By the end he has talked himself into ' +
'thinking it was about the weather, which suits both of you.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
],
},
{
id: 'check_the_book',
label: 'Ask to see the book.',
result:
'The tally is right and his arithmetic is wrong by two runs, in his ' +
'own favour. You say so quietly. He does not thank you and does not ' +
'forget it either.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 7 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
{
id: 'trade_a_run',
label: 'Offer him the next Ridge run to square it.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 45 }],
result:
'He takes it, and the book gets a line in it on your side for the ' +
'first time. Dutch settles his lines.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -6 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 18 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'dutch_drunk',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 40,
cooldown: 9,
requires: [{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
description:
'Dutch did not come in for the morning run and the morning run is ' +
'loaded. He is at the Cordwood, upright, and in no condition to be ' +
'within thirty feet of a horse.',
options: [
{
id: 'cover',
label: 'Take his run and say nothing about it.',
result:
'Vane never learns. Dutch learns, in the afternoon, from the state ' +
'of the harness, and comes and stands near you for a while without ' +
'saying anything.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 7 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'flags.covered_for_dutch', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 25 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Covered Dutch’s run and never mentioned it.' },
],
},
{
id: 'tell_vane',
label: 'Tell Vane the run needs a driver.',
result:
'Vane takes it out himself at fifty-one years of age and says one ' +
'sentence to Dutch on his return. Dutch works the rest of the month ' +
'like a man being watched, because he is.',
effects: [
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 7 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -15 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
{
id: 'sober_him',
label: 'Walk him round the yard until he can stand up to it.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'Four circuits and a bucket. He drives it badly but he drives it, ' +
'and that distinction is the entire point.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 14 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -6 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'vane_ledger',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 50,
cooldown: 7,
description:
'The office door is open for once. Vane has the ledger out and the look ' +
'of a man who has added a column twice and got two answers.',
options: [
{
id: 'offer_help',
label: 'Offer to run the column.',
result:
'You find it in ten minutes: a freight bill entered twice in March. ' +
'He does not say thank you. He leaves the door open after that.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 9 },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_for_more',
label: 'Ask him what the good runs pay.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 22 }],
result:
'Twenty-two, and he has been giving them to Dutch for two years ' +
'because Dutch asked in his first month. Nobody had told you that ' +
'asking was the mechanism.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 22 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Asked Vane for the good runs.' },
],
},
{
id: 'call_in_the_debt',
label: 'Mention the smith’s bill you stood for.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: '>=', value: 20 }],
result:
'He pays it back to the cent, in front of Dutch, and is short with ' +
'you for two days afterwards for having had to.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 24 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
],
},
{
id: 'leave_him_to_it',
label: 'Leave him to it.',
result: 'The door is shut again within the hour.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'ward_asks',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 45,
cooldown: 6,
requires: [{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 6 }],
description:
'Marshal Ward is leaning on the yard gate with no particular business ' +
'there. He asks, eventually and as though it has just occurred to him, ' +
'what came in on the stage.',
options: [
{
id: 'tell_him',
label: 'Tell him what came in on the stage.',
result:
'Hinges, nails, and a crate consigned to a name nobody in Cold Fork ' +
'has heard of. He writes none of it down and remembers all of it.',
effects: [
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -1 },
],
},
{
id: 'say_nothing',
label: 'Say that is Vane’s business and not yours.',
result:
'He agrees that it is, pleasantly, and stays leaning on the gate for ' +
'another twenty minutes.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_him_back',
label: 'Ask him what he is actually looking for.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'He tells you, which surprises both of you. A crate a month, six ' +
'months running, and no consignee that exists.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'ward_deputizes',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 35,
cooldown: 10,
requires: [
{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 18 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 45 },
],
description:
'There is a man in the one cell who needs moving to the county seat and ' +
'Ward cannot leave the town without somebody in it. He is not offering ' +
'you a job. He is offering you two days.',
options: [
{
id: 'ride_along',
label: 'Ride along.',
result:
'Two days out and two back, and the prisoner talks for all four. ' +
'Ward does not, which turns out to be the instruction.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Rode to the county seat with Ward and a prisoner.' },
],
},
{
id: 'mind_the_town',
label: 'Offer to mind the town instead.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 22 }],
result:
'Two days with the keys and nothing whatever happens, which you ' +
'later understand was the test.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 15 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Held the town for two days while Ward was gone.' },
],
},
{
id: 'decline_ward',
label: 'Say the yard cannot spare you.',
result:
'It can. Both of you know it can. He takes the storekeeper instead ' +
'and the storekeeper tells the story for a year.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'saturday_night',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 55,
cooldown: 5,
description:
'The Cordwood on a Rest night: Dutch at the long table, half the yard ' +
'with him, and a game of cards that everybody present knows the ' +
'storekeeper’s nephew cannot afford to be in.',
options: [
{
id: 'sit_in',
label: 'Sit in.',
result:
'You come out four dollars ahead and the nephew comes out eleven ' +
'behind. Nobody says anything about it, then or afterwards.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
{
id: 'buy_the_table',
label: 'Buy the table a round and stay out of the game.',
result:
'Six dollars, and for the rest of the month you are a man who bought ' +
'the table a round, which in Cold Fork is a kind of address.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -6 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -3 },
],
},
{
id: 'walk_the_nephew_out',
label: 'Get the nephew out of the game.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'You do it badly and in front of everyone, and it works. The ' +
'storekeeper hears about it before you are back at the yard.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 7 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Pulled the storekeeper’s nephew out of a card game.' },
],
},
{
id: 'early_night',
label: 'Go up early.',
result: 'The ceiling of a room at the Cordwood, at nine at night.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_consignee',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 25,
cooldown: 12,
requires: [
{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 24 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 50 },
],
description:
'The crate with no consignee is on the platform again, and this month ' +
'the manifest has Vane’s own hand on it. Ward is not at the gate today, ' +
'which is itself a decision somebody made.',
options: [
{
id: 'load_it',
label: 'Load it and drive it out to the Ridge like any other crate.',
result:
'It is heavier than hinges. Vane pays you eighteen dollars for a ' +
'nine dollar run and neither of you mentions the difference.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 18 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -12 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Ran the unmarked crate out to the Ridge for Vane.' },
],
},
{
id: 'tell_ward',
label: 'Go and find Ward.',
result:
'He looks at the manifest for a long time and then puts it back on ' +
'the platform exactly as he found it. Nothing happens for eleven ' +
'days, and then a great deal happens at once.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 20 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -14 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took Vane’s manifest to Marshal Ward.' },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_vane_direct',
label: 'Ask Vane what is in it.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 22 }],
result:
'He tells you, standing in the doorway of the office as always, and ' +
'then asks what you intend to do about it. It is the first real ' +
'question anybody in Cold Fork has asked you.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Asked Vane what was in the crate, and got an answer.' },
],
},
],
},
];
export default people;
content/frontier/events/promotion.js
+93
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
// Taking the star.
//
// The same shape as Corporate Ladder's Dispatch offer, and for the same
// reason: the engine has no notion of a promotion, only of a stage that
// determines which events are in the pool. The offer is an ordinary event
// whose effects happen to include { path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' }.
//
// Declining is a real option. It comes back after a cooldown, and staying in
// the yard to build trade and a book full of favours is a way to play rather
// than a mistake.
export const promotion = [
{
id: 'deputy_offer',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 800,
cooldown: 12,
// A long way in, deliberately. The yard is where most of this pack lives,
// and the star at turn twenty would skip it.
requires: [
{ path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 70 },
{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 40 },
// Two ways to be offered it: the marshal has decided about you, or the
// town has, on the evidence of what you have walked into.
{
any: [
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 68 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 40 },
],
},
],
description:
'Ward has the county paper that makes a deputy and has already written a ' +
'name on it. He says the pay is thirty-eight a run and the work is mostly ' +
'walking about, and that the second half of that is a lie he tells ' +
'everybody once.',
options: [
{
id: 'accept',
label: 'Take the star.',
result:
'Vane says nothing at all, which is worse than anything he could ' +
'have said. Dutch carries your kit up the street and talks the ' +
'entire way about the Ridge road.',
effects: [
{ path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' },
{ path: 'flags.sworn_in', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -14 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the star.' },
],
},
{
id: 'accept_and_speak',
label: 'Take it, and put Dutch up for the good runs.',
requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 55 }],
result:
'Vane writes the name down in front of you, which is as close as he ' +
'comes to a farewell. Dutch is insufferable about it for a month and ' +
'then, quietly, is not.',
effects: [
{ path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' },
{ path: 'flags.sworn_in', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'flags.spoke_for_dutch', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 15 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 20 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the star, and put Dutch up for the good runs.' },
],
},
{
id: 'decline',
label: 'Not yet.',
result:
'He folds the paper back into his coat. He has carried it around ' +
'unsigned for six years and is in no hurry now.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -6 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Turned down the star.' },
],
},
],
},
];
export default promotion;
content/frontier/events/routine.js
+422
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,422 @@
// Ordinary days in the yard.
//
// `stage_day`, `ridge_road` and `yard_work` carry no conditions, no cooldown
// and no `once`, which makes them this stage's floor: whatever else is
// excluded, there is always a turn to play.
//
// Note what the ungated options give. Corporate Ladder put four of its best
// negotiation gains behind a negotiation gate, and its logs show players
// bouncing off that wall for thirty turns. Every gate in this pack has ungated
// repeatable growth underneath it — see DECISIONS.md #32.
export const routine = [
{
id: 'first_morning',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 99999,
once: true,
description:
'Hollis Vane looks at your hands rather than your face, says the pay is ' +
'twenty-four dollars a run, the room at the Cordwood is eight and the ' +
'feed is what it is, and lets you do that arithmetic yourself. Dutch ' +
'Rennels is already harnessing.',
options: [
{
id: 'ask_the_rate',
label: 'Ask what a man makes on top of the twenty-four.',
result:
'He says that depends entirely on you, and goes inside. It is the ' +
'most useful thing anybody tells you all week.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Asked Vane what the work was really worth.' },
],
},
{
id: 'get_to_work',
label: 'Say nothing and pick up a harness.',
result:
'Dutch watches you do it wrong, then watches you do it right, and ' +
'does not offer a word either time.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
{
id: 'ask_dutch',
label: 'Ask Dutch which of these animals bites.',
result:
'He tells you. He also tells you he has driven the Ridge road two ' +
'years, which is not an answer to the question you asked.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: -5 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'stage_day',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 100,
description:
'The stage is in and there are nine crates on the platform for a wagon ' +
'that holds seven. The driver wants to be gone inside the hour and is ' +
'saying so at length.',
options: [
{
id: 'two_trips',
label: 'Run it twice. Nobody has to know it took all day.',
result: 'It takes all day. Everybody knows.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'load_high',
label: 'Stack it high and rope it down.',
result:
'Seven crates and two more where a man would sit. It holds as far as ' +
'the creek crossing, which is farther than you expected.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
{
id: 'talk_the_driver',
label: 'Talk the driver into leaving two for the next stage.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'He leaves two. He also mentions your name at the far end of the ' +
'line, favourably, which you will not hear about for a month.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'ridge_road',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 100,
description:
'A load for the Ridge camp, out and back in a day if the weather holds. ' +
'The last mile is the one with the bad turn on it, and everybody knows ' +
'which mile that is.',
options: [
{
id: 'drive_it',
label: 'Take it out yourself.',
result:
'The bad turn is exactly as advertised. You come back with the wagon ' +
'and the animals and most of your composure.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 9 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'go_with_dutch',
label: 'Ask Dutch to take the reins and ride along.',
result:
'He drives it in silence and points at the bad turn without slowing. ' +
'You learn the road. You do not learn much else.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: -2 },
],
},
{
id: 'take_the_gun',
label: 'Ask Hollis for the scattergun and go alone.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'He hands it over without a word, which is the first time he has ' +
'agreed to anything you asked for.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 14 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'flags.carries_iron', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'yard_work',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 100,
description:
'No stage, no run, and a yard full of things that are nearly broken. ' +
'Hollis is in the office with the ledger and the door shut.',
options: [
{
id: 'mend_harness',
label: 'Mend the harness that keeps parting.',
result:
'You find where it parts. It is not where anybody has been mending ' +
'it, which explains the last two years.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'shoe_the_team',
label: 'Walk the team down to the smith and stand for the bill.',
result:
'Eleven dollars of your own money on Vane’s animals. The smith ' +
'writes your name in his book, and so, eventually, does Vane.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -11 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 12 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
],
},
{
id: 'idle',
label: 'Sit in the shade until something needs doing.',
result:
'Nothing needs doing. It is the first hour of the week that has been ' +
'yours, and you notice it going.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'broken_axle',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 55,
cooldown: 5,
description:
'The near wagon comes back with a cracked axle and a driver who says it ' +
'was cracked when he took it. Dutch says it was not.',
options: [
{
id: 'fix_it',
label: 'Get under it and put a splint on.',
result:
'It will hold for a season, which is longer than the last three ' +
'repairs on the same wagon.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
],
},
{
id: 'back_dutch',
label: 'Say Dutch is right, because Dutch is right.',
result:
'The driver takes it badly and the yard takes note. Dutch says ' +
'nothing, and writes something in his book.',
effects: [
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
],
},
{
id: 'stay_out',
label: 'Have no view on the axle.',
result: 'Both of them decide, separately, that you are no use to them.',
effects: [
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'the_store',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 60,
cooldown: 4,
description:
'Everything in Cold Fork that is not freight is in this one building, ' +
'and the book on the counter is where the town keeps its real accounts.',
options: [
{
id: 'buy_plain',
label: 'Buy what you need and pay for it.',
result: 'Coffee, a shirt, and a second blanket. The nights are turning.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -6 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
{
id: 'on_credit',
label: 'Put it on the book.',
result:
'He writes it without looking up. Being in the book is not a ' +
'disgrace here; being in it a long time is.',
effects: [
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: 14 },
{ path: 'flags.owes_the_store', op: 'set', value: true },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -1 },
],
},
{
id: 'haggle',
label: 'Argue the price of the coffee on principle.',
result:
'You win eleven cents and an hour of your life goes into it. He ' +
'enjoys it more than you do, and remembers you afterwards.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -4 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
{
id: 'pay_down',
label: 'Put money against the book.',
requires: [
{ path: 'owed', op: '>', value: 0 },
{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 20 },
],
result: 'He crosses a line through it and turns the page back over.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'owed', op: 'add', value: -20 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 2 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'weather',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 45,
cooldown: 6,
description:
'It has been raining since the small hours and the creek crossing is ' +
'four feet up. There is a load for the camp that was wanted yesterday.',
options: [
{
id: 'wait_it_out',
label: 'Nothing moves today.',
result:
'The creek is down by evening and the camp waits a day. It is the ' +
'right call, which is not the same as a popular one.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -2 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 1 },
],
},
{
id: 'ford_it',
label: 'Ford it.',
result:
'The wagon floats for about six feet, which is six feet more than a ' +
'wagon should. The load gets there wet and on time.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 16 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
],
},
{
id: 'long_way',
label: 'Take the long road round the head of the creek.',
requires: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: '>=', value: 12 }],
result:
'Eleven extra miles and a dry load. Dutch did not know that road was ' +
'passable, and now has to know that you did.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 11 },
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 4 },
],
},
],
},
{
id: 'road_agents',
stage: 'hand',
weight: 30,
cooldown: 8,
requires: [{ path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 8 }],
description:
'Two riders come out of the rocks a mile short of the camp and sit their ' +
'horses across the road. Neither of them looks like he has done this ' +
'often enough to be calm about it.',
options: [
{
id: 'hand_it_over',
label: 'Give them the box and remember the horses.',
result:
'They take it and go. You give Marshal Ward a description of two ' +
'horses that is better than anything he has had in a year.',
effects: [
{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -8 },
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 2 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Was stopped on the Ridge road, and gave Ward the horses.' },
],
},
{
id: 'talk_them_down',
label: 'Tell them what is actually in the box.',
result:
'It is a crate of hinges and forty pounds of nails. The older one ' +
'laughs. They let you by, which is worse for them than it is for you.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Talked two road agents out of a crate of hinges.' },
],
},
{
id: 'bring_it_up',
label: 'Bring the scattergun up off the floorboards.',
requires: [{ path: 'flags.carries_iron', op: '==', value: true }],
result:
'Nobody fires. They go back into the rocks and the story is around ' +
'Cold Fork before the wagon is.',
effects: [
{ path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 5 },
{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 6 },
{ path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Brought the scattergun up on the Ridge road.' },
],
},
],
},
];
export default routine;
content/frontier/index.js
+192
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,192 @@
// The Frontier — the second content pack for The Ladder.
//
// Cold Fork, a freight town at the end of a stage line. You are a hired hand
// in Vane & Co.'s yard; the town has a marshal who is tired and a road that is
// not safe. Two rungs, the same as Corporate Ladder, and not one line of
// engine code between them.
//
// This pack exists to prove the split holds. Everything that makes it a
// different game from Corporate Ladder is in this directory: a four-day cycle
// instead of a week, money that arrives from work rather than from a wage,
// relationship stats named for a place where being owed a favour matters more
// than being liked, and a skill pair of nerve and trade.
import { characters } from './characters.js';
import { events } from './events/index.js';
export const frontier = {
id: 'frontier',
name: 'The Frontier',
blurb:
'Cold Fork, at the end of a stage line: a freight yard, a road that is ' +
'not safe, and a marshal who has been six years retiring.',
version: '0.1.0',
turnUnit: 'day',
startingStage: 'hand',
peopleHeading: 'Cold Fork',
stages: {
hand: { label: 'The Yard', title: 'Hired Hand' },
deputy: { label: 'The Office', title: 'Deputy Marshal' },
},
// Not a week. The stage comes every fourth day, and the whole town runs on
// that: the outfit settles up when the stage comes in, the boarding house
// collects on the rest day before it. A pack that wants a seven-day week
// says seven here; the engine has no opinion either way, and Corporate
// Ladder's calendar is the same field with different numbers in it.
calendar: {
cycleLength: 4,
cycleName: 'Run',
unitNames: ['Stage day', 'Haul', 'Yard', 'Rest'],
},
// Money is smaller here than in Corporate Ladder by a factor of about
// fifteen, and it behaves differently: the settlement covers board and room
// and very little else, so the difference between a good run and a bad one
// is what you took from the work. See `tuning` below for the arithmetic that
// is actually asserted.
state: {
'money': { initial: 40, min: -400, max: 100000 },
// The store ledger. Named for what it is rather than for a loan: nobody in
// Cold Fork lends money, they let you carry a balance.
'owed': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 100000 },
'standing': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
'skills.nerve': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
'skills.trade': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
'flags.carries_iron': { initial: false },
'flags.owes_the_store': { initial: false },
'flags.covered_for_dutch': { initial: false },
'flags.sworn_in': { initial: false },
'flags.spoke_for_dutch': { initial: false },
'notable': { initial: [] },
},
// A different vocabulary from Corporate Ladder's likes/fears/helps, and the
// reason the vocabulary is content's to choose. Out here the useful question
// about a person is not whether they like you: it is whether they will take
// your word, and whether they are carrying a debt to you they mean to pay.
relationshipStats: {
trusts_you: { label: 'Takes your word', initial: 45, min: 0, max: 100 },
owes_you: { label: 'Owes you', initial: 10, min: 0, max: 100 },
wary_of_you: { label: 'Wary of you', initial: 15, min: 0, max: 100 },
},
// The economic shape, and the thing that makes this pack a real test of the
// engine rather than Corporate Ladder in a hat: there is no wage worth
// living on. Vane settles up when the stage comes in and it covers the room
// and the feed and four dollars besides. Everything else you earn, you earn
// on a turn, by choosing to — and what the choices cost is where the
// pressure comes from, not an unexplained drain.
//
// Keep this arithmetic honest when tuning. Per four-day run:
// hand: -12 board -8 room +24 settlement = +4
// deputy: -12 board -8 room +38 pay = +18
// Both are asserted directly by the conformance suite against `tuning`
// below, so a number changed here without re-deriving it fails the build
// rather than trapping a player forty turns in.
upkeep: [
{ label: 'Board and feed', effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }] },
// Turn 1 is a Stage day, so offset 3 is the first Rest day and offset 4
// the next Stage day — the room is collected the night before the outfit
// settles up, which is the boarding house's whole business model.
{
label: 'Room at the Cordwood',
every: 4,
offset: 3,
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -8 }],
},
{
label: 'Settlement',
every: 4,
offset: 4,
requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'hand' }],
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 24 }],
},
{
label: 'Deputy pay',
every: 4,
offset: 4,
// The town pays a real wage, and it is still not much of a living. What
// changes with the star is not the money; it is what the days contain.
requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' }],
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 38 }],
},
// Store credit costs more the deeper in you are, the same step function
// Corporate Ladder uses for its loan — a shape, not a setting.
{
label: 'Store credit',
every: 4,
offset: 4,
requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>', value: 0 }],
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }],
},
{
label: 'Store credit (carried)',
every: 4,
offset: 4,
requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>=', value: 60 }],
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }],
},
{
label: 'Store credit (posted)',
every: 4,
offset: 4,
requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>=', value: 120 }],
effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
},
],
// What the conformance suite holds this pack to. Declaring it here rather
// than writing it into a test is the same principle as the rest of the pack:
// the numbers a setting must hit are the setting's business. See
// DECISIONS.md #31.
tuning: {
// Net movement of `money` from upkeep alone, per calendar cycle, at each
// stage. Upkeep is the floor a player plays against: barely above water in
// the yard, and a real if unremarkable living with the star.
baselinePerCycle: {
hand: [0, 12],
deputy: [10, 30],
},
},
display: {
'money': { label: 'Money', format: 'money', order: 1 },
'owed': { label: 'Owed at the store', format: 'money', order: 2, hideWhenZero: true },
'standing': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
'skills.nerve': { label: 'Nerve', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
'skills.trade': { label: 'Trade', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
'flags.carries_iron': {
label: 'The scattergun', hidden: true,
whenTrue: 'You are carrying Vane’s scattergun on the box.',
whenFalse: 'The scattergun is back under the office counter.',
},
'flags.owes_the_store': {
label: 'The store ledger', hidden: true,
whenTrue: 'Your name is in the book at the store.',
whenFalse: 'You are square with the store.',
},
'flags.covered_for_dutch': {
label: 'Dutch’s run', hidden: true,
whenTrue: 'Dutch owes you a run.',
whenFalse: 'You and Dutch are square.',
},
'flags.sworn_in': {
label: 'The star', hidden: true,
whenTrue: 'You are sworn in.',
whenFalse: 'You are back in the yard.',
},
'flags.spoke_for_dutch': {
label: 'Dutch’s name', hidden: true,
whenTrue: 'Dutch’s name is in for the good runs.',
whenFalse: 'Dutch’s name is not in for the good runs.',
},
},
characters,
events,
};
export default frontier;
content/index.js
+23
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
// The packs this build ships with.
//
// A setting is a content pack, and this is the only list of them. Adding one
// is an import and an entry — no engine change, no interface change, and
// nothing anywhere else that names it. `packs[0]` is what a first-time player
// starts in.
//
// The bundler follows static imports from the entry module, so appearing in
// this file is also what gets a pack into `dist/theladder.html`.
import { corporateLadder } from './corporateladder/index.js';
import { frontier } from './frontier/index.js';
export const packs = [corporateLadder, frontier];
/** A pack by id, or undefined. Used to resume into whatever was last played. */
export function packById(id) {
return packs.find((pack) => pack.id === id);
}
export const defaultPack = packs[0];
export default packs;
docs/DECISIONS.md
+126
View File
@@ -421,3 +421,129 @@ Spans and pair-counts are now accumulated per run and pooled, so the figure is a
proper weighted average of within-run gaps. It is worth stating the general
form: any statistic over a log has to respect the run boundary, because a log is
not one sequence.
## 31. A pack declares the numbers it must hit
Decision #29 added a test that asserts Corporate Ladder's economic baseline
directly, because a tuning change made without re-deriving what it meant had
trapped a real playtester. That test named the pack, named its stages and
hard-coded its ranges, which meant a second pack got none of it — the guard
that exists precisely because a number went unchecked would itself have gone
uncopied.
So the numbers moved into the pack, as `tuning.baselinePerCycle`:
```js
tuning: {
baselinePerCycle: { hand: [0, 12], deputy: [10, 30] },
},
```
The conformance suite reads that and holds each pack to its own declared range.
A new setting is checked the moment it is in the registry, and what it is
checked against is its designer's stated intent rather than another setting's
numbers. The pack is required to declare it: a missing `tuning` block fails,
because the silent failure mode here is a pack that is never economically
tested at all.
The figure is **derived, not simulated**. An upkeep entry worth `v` every `n`
turns is worth `v * cycleLength / n` per cycle, exactly. Simulating it over a
fixed window reads differently depending on where the last rent lands: Corporate
Ladder measures −19 a fortnight over 280 turns and −42 over 560, and only the
second is the steady state. The original test used the 280-turn window and was
reading a number 23 dollars off the truth — inside its own tolerance, so it
never said so.
## 32. A skill gate is never gated behind itself
Corporate Ladder gates four options on `skills.negotiation >= 15`, and several
of its largest negotiation gains sit behind that same gate — `+4` on
`marlene_confides.ask_how_to_leave`, `+3` on `trevor_favor.trade`. Its logs show
players meeting the wall repeatedly through the first thirty turns.
Measured, the gate is not unreachable: a player steering directly for the skill
is through it by turn 11. What the logs actually show is ordinary players not
prioritising it and having no incidental route, which is a pacing failure rather
than a reachability one — and the reachability test could never have caught it,
because reachability is exactly what holds.
The Frontier is built to a rule instead, asserted in `test/frontier.test.js`:
for every skill threshold in the pack, the growth available *without* passing
that threshold must be able to reach it, from repeatable events — a single
one-off award is not a route. A second test measures it, requiring a player who
steers for a skill to be through its lowest gate inside twenty turns.
The rule is deliberately not in the conformance suite, because Corporate Ladder
does not satisfy it and retuning that pack is a separate decision from adding
this one. It is written down here so the choice is visible rather than implied.
## 33. One save slot per pack, and the picker is the front door
`theladder.save.v1` was a single global slot. The app guarded it by comparing
the packId inside the save against the pack it was about to run, and started a
new game when they differed — so with two settings, the first switch would have
silently destroyed the other career.
Slots are now `theladder.save.v1.<packId>`, one per setting, and switching is
non-destructive in both directions: each run is written to its own slot every
turn, and coming back resumes rather than restarts. `theladder.pack.v1` holds
the last setting played, so a returning player lands back where they were.
The pre-packs slot is still read once, for Corporate Ladder only, and only when
it really holds a Corporate Ladder save. It is never written. Someone mid-career
when this shipped finds their career.
A first-time player — nothing saved, nothing remembered — gets the setting
picker rather than being dropped into whichever pack is first in the registry.
A build shipping one pack skips it entirely.
## 34. What a second setting proved, and what it cost
The engine/content split was a claim until there were two settings. The
Frontier is 29 events across two stages, a four-day cycle instead of a
seven-day one, a different relationship vocabulary (`trusts_you`, `owes_you`,
`wary_of_you`), a different skill pair, and money about fifteen times smaller
that arrives from work rather than from a wage. `src/engine/` was not touched.
Three things outside the engine did have to change, and none of them was about
the setting:
- **`src/io/save.js`** — the single save slot, above.
- **`src/ui/app.js`** — it named one pack; it now holds the current one. The
screens, the engine and the rest of the io layer still take the pack as an
argument and are no less pack-agnostic than before.
- **`src/ui/screens/turn.js:40`** — hardcoded `'The mailroom'` as the heading
over the people panel. That was the interface naming a setting, against
decision #14, and it had gone unnoticed while only one setting existed. It is
now `pack.peopleHeading`.
`tools/build.js` needed one fix, unrelated to packs but exposed by them: its
module scan used `.*?` where `transform` used a pattern that spans lines, so a
destructured import wrapped across several lines was rewritten into a
`__require` for a module the scan had never collected. The bundle built clean
and failed only when run. Both now use `[\s\S]*?`.
The honest summary is that adding a setting required no engine change and three
interface changes, two of which were latent defects that a second pack merely
made visible.
## 35. Three open questions, closed by the designer
Recorded 2026-09-11, alongside 0.3.1.
**Corporate Ladder's negotiation gate stays.** A gate that takes deliberate work
to get past is acceptable, and so is an option that needs groundwork first. #32
remains the rule the Frontier is built to and tested against; it is a choice a
pack may make, not a standard every pack must meet, and Corporate Ladder is not
being retuned toward it.
**The feedback widget stays exactly as it is.** Zero ratings across three
sessions says nothing about the widget: those playtests were rapid, and feedback
came back directly rather than through it. It is not evidence either way until a
playtest runs without that direct channel.
**Money has to matter late, through the cost of standing.** A careful player
ends around $8,300 over 200 turns, and money stops being a constraint. The
direction is that rising standing brings rising expenses — the car, the place to
live, the clothes a position expects. Upkeep entries are already gated
conditions over state, so this is content work, not an engine change.
package.json
+1 -1
View File
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "theladder",
"version": "0.3.0",
"version": "0.3.1",
"private": true,
"description": "A turn-based career simulation game. Engine is theme-agnostic; settings are content packs.",
"type": "module",
src/io/save.js
+48 -10
View File
@@ -4,10 +4,23 @@
// a crashed browser does not take a career with it. A save is the whole game
// state and nothing else — the engine keeps no state outside it, so this is a
// complete record by construction.
//
// There is one slot per pack. A single global slot was fine while there was
// one setting; the moment a second existed, switching settings would have
// silently thrown away the other run — the guard in the app read the packId
// off whatever was in the slot and started a new game when it did not match.
const KEY = 'theladder.save.v1';
const PREFIX = 'theladder.save.v1';
// The slot as it was before packs were selectable: one save, no pack in the
// key. Read once, for Corporate Ladder only, so a run in progress survives
// this change. Never written.
const LEGACY_KEY = PREFIX;
const LEGACY_PACK = 'corporateladder';
const LAST_PACK_KEY = 'theladder.pack.v1';
const FORMAT = 1;
const slotFor = (packId) => `${PREFIX}.${packId}`;
/** Local storage throws in private windows and when site data is blocked. */
function safely(action, fallback = null) {
try {
@@ -17,24 +30,49 @@ function safely(action, fallback = null) {
}
}
export function saveLocal(state) {
export function saveLocal(packId, state) {
return safely(() => {
localStorage.setItem(KEY, JSON.stringify({ format: FORMAT, savedAt: new Date().toISOString(), state }));
localStorage.setItem(
slotFor(packId),
JSON.stringify({ format: FORMAT, savedAt: new Date().toISOString(), state }),
);
return true;
}, false);
}
export function loadLocal() {
/**
* The saved run for one pack, or null. Falls back to the pre-packs slot for
* Corporate Ladder, and only when that slot really holds a Corporate Ladder
* save — a stale slot from some other pack is not a reason to load a run into
* a game whose events do not match it.
*/
export function loadLocal(packId) {
return safely(() => {
const raw = localStorage.getItem(KEY);
if (!raw) return null;
const parsed = JSON.parse(raw);
return parsed?.state ?? null;
const raw = localStorage.getItem(slotFor(packId));
if (raw) return JSON.parse(raw)?.state ?? null;
if (packId !== LEGACY_PACK) return null;
const legacy = localStorage.getItem(LEGACY_KEY);
if (!legacy) return null;
const state = JSON.parse(legacy)?.state ?? null;
return state?.meta?.packId === LEGACY_PACK ? state : null;
});
}
export function clearLocal() {
return safely(() => { localStorage.removeItem(KEY); return true; }, false);
export function clearLocal(packId) {
return safely(() => {
localStorage.removeItem(slotFor(packId));
if (packId === LEGACY_PACK) localStorage.removeItem(LEGACY_KEY);
return true;
}, false);
}
/** Which pack was last played, so a returning player lands back in it. */
export function lastPlayed() {
return safely(() => localStorage.getItem(LAST_PACK_KEY));
}
export function rememberPack(packId) {
return safely(() => { localStorage.setItem(LAST_PACK_KEY, packId); return true; }, false);
}
/** True if the browser will actually remember anything. */
src/ui/app.js
+125 -35
View File
@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
// The application: wiring the engine to the screens.
//
// This is the one module that names a content pack, which makes it the seam a
// future pack-picker slots into. Everything below it takes the pack as an
// argument.
// This is the one module that knows there is more than one content pack. It
// holds the current pack and its schema, and everything below it still takes
// the pack as an argument — the screens, the engine and the io layer are all
// as pack-agnostic as they were when there was only one.
//
// Each pack has its own save slot, so switching settings never destroys a run.
//
// Rendering is a full rebuild of the root element. At this size it is fast and
// removes a whole class of stale-view bug — with one deliberate exception: the
@@ -10,21 +13,24 @@
// rebuilding the DOM under a cursor would throw the player out of the box they
// are typing in.
import { corporateLadder } from '../../content/corporateladder/index.js';
import { packs, packById, defaultPack } from '../../content/index.js';
import { validatePack } from '../engine/validate.js';
import { resolveSchema } from '../engine/state.js';
import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn, findOptionById } from './engine-bridge.js';
import { turnScreen } from './screens/turn.js';
import { retrospectiveScreen } from './screens/retrospective.js';
import { packsScreen } from './screens/packs.js';
import { fill, focusMarked } from './dom.js';
import { saveLocal, loadLocal, clearLocal, serializeSave, parseSave, storageAvailable } from '../io/save.js';
import {
saveLocal, loadLocal, clearLocal, serializeSave, parseSave, storageAvailable,
lastPlayed, rememberPack,
} from '../io/save.js';
import { logTurn, attachFeedback, readLog, serializeLog, clearLog, feedbackCount } from '../io/feedback-log.js';
import { downloadText, readFile, stamp } from '../io/download.js';
const pack = corporateLadder;
const schema = resolveSchema(pack);
const app = {
pack: null,
schema: null,
state: null,
view: null,
root: null,
@@ -35,7 +41,7 @@ function choosingView() {
return {
screen: 'turn',
phase: 'choosing',
turn: currentTurn(pack, app.state),
turn: currentTurn(app.pack, app.state),
feedback: emptyFeedback(),
feedbackOpen: false,
};
@@ -45,23 +51,41 @@ const emptyFeedback = () =>
({ rating: null, comment: '', desiredAction: '', saved: false, touched: false, turnId: null });
function render() {
const screen = app.view.screen === 'retrospective'
? retrospectiveScreen(pack, app.state, schema, actions)
: turnScreen(pack, app.state, schema, app.view, actions);
const screen = app.view.screen === 'packs'
? packsScreen(packs, packsView(), actions)
: app.view.screen === 'retrospective'
? retrospectiveScreen(app.pack, app.state, app.schema, actions)
: turnScreen(app.pack, app.state, app.schema, app.view, actions);
fill(app.root, screen);
// After the screen is in the document, put the caret where the player most
// likely wants it. This is what makes the game playable on Enter alone.
focusMarked(app.root);
}
/**
* The picker's view of the world: which pack is current, and what is saved in
* each of the others. Reading every slot is cheap and means the screen can say
* "day 41, Dispatch Coordinator" rather than just "saved".
*/
function packsView() {
const runs = {};
for (const candidate of packs) {
const saved = candidate.id === app.pack?.id
? app.state
: loadLocal(candidate.id);
if (saved) runs[candidate.id] = { turn: saved.turn, stage: saved.stage };
}
return { currentPackId: app.pack?.id ?? null, runs, canGoBack: app.state !== null };
}
const actions = {
onChoose(optionId) {
const option = findOptionById(app.view.turn.event, optionId);
const { state, record } = takeTurn(pack, app.state, optionId);
const { state, record } = takeTurn(app.pack, app.state, optionId);
app.state = state;
saveLocal(state);
saveLocal(app.pack.id, state);
const entry = logTurn(record, state, pack);
const entry = logTurn(record, state, app.pack);
app.view = {
screen: 'turn',
phase: 'outcome',
@@ -120,14 +144,37 @@ const actions = {
onNewGame() {
const played = app.state?.history?.length ?? 0;
if (played > 0 && !confirm(
`This ends the current run at ${pack.turnUnit} ${app.state.turn}. ` +
`This ends the current run at ${app.pack.turnUnit} ${app.state.turn}. ` +
'Export a save first if you want to keep it. Start a new game?',
)) return;
flushFeedback();
app.state = startGame(pack, { seed: String(Date.now()), schema, now: new Date().toISOString() });
clearLocal();
saveLocal(app.state);
app.view = choosingView();
clearLocal(app.pack.id);
beginRun(app.pack);
render();
},
/** Open the setting picker. */
onPacks() {
flushFeedback();
app.view = { ...(app.view ?? {}), screen: 'packs' };
render();
},
/**
* Switch settings. The run you are leaving has already been written to its
* own slot every turn, so this is not destructive in either direction — and
* coming back to a pack resumes it rather than restarting it.
*/
onChoosePack(packId) {
const chosen = packById(packId);
if (!chosen) return;
flushFeedback();
if (chosen.id === app.pack?.id) {
app.view = choosingView();
render();
return;
}
if (!enterPack(chosen)) return;
render();
},
@@ -143,9 +190,9 @@ const actions = {
const file = input.files?.[0];
if (!file) return;
try {
const state = parseSave(await readFile(file), pack.id);
const state = parseSave(await readFile(file), app.pack.id);
app.state = state;
saveLocal(state);
saveLocal(app.pack.id, state);
app.view = choosingView();
render();
} catch (error) {
@@ -194,30 +241,73 @@ function flushFeedback() {
});
}
export function boot(rootElement) {
/**
* Make `pack` the current setting: validate it, adopt its schema, and either
* resume its saved run or start one. Returns false when the pack will not
* load, having already put the error on screen.
*/
function enterPack(pack) {
const validation = validatePack(pack);
if (!validation.valid) {
fill(rootElement, errorScreen(validation.errors));
return;
fill(app.root, errorScreen(pack, validation.errors));
return false;
}
for (const warning of validation.warnings) console.warn(`[content] ${warning}`);
for (const warning of validation.warnings) console.warn(`[content ${pack.id}] ${warning}`);
app.pack = pack;
app.schema = resolveSchema(pack);
rememberPack(pack.id);
const restored = loadLocal(pack.id);
// The packId check is belt and braces now that slots are per pack, but an
// imported or hand-edited save can still carry the wrong name.
if (restored && restored.meta?.packId === pack.id) {
app.state = restored;
app.view = choosingView();
} else {
beginRun(pack);
}
return true;
}
/** A fresh run in `pack`, written to that pack's slot. */
function beginRun(pack) {
app.state = startGame(pack, {
seed: String(Date.now()),
schema: app.schema,
now: new Date().toISOString(),
});
saveLocal(pack.id, app.state);
app.view = choosingView();
}
export function boot(rootElement) {
app.root = rootElement;
if (!storageAvailable()) {
console.warn('[save] local storage is unavailable; progress will not persist. Use Export save.');
}
app.root = rootElement;
const restored = loadLocal();
app.state = restored && restored.meta?.packId === pack.id
? restored
: startGame(pack, { seed: String(Date.now()), schema, now: new Date().toISOString() });
app.view = choosingView();
render();
// Land a returning player back where they were. A first-time player with
// more than one setting to choose from gets the picker as the front door
// rather than being dropped into whichever pack happens to be first.
const remembered = packById(lastPlayed() ?? '');
const anySaved = packs.some((pack) => loadLocal(pack.id) !== null);
if (!remembered && !anySaved && packs.length > 1) {
app.view = { screen: 'packs' };
render();
} else if (!enterPack(remembered ?? defaultPack)) {
return;
} else {
render();
}
// Anything half-typed survives a tab close.
window.addEventListener('beforeunload', flushFeedback);
}
function errorScreen(errors) {
function errorScreen(pack, errors) {
const list = document.createElement('ul');
for (const error of errors) {
const item = document.createElement('li');
@@ -227,7 +317,7 @@ function errorScreen(errors) {
const wrapper = document.createElement('div');
wrapper.className = 'screen screen--error';
const heading = document.createElement('h1');
heading.textContent = 'This content pack will not load.';
heading.textContent = `"${pack.name ?? pack.id}" will not load.`;
wrapper.append(heading, list);
return wrapper;
}
src/ui/screens/packs.js
+64
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
// Choosing a setting.
//
// A setting is a content pack, and this screen is the whole of the interface's
// knowledge about there being more than one: it reads `name`, `blurb` and the
// stage titles off each pack and knows nothing else about any of them. Adding
// a third pack changes this file not at all.
//
// Each pack keeps its own save slot, so switching is not destructive and the
// screen says so — a run in progress is reported with the turn it is on.
import { h } from '../dom.js';
export function packsScreen(packs, { currentPackId, runs, canGoBack }, actions) {
return h('div', { class: 'screen screen--packs' },
h('header', { class: 'packs__head' },
h('p', { class: 'packs__eyebrow' }, 'The Ladder'),
h('h1', { class: 'packs__title' }, 'Choose a setting'),
h('p', { class: 'packs__subtitle' },
'The same game underneath. Each setting keeps its own run, so you can ' +
'move between them without losing either.'),
),
h('ul', { class: 'packs__list' },
packs.map((pack, index) => {
const run = runs[pack.id];
const current = pack.id === currentPackId;
return h('li', { class: `packs__item${current ? ' packs__item--current' : ''}` },
h('h2', { class: 'packs__name' }, pack.name),
pack.blurb && h('p', { class: 'packs__blurb' }, pack.blurb),
h('p', { class: 'packs__state' }, runLine(pack, run, current)),
h('button', {
class: current ? 'button' : 'button button--quiet',
// The setting the player is already in, or failing that the first
// one, is what Enter takes — the same keyboard contract as
// everywhere else.
dataset: (current || (!currentPackId && index === 0)) ? { autofocus: 'true' } : undefined,
onClick: () => actions.onChoosePack(pack.id),
}, buttonLabel(run, current)),
);
}),
),
canGoBack && h('footer', { class: 'controls' },
h('button', { class: 'button button--quiet', onClick: actions.onResume }, 'Back'),
),
);
}
function runLine(pack, run, current) {
const unit = pack.turnUnit ?? 'turn';
if (!run) return 'Not started.';
const title = pack.stages?.[run.stage]?.title ?? run.stage;
const where = `${capitalize(unit)} ${run.turn}, ${title}`;
return current ? `${where} — where you are now.` : `${where}, saved.`;
}
function buttonLabel(run, current) {
if (current) return 'Keep playing';
return run ? 'Go back to this run' : 'Start here';
}
const capitalize = (word) => word.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + word.slice(1);
export default packsScreen;
src/ui/screens/turn.js
+2 -1
View File
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ export function turnScreen(pack, state, schema, view, actions) {
: choosingView(pack, view, actions),
),
h('aside', { class: 'people' },
h('h2', { class: 'people__heading' }, 'The mailroom'),
h('h2', { class: 'people__heading' }, pack.peopleHeading ?? 'The people'),
(pack.characters ?? []).map((character) => characterCard(pack, state, schema, character)),
),
),
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ export function turnScreen(pack, state, schema, view, actions) {
h('button', { class: 'button button--quiet', onClick: actions.onExportFeedback },
'Export feedback log'),
h('button', { class: 'button button--quiet', onClick: actions.onNewGame }, 'New game'),
h('button', { class: 'button button--quiet', onClick: actions.onPacks }, 'Change setting'),
),
);
}
src/ui/styles.css
+29
View File
@@ -308,3 +308,32 @@ body {
.screen--error { padding: 40px 0; }
.screen--error h1 { font-size: 20px; color: var(--down); }
/* The setting picker. One card per content pack; the pack you are in is
marked rather than hidden, because "keep playing" is the common case. */
.screen--packs { padding: 40px 0; }
.packs__eyebrow {
margin: 0; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0.14em;
text-transform: uppercase; color: var(--ink-faint);
}
.packs__title { margin: 6px 0 6px; font-size: 32px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.02em; }
.packs__subtitle {
margin: 0 0 28px; max-width: 52ch;
color: var(--ink-soft); font-family: var(--serif); font-size: 17px;
}
.packs__list {
list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;
display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(280px, 1fr)); gap: 16px;
}
.packs__item {
padding: 18px 18px 16px; background: var(--card);
border: 1px solid var(--rule); border-radius: var(--radius);
display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 8px;
}
.packs__item--current { border-color: var(--accent); }
.packs__name { margin: 0; font-size: 19px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.01em; }
.packs__blurb { margin: 0; color: var(--ink-soft); font-family: var(--serif); font-size: 16px; }
.packs__state {
margin: 0 0 4px; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: var(--ink-faint);
}
.packs__item .button { margin-top: auto; align-self: flex-start; }
test/build.test.js
+12
View File
@@ -36,6 +36,18 @@ test('the bundle builds, and the bundled game boots and plays', () => {
// eslint-disable-next-line no-new-func -- running the build output is the point
new Function(script)();
// Nothing is saved and nothing is remembered, so a build shipping more
// than one setting opens on the picker. Click into the first one and carry
// on — this exercises the front door in the real bundle, which is the one
// place the pack registry, the picker screen and the save slots all meet.
assert.ok(firstByClass(dom.root, 'screen--packs'), 'the bundled game rendered the picker');
assert.match(dom.root.textContent, /Corporate Ladder/, 'the packs are named');
assert.match(dom.root.textContent, /The Frontier/);
const start = byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Start here|Keep playing/.test(b.textContent));
assert.ok(start, 'the picker offers a way in');
start.click();
assert.ok(firstByClass(dom.root, 'screen--turn'), 'the bundled game rendered a turn');
assert.match(dom.root.textContent, /Day 1/);
assert.match(dom.root.textContent, /Marlene Hobb/);
test/conformance.test.js
+267
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,267 @@
// What every content pack must do, whatever setting it is.
//
// This suite runs over `content/index.js` — every pack the build ships — and
// asserts only things that are true of a pack because it is a pack, never
// because it is about a mailroom or a freight yard. A new setting is therefore
// tested the moment it appears in the registry, rather than by copying this
// file and changing the nouns.
//
// Per-pack tuning lives with the pack: content.test.js and frontier.test.js
// hold each one to its own economy, its own promotion and its own characters.
// Anything a pack must declare for this suite to check it — the economic
// baseline, for one — is a field on the pack, not a constant in here.
//
// One trap, learned the hard way: the chooser's RNG must be seeded
// *differently* from the game's. Both draw one number per turn from the same
// generator, so sharing a seed correlates the choice index with the event draw
// and silently makes whole option combinations unreachable.
import { test } from 'node:test';
import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
import { packs } from '../content/index.js';
import { validatePack } from '../src/engine/validate.js';
import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../src/engine/game.js';
import { createRng } from '../src/engine/rng.js';
import { play, sweep, median, strategies } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
import { summarize } from '../src/ui/summary.js';
/** Play `turns` turns of `pack` with independently-seeded random choices. */
function randomRun(pack, runSeed, turns) {
const rng = createRng(`chooser-${runSeed}`);
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `run-${runSeed}` });
for (let t = 0; t < turns; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
assert.ok(available.length > 0,
`${pack.id}: no available option on event "${turn.event.id}"`);
state = takeTurn(pack, state, rng.pick(available).option.id).state;
}
return state;
}
/**
* Net movement of `money` from upkeep alone, per calendar cycle, at one stage.
*
* Derived rather than simulated: an entry worth `v` every `n` turns is worth
* `v * cycleLength / n` per cycle, exactly, with no window to fall off the end
* of. Simulating this over a fixed number of turns reads differently depending
* on where the last rent lands — Corporate Ladder measures -19 a fortnight over
* 280 turns and -42 over 560, and only one of those is the steady state.
*
* Entries gated on a debt path are excluded: the baseline is what a player
* faces owing nothing, which is the floor the pack is designed around.
*/
function baselinePerCycle(pack, stage) {
const cycle = pack.calendar?.cycleLength ?? 1;
const debtish = (path) => /debt|owed|loan/i.test(path);
return (pack.upkeep ?? [])
.filter((entry) => {
const gate = entry.requires ?? [];
if (gate.some((c) => debtish(c.path))) return false;
return !gate.some((c) => c.path === 'stage' && c.value !== stage);
})
.reduce((total, entry) => {
const money = entry.effects
.filter((e) => e.path === 'money' && e.op === 'add')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
return total + money * (cycle / (entry.every ?? 1));
}, 0);
}
for (const pack of packs) {
const where = `[${pack.id}]`;
test(`${where} the pack is valid, with no warnings`, () => {
const result = validatePack(pack);
assert.deepEqual(result.errors, []);
assert.deepEqual(result.warnings, []);
});
test(`${where} declares what the interface and this suite need from it`, () => {
// Everything the picker shows and everything asserted below. A pack that
// omits one of these is not a broken game, but it is a pack that will
// render badly or go unchecked, and both should fail loudly at build time.
assert.ok(pack.name, 'a display name');
assert.ok(pack.blurb, 'a one-line blurb for the setting picker');
assert.ok(pack.peopleHeading, 'a heading for the panel of characters');
assert.ok(pack.stages && Object.keys(pack.stages).length > 0, 'named stages');
assert.ok(pack.tuning?.baselinePerCycle, 'a declared economic baseline');
for (const stage of Object.keys(pack.stages)) {
assert.ok(pack.stages[stage].title, `a title for stage "${stage}"`);
assert.ok(pack.tuning.baselinePerCycle[stage], `a baseline for stage "${stage}"`);
}
});
test(`${where} no content is dead: every event fires and every option becomes available`, () => {
// Across archetypes, not just random play: several things in a pack exist
// for a player pursuing something, and "broke but well-liked" in
// particular is a state no single-axis strategy ever reaches.
//
// Options are checked on *availability*, not on being taken. Whether a
// particular bot picks an option is an artefact of how the bot scores;
// what matters is whether a player is ever offered it unlocked.
const { firedEvents, offeredOptions } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 250 });
const allEvents = pack.events.map((e) => e.id);
const allOptions = pack.events.flatMap((e) => e.options.map((o) => `${e.id}.${o.id}`));
assert.deepEqual(allEvents.filter((e) => !firedEvents.has(e)), [],
'events that can never fire');
assert.deepEqual(allOptions.filter((o) => !offeredOptions.has(o)), [],
'options no player can ever be offered');
});
test(`${where} every event leaves a player with nothing at least one way out`, () => {
// A player with no skills, no money and no friends must still be able to
// take a turn. The engine guarantees an event will be drawn; only content
// can guarantee it is playable when everything is gated.
const trapped = pack.events
.filter((event) => !(event.options ?? []).some((option) => !option.requires))
.map((event) => event.id);
assert.deepEqual(trapped, [], 'events whose every option is gated');
});
test(`${where} every turn always offers something to do, however badly it is going`, () => {
for (let seed = 100; seed < 130; seed++) randomRun(pack, seed, 150);
});
test(`${where} a played run replays identically from its seed`, () => {
assert.deepEqual(randomRun(pack, 42, 80), randomRun(pack, 42, 80));
});
test(`${where} how you play changes where you end up`, () => {
// Measured before promotions land, so this is about how a player handles
// money rather than how fast they left the first rung. Mixing the two
// hides the economy behind the career.
const { byStrategy } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 35 });
const finalMoney = (name) => median(byStrategy[name].map((s) => s.money));
assert.ok(byStrategy.thrifty.every((s) => s.stage === pack.startingStage),
'nobody should be promoted this early');
assert.ok(finalMoney('thrifty') > finalMoney('random'),
'a careful player should get ahead');
assert.ok(finalMoney('random') > finalMoney('spendthrift'),
'a careless player should struggle');
});
test(`${where} the upkeep baseline matches what the pack declares`, () => {
// The guard that was missing when Corporate Ladder's rent was raised from
// 385 to 455 without re-deriving what it meant: the baseline went from
// -$3/day to -$13/day and trapped a real playtester below zero for 30% of
// a 182-turn run. No archetype caught it — they all either optimised money
// or were promoted out of the problem before it bit.
for (const [stage, [low, high]] of Object.entries(pack.tuning.baselinePerCycle)) {
const net = baselinePerCycle(pack, stage);
assert.ok(net > low && net < high,
`"${stage}" nets ${net} a cycle; the pack declares (${low}, ${high})`);
}
});
test(`${where} nobody spends the run stuck below zero`, () => {
// Hard times is a state a player passes through, not one they live in.
// The failure this guards against is a debt whose service charge exceeds
// anything the escape options can pay — inescapable by arithmetic.
for (const strategy of Object.keys(strategies)) {
const shares = [];
for (let seed = 0; seed < 8; seed++) {
let red = 0;
let turns = 0;
play(pack, { strategy, seed, turns: 150,
visit: ({ state }) => { turns++; if (state.money < 0) red++; } });
shares.push(red / turns);
}
const worst = Math.max(...shares);
assert.ok(worst < 0.25,
`${strategy} spent ${(worst * 100).toFixed(0)}% of a run below zero`);
}
});
test(`${where} a run that goes broke can climb back out`, () => {
let sawNegative = false;
let recovered = false;
play(pack, { strategy: 'spendthrift', seed: 'recovery', turns: 200,
visit: ({ state }) => {
if (state.money < 0) sawNegative = true;
else if (sawNegative) recovered = true;
} });
assert.ok(sawNegative, 'a careless run should go broke');
assert.ok(recovered, 'and should be able to climb back out');
});
test(`${where} a long run does not collapse onto a handful of situations`, () => {
// Motivated by a real 183-turn session. Before Dispatch was fleshed out,
// its two floor events were 46% of every promoted run — one every three
// turns. Variety is a property of the pack, and this should fail loudly
// when a stage is too thin for the run it invites.
for (const strategy of ['sociable', 'thrifty', 'random']) {
const counts = new Map();
let turns = 0;
play(pack, { strategy, seed: 'variety', turns: 200,
visit: ({ turn }) => {
counts.set(turn.event.id, (counts.get(turn.event.id) ?? 0) + 1);
turns++;
} });
const [topEvent, topCount] = [...counts.entries()].sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1])[0];
const share = topCount / turns;
assert.ok(share < 0.25,
`${strategy}: "${topEvent}" was ${(share * 100).toFixed(0)}% of turns`);
// Measured against what was actually reachable: a run that never leaves
// the first stage cannot see the second, and counting that as thin
// content would be measuring career progress rather than variety.
const visited = new Set([...counts.keys()]
.map((id) => pack.events.find((e) => e.id === id).stage)
.filter(Boolean));
const reachable = pack.events
.filter((e) => e.stage === undefined || visited.has(e.stage)).length;
assert.ok(counts.size / reachable > 0.6,
`${strategy}: saw ${counts.size} of ${reachable} reachable situations in ${turns} turns`);
}
});
test(`${where} the retrospective has something to read back`, () => {
const state = randomRun(pack, 3, 60);
assert.ok(state.notable.length > 0, 'notable moments should accumulate');
assert.equal(state.history.length, 60, 'every turn is recorded');
assert.ok(state.history.every((h) => Array.isArray(h.upkeep)), 'upkeep is recorded per turn');
});
test(`${where} the retrospective reports how repetitive the run was`, () => {
const state = play(pack, { strategy: 'sociable', seed: 'repeats', turns: 120 });
const summary = summarize(pack, state);
assert.equal(summary.turns, 120);
assert.ok(summary.eventsSeen > 0 && summary.eventsSeen <= summary.eventsTotal);
assert.ok(summary.averageTimesSeen > 1, 'a long run repeats situations');
assert.equal(
summary.averageTimesSeen.toFixed(2),
(summary.turns / summary.eventsSeen).toFixed(2),
'the average is turns over distinct situations',
);
assert.ok(summary.mostSeen.count >= summary.averageTimesSeen);
assert.ok(summary.repeatedSituations <= summary.eventsSeen);
assert.ok(summary.stagesVisited.includes(pack.startingStage));
});
if (pack.calendar) {
test(`${where} the calendar names the unit and counts the cycle`, () => {
const { cycleLength, unitNames } = pack.calendar;
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: 'calendar' });
assert.deepEqual(
[state.calendar.name, state.calendar.cycle, state.calendar.index],
[unitNames?.[0] ?? null, 1, 0],
'turn 1 is the first unit of the first cycle',
);
// One full cycle on, the name comes round and the cycle has ticked.
for (let t = 0; t < cycleLength; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
state = takeTurn(pack, state, turn.options.find((o) => o.available).option.id).state;
}
assert.equal(state.turn, cycleLength + 1);
assert.deepEqual(
[state.calendar.name, state.calendar.cycle, state.calendar.index],
[unitNames?.[0] ?? null, 2, 0],
);
});
}
}
test/content.test.js
+10 -206
View File
@@ -1,9 +1,13 @@
// Tests for the shipped Corporate Ladder pack.
// Corporate Ladder's own tuning.
//
// These are content tests, not engine tests: they assert that the pack is
// playable, that none of it is dead, and that its economy behaves. Engine
// behaviour is covered against the fixture pack instead, so tuning the game
// cannot break the engine suite and vice versa.
// What is true of this pack because it is *this* pack: the shape of its week,
// when wages and rent land, how the loan behaves, when Dispatch opens and how
// deep the Trevor chain is. Everything true of a pack because it is a pack —
// validity, dead content, the economic baseline, variety, replay — is in
// conformance.test.js, which runs over every pack in the registry.
//
// Engine behaviour is covered against the fixture pack instead, so tuning the
// game cannot break the engine suite and vice versa.
//
// One trap, learned the hard way: the chooser's RNG must be seeded
// *differently* from the game's. Both draw one number per turn from the same
@@ -14,65 +18,8 @@
import { test } from 'node:test';
import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
import { corporateLadder as pack } from '../content/corporateladder/index.js';
import { validatePack } from '../src/engine/validate.js';
import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../src/engine/game.js';
import { createRng } from '../src/engine/rng.js';
import { play, sweep, median, strategies } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
import { summarize } from '../src/ui/summary.js';
/** Play `turns` turns with independently-seeded random choices. */
function randomRun(runSeed, turns, visit = () => {}) {
const rng = createRng(`chooser-${runSeed}`);
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `run-${runSeed}` });
for (let t = 0; t < turns; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
assert.ok(available.length > 0, `no available option on event "${turn.event.id}"`);
const choice = rng.pick(available).option.id;
visit(turn, state, choice);
state = takeTurn(pack, state, choice).state;
}
return state;
}
test('the pack is valid, with no warnings', () => {
const result = validatePack(pack);
assert.deepEqual(result.errors, []);
assert.deepEqual(result.warnings, []);
});
test('no content is dead: every event fires and every option becomes available', () => {
// Across archetypes, not just random play: several things in the pack exist
// for a player pursuing something, and "broke but well-liked" in particular
// is a state no single-axis strategy ever reaches.
//
// Options are checked on *availability*, not on being taken. Whether a
// particular bot picks an option is an artefact of how the bot scores; what
// matters is whether a player is ever offered it unlocked.
const { firedEvents, offeredOptions } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 250 });
const allEvents = pack.events.map((e) => e.id);
const allOptions = pack.events.flatMap((e) => e.options.map((o) => `${e.id}.${o.id}`));
assert.deepEqual(allEvents.filter((e) => !firedEvents.has(e)), [], 'events that can never fire');
assert.deepEqual(allOptions.filter((o) => !offeredOptions.has(o)), [],
'options no player can ever be offered');
});
test('how you play changes where you end up', () => {
// Measured before promotions land, so this is about how a player handles
// money rather than about how fast they got out of the mailroom. Mixing the
// two hides the economy behind the career.
const { byStrategy } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 35 });
const finalMoney = (name) => median(byStrategy[name].map((s) => s.money));
assert.ok(byStrategy.thrifty.every((s) => s.stage === 'mailroom'),
'nobody should be promoted this early');
// The shape that matters: minding the money climbs, ignoring it sinks, and
// playing without a plan roughly treads water. Exact figures move with
// tuning; the ordering is the design.
assert.ok(finalMoney('thrifty') > finalMoney('random'), 'a careful player should get ahead');
assert.ok(finalMoney('random') > finalMoney('spendthrift'), 'a careless player should struggle');
});
import { play, sweep, median } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
test('the promotion is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () => {
const { byStrategy } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 200 });
@@ -108,11 +55,6 @@ test('hard times is uncommon for a careful player and real for a careless one',
assert.ok(countHardTimes('spendthrift') > 0, 'ignoring it should land you in it');
});
test('every turn always offers something to do, however badly the run is going', () => {
// randomRun asserts this on every turn; 40 long runs is the coverage.
for (let seed = 100; seed < 140; seed++) randomRun(seed, 150);
});
test('money arrives and leaves on a rhythm the player can plan around', () => {
const wages = [];
const rent = [];
@@ -145,24 +87,6 @@ test('the calendar names the day and counts the week', () => {
assert.deepEqual([state.calendar.name, state.calendar.cycle], ['Friday', 2]);
});
test('hard times is survivable without any relationship or skill', () => {
const event = pack.events.find((e) => e.id === 'rent_bounced');
const ungated = event.options.filter((o) => !o.requires);
assert.ok(ungated.length > 0, 'a player with nothing must still have a way out');
});
test('the run recovers from hard times rather than sticking there', () => {
let sawNegative = false;
let recovered = false;
play(pack, { strategy: 'spendthrift', seed: 'recovery', turns: 200,
visit: ({ state }) => {
if (state.money < 0) sawNegative = true;
else if (sawNegative) recovered = true;
} });
assert.ok(sawNegative, 'a careless run should go broke');
assert.ok(recovered, 'and should be able to climb back out');
});
test('debt cannot spiral without limit: lending stops and the charge escalates', () => {
let peakDebt = 0;
for (const strategy of ['spendthrift', 'desperate', 'random']) {
@@ -197,123 +121,3 @@ test('a deliberate player can reach relationship-gated content in a reasonable r
assert.ok(reached && reached < 45, `Trevor's chain opened at turn ${reached ?? 'never'}`);
});
test('a played run replays identically from its seed', () => {
const a = randomRun(42, 80);
const b = randomRun(42, 80);
assert.deepEqual(a, b);
});
test('the retrospective has something to read back', () => {
const state = randomRun(3, 60);
assert.ok(state.notable.length > 0, 'notable moments should accumulate');
assert.equal(state.history.length, 60, 'every turn is recorded');
assert.ok(state.history.every((h) => Array.isArray(h.upkeep)), 'upkeep is recorded per turn');
});
test('a long run does not collapse onto a handful of situations', () => {
// Motivated by a real 183-turn session. Before Dispatch was fleshed out, its
// two floor events were 46% of every promoted run — one every three turns.
// This is the guardrail on that: variety is a property of the pack, and it
// should fail loudly when a stage is too thin for the run it invites.
for (const strategy of ['sociable', 'thrifty', 'random']) {
const counts = new Map();
let turns = 0;
play(pack, { strategy, seed: 'variety', turns: 200,
visit: ({ turn }) => {
counts.set(turn.event.id, (counts.get(turn.event.id) ?? 0) + 1);
turns++;
} });
const [topEvent, topCount] = [...counts.entries()].sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1])[0];
const share = topCount / turns;
assert.ok(share < 0.25,
`${strategy}: "${topEvent}" was ${(share * 100).toFixed(0)}% of turns`);
// Measured against what was actually reachable: a run that never leaves
// the mailroom cannot see Dispatch, and counting that as thin content
// would be measuring career progress rather than variety.
const visited = new Set([...counts.keys()]
.map((id) => pack.events.find((e) => e.id === id).stage)
.filter(Boolean));
const reachable = pack.events
.filter((e) => e.stage === undefined || visited.has(e.stage)).length;
assert.ok(counts.size / reachable > 0.6,
`${strategy}: saw ${counts.size} of ${reachable} reachable situations in ${turns} turns`);
}
});
test('the retrospective reports how repetitive the run was', () => {
const state = play(pack, { strategy: 'sociable', seed: 'repeats', turns: 120 });
const summary = summarize(pack, state);
assert.equal(summary.turns, 120);
assert.ok(summary.eventsSeen > 0 && summary.eventsSeen <= summary.eventsTotal);
assert.ok(summary.averageTimesSeen > 1, 'a long run repeats situations');
assert.equal(
summary.averageTimesSeen.toFixed(2),
(summary.turns / summary.eventsSeen).toFixed(2),
'the average is turns over distinct situations',
);
assert.ok(summary.mostSeen.count >= summary.averageTimesSeen);
assert.ok(summary.repeatedSituations <= summary.eventsSeen);
assert.deepEqual(summary.stagesVisited, ['mailroom', 'dispatch'],
'the retrospective knows the career moved');
});
test('the mailroom baseline is a drift, not a bleed', () => {
// The guard that was missing. Rent was once raised from 385 to 455 without
// re-deriving this, which quietly took the baseline from -$3/day to -$13/day
// and trapped a real playtester below zero for 30% of a 182-turn session.
// Nothing caught it, because every archetype either optimised money or got
// promoted out of the problem.
// Averaged over many fortnights rather than measured on the first one: the
// opening turns sit before rent's offset, so a single early window sees one
// rent cheque where the steady state has two.
const FORTNIGHTS = 20;
const perFortnight = (stage) => {
let total = 0;
for (let turn = 1; turn <= 14 * FORTNIGHTS; turn++) {
for (const entry of pack.upkeep) {
const every = entry.every ?? 1;
const elapsed = turn - 1 - (entry.offset ?? 0);
if (elapsed < 0 || elapsed % every !== 0) continue;
// Baseline means no debt: only stage-gated entries count.
const gate = entry.requires ?? [];
if (gate.some((c) => c.path === 'debt')) continue;
if (gate.some((c) => c.path === 'stage' && c.value !== stage)) continue;
total += entry.effects
.filter((e) => e.path === 'money' && e.op === 'add')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
}
}
return Math.round(total / FORTNIGHTS);
};
const mailroom = perFortnight('mailroom');
assert.ok(mailroom > -90 && mailroom < 10,
`the mailroom fortnight nets ${mailroom}; it should be a small drift downward`);
const dispatch = perFortnight('dispatch');
assert.ok(dispatch > mailroom, 'the promotion should be worth having');
assert.ok(dispatch < 250, `Dispatch nets ${dispatch} a fortnight; money stops mattering above that`);
});
test('nobody spends the run stuck below zero', () => {
// Hard times is a state a player passes through, not one they live in. The
// failure this guards against is a debt whose weekly service charge exceeds
// anything the escape options can pay — inescapable by arithmetic, which is
// exactly what a real session hit.
for (const strategy of Object.keys(strategies)) {
const shares = [];
for (let seed = 0; seed < 8; seed++) {
let red = 0;
let turns = 0;
play(pack, { strategy, seed, turns: 150,
visit: ({ state }) => { turns++; if (state.money < 0) red++; } });
shares.push(red / turns);
}
const worst = Math.max(...shares);
assert.ok(worst < 0.25,
`${strategy} spent ${(worst * 100).toFixed(0)}% of a run below zero`);
}
});
test/frontier.test.js
+190
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,190 @@
// The Frontier's own tuning.
//
// What is true of this pack because it is *this* pack: a four-day run instead
// of a week, a settlement that barely covers the room, a store ledger rather
// than a loan, and when the star is offered. Everything true of a pack because
// it is a pack is in conformance.test.js, which runs over every pack in the
// registry — including this one.
import { test } from 'node:test';
import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
import { frontier as pack } from '../content/frontier/index.js';
import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../src/engine/game.js';
import { play, sweep, median } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
test('the calendar is a four-day run, not a week', () => {
// The point of this pack, structurally: the engine derives a cycle from
// whatever length the pack declares, and nothing anywhere assumes seven.
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: 'calendar' });
assert.deepEqual(
[state.calendar.name, state.calendar.cycle, state.calendar.index],
['Stage day', 1, 0],
);
const names = [];
for (let t = 0; t < 7; t++) {
names.push(state.calendar.name);
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
state = takeTurn(pack, state, turn.options.find((o) => o.available).option.id).state;
}
assert.deepEqual(names,
['Stage day', 'Haul', 'Yard', 'Rest', 'Stage day', 'Haul', 'Yard']);
assert.equal(state.calendar.cycle, 2, 'the second run has begun');
});
test('the settlement and the room land on the days the pack says', () => {
const settlement = [];
const room = [];
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: 'rhythm' });
for (let t = 0; t < 16; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const result = takeTurn(pack, state, turn.options.find((o) => o.available).option.id);
for (const change of result.record.upkeep) {
if (change.label === 'Settlement') settlement.push(state.turn);
if (change.label === 'Room at the Cordwood') room.push(state.turn);
}
state = result.state;
}
// The boarding house collects on the Rest day, the night before the outfit
// settles up on the Stage day. That ordering is the whole reason a hand is
// never quite ahead.
assert.deepEqual(room, [4, 8, 12, 16], 'the room is collected every Rest day');
assert.deepEqual(settlement, [5, 9, 13], 'the outfit settles up every Stage day');
});
test('the star is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () => {
const { byStrategy } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 200 });
const sworn = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'deputy');
const stayed = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'hand');
assert.ok(sworn.length > 0 && stayed.length > 0, 'both outcomes should occur');
assert.ok(median(sworn.map((s) => s.money)) > median(stayed.map((s) => s.money)),
'deputy pay should leave a player better off');
// The yard is a career, not a tutorial: the offer is gated at turn 40 and
// should land somewhere in the middle of a run rather than at the very end.
const timings = [];
for (let seed = 0; seed < 12; seed++) {
let at = null;
play(pack, { strategy: 'sociable', seed, turns: 200,
visit: ({ state }) => { if (state.stage === 'deputy' && at === null) at = state.turn; } });
if (at) timings.push(at);
}
assert.equal(timings.length, 12, 'a sociable player should always get the offer');
const typical = median(timings);
assert.ok(typical >= 41 && typical < 90, `the star landed at turn ${typical}`);
});
test('hard times is uncommon for a careful player and real for a careless one', () => {
const countHardTimes = (strategy) => {
let days = 0;
play(pack, { strategy, seed: 'ht', turns: 200,
visit: ({ turn }) => { if (turn.event.id === 'store_cut_off') days++; } });
return days;
};
assert.equal(countHardTimes('thrifty'), 0, 'minding the money should keep you out of the book');
assert.ok(countHardTimes('spendthrift') > 0, 'ignoring it should land you in it');
});
test('the store ledger cannot spiral without limit', () => {
let peak = 0;
for (const strategy of ['spendthrift', 'desperate', 'random']) {
for (let seed = 0; seed < 12; seed++) {
play(pack, { strategy, seed, turns: 200,
visit: ({ state }) => { peak = Math.max(peak, state.owed); } });
}
}
// He stops carrying you at 120 and the largest single line is 32, so 152
// plus a few stalled charges is the ceiling. Well above that means the gate
// has stopped working.
assert.ok(peak <= 220, `the ledger reached ${peak}; the credit ceiling is not holding`);
const charges = pack.upkeep.filter((u) => u.label?.startsWith('Store credit'));
assert.ok(charges.length >= 3, 'the charge should step up as the ledger grows');
});
test('a skill gate is never gated behind itself', () => {
// The lesson Corporate Ladder's logs taught, applied here as a rule rather
// than as a hope. Four of its options need negotiation 15 and several of its
// largest negotiation gains sit behind that same gate, so a player who is
// not deliberately chasing the skill bounces off the wall for thirty turns.
//
// The structural property that prevents it: for every skill threshold in the
// pack, the growth available *without* passing that threshold must be able
// to reach it, and repeatably — a single one-off award is not a route.
const gates = new Map();
for (const event of pack.events) {
for (const option of event.options ?? []) {
for (const requirement of option.requires ?? []) {
if (!requirement.path.startsWith('skills.')) continue;
const highest = gates.get(requirement.path) ?? 0;
gates.set(requirement.path, Math.max(highest, requirement.value));
}
}
}
assert.ok(gates.size > 0, 'the pack should gate something on a skill');
for (const [path, highest] of gates) {
const start = pack.state[path].initial;
let repeatable = 0;
for (const event of pack.events) {
if (event.once) continue;
for (const option of event.options ?? []) {
// Ungated on this skill: a route a player has open from turn one.
if ((option.requires ?? []).some((r) => r.path === path)) continue;
const gain = (option.effects ?? [])
.filter((e) => e.path === path && e.op === 'add')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
if (gain > 0) repeatable += gain;
}
}
assert.ok(start + repeatable > highest,
`${path} tops out at ${highest}, but only ${repeatable} is reachable without it`);
}
});
test('a player who wants a skill does not wait long for the first door', () => {
// Measured rather than assumed: a player steering for a skill should be
// through its lowest gate inside the first two runs of the stage.
const firstGate = 12;
for (const path of ['skills.nerve', 'skills.trade']) {
const gain = (o) => (o.option.effects ?? [])
.filter((e) => e.path === path && e.op === 'add')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
const times = [];
for (let seed = 0; seed < 12; seed++) {
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `gate-${seed}` });
let at = null;
for (let t = 0; t < 120 && at === null; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
const best = [...available].sort((a, b) => gain(b) - gain(a))[0];
state = takeTurn(pack, state, best.option.id).state;
const value = path.split('.').reduce((o, k) => o?.[k], state);
if (value >= firstGate) at = state.turn;
}
times.push(at ?? Infinity);
}
const typical = median(times);
assert.ok(typical <= 20,
`${path} reached ${firstGate} at turn ${typical}; the first door is too far off`);
}
});
test('a deliberate player can put Dutch in their debt', () => {
// The deepest relationship gate in the pack: `send_for_dutch` in the
// marshal's office needs a favour banked two rungs earlier.
const owed = (o) => (o.option.effects ?? [])
.filter((e) => e.path === 'relationships.dutch.owes_you')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: 'dutch' });
let reached = null;
for (let t = 0; t < 60 && reached === null; t++) {
if (state.relationships.dutch.owes_you >= 25) { reached = state.turn; break; }
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const best = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available).sort((a, b) => owed(b) - owed(a))[0];
state = takeTurn(pack, state, best.option.id).state;
}
assert.ok(reached && reached < 45, `Dutch's book opened at turn ${reached ?? 'never'}`);
});
test/ui.test.js
+115 -4
View File
@@ -10,9 +10,17 @@ import { test } from 'node:test';
import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
import { installFakeDom, byClass, firstByClass, byTag } from './fixtures/fake-dom.js';
/** Boot the app fresh against a clean fake DOM. */
async function boot() {
/**
* Boot the app fresh against a clean fake DOM.
*
* `pack` is written to the remembered-pack slot before booting, which is how a
* returning player lands back in a setting. Pass null to boot with nothing
* remembered and nothing saved, which is the first-time player who gets the
* setting picker instead of a turn.
*/
async function boot({ pack = 'corporateladder' } = {}) {
const dom = installFakeDom();
if (pack) dom.storage.setItem('theladder.pack.v1', pack);
// A fresh module instance per test: the app holds module-level state.
const { boot: bootApp } = await import(`../src/ui/app.js?t=${Math.random()}`);
bootApp(dom.root);
@@ -112,7 +120,7 @@ test('progress is written to local storage and restored on the next boot', async
enabledOptions(dom.root)[0].click();
firstByClass(dom.root, 'button--next').click();
const saved = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1'));
const saved = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1.corporateladder'));
assert.equal(saved.state.turn, 3);
// Boot again against the same storage: the run should resume, not restart.
@@ -142,7 +150,7 @@ test('every played turn is logged, separately from the save', async () => {
assert.ok(Array.isArray(entry.offered), 'the options offered are recorded');
assert.equal(entry.rating, null, 'feedback starts empty');
const save = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1'));
const save = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1.corporateladder'));
assert.equal(save.state.history.length, 3);
assert.ok(!JSON.stringify(save).includes('rating'), 'feedback is not mixed into the save');
} finally {
@@ -366,3 +374,106 @@ test('the ledger reads as English, and leaves bookkeeping out of it', async () =
dom.restore();
}
});
test('a first-time player is asked which setting to play', async () => {
// Nothing saved and nothing remembered: the front door is the picker rather
// than whichever pack happens to be first in the registry.
const dom = await boot({ pack: null });
try {
assert.ok(firstByClass(dom.root, 'screen--packs'), 'the picker rendered');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Corporate Ladder/);
assert.match(text(dom.root), /The Frontier/);
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Not started/, 'a pack with no run says so');
const start = byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Start here/.test(b.textContent));
assert.ok(start, 'the picker offers a way in');
start.click();
assert.ok(firstByClass(dom.root, 'screen--turn'), 'choosing a setting starts it');
} finally {
dom.restore();
}
});
test('switching settings keeps both runs', async () => {
// The defect this guards against: one global save slot, so the first switch
// silently threw the other career away.
const dom = await boot({ pack: 'corporateladder' });
try {
enabledOptions(dom.root)[0].click();
byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Next/.test(b.textContent))?.click();
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Day 2/, 'a turn was played in the first setting');
byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Change setting/.test(b.textContent)).click();
const toFrontier = byClass(dom.root, 'button')
.find((b) => /Start here|Go back to this run/.test(b.textContent));
toFrontier.click();
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Hollis Vane/, 'the second setting is running');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Day 1/, 'and it started fresh');
// Both slots are on disk, independently.
const corporate = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1.corporateladder'));
const frontier = JSON.parse(dom.storage.getItem('theladder.save.v1.frontier'));
assert.equal(corporate.state.turn, 2, 'the first run is still where it was');
assert.equal(frontier.state.turn, 1);
assert.equal(corporate.state.meta.packId, 'corporateladder');
assert.equal(frontier.state.meta.packId, 'frontier');
// And going back resumes rather than restarting.
byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Change setting/.test(b.textContent)).click();
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Day 2, Mail Associate I, saved/,
'the picker reports where the other run is');
byClass(dom.root, 'button').find((b) => /Go back to this run/.test(b.textContent)).click();
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Day 2/, 'the first career resumed where it was left');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Marlene Hobb/);
} finally {
dom.restore();
}
});
test('a run saved before settings were selectable is not lost', async () => {
// The old single slot, migrated on read. Someone mid-career when this
// shipped should find their career, not a new one.
const dom = installFakeDom();
try {
const { startGame } = await import('../src/engine/game.js');
const { corporateLadder } = await import('../content/corporateladder/index.js');
const legacy = startGame(corporateLadder, { seed: 'legacy' });
legacy.turn = 61;
dom.storage.setItem('theladder.save.v1',
JSON.stringify({ format: 1, savedAt: null, state: legacy }));
const { boot: bootApp } = await import(`../src/ui/app.js?t=${Math.random()}`);
bootApp(dom.root);
assert.ok(firstByClass(dom.root, 'screen--turn'), 'it booted into the run, not the picker');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Day 61/, 'the old career came back');
} finally {
dom.restore();
}
});
test('the header reads the second pack\'s display map, not the first\'s', async () => {
// `display` is a per-pack contract with the interface, and a typo in it is
// only visible at runtime. Corporate Ladder's version is covered above; this
// is the same assertion against a pack with entirely different stat names.
const dom = await boot({ pack: 'frontier' });
try {
const stats = text(firstByClass(dom.root, 'stats'));
assert.match(stats, /Money/);
assert.match(stats, /\$40/, 'money is formatted as money');
assert.match(stats, /Nerve/);
assert.match(stats, /Trade/);
assert.match(stats, /Standing/);
assert.doesNotMatch(stats, /Negotiation|Logistics/, 'no leakage from the other pack');
assert.doesNotMatch(stats, /Owed at the store/, 'the ledger is hidden while it is zero');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Cold Fork/, 'the people panel is named by the pack');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Hollis Vane/);
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Marshal Ward/);
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Hired Hand/, 'the stage title comes from the pack');
assert.match(text(dom.root), /Stage day/, 'and so does the name of the day');
} finally {
dom.restore();
}
});
tools/analyze-log.js
+30 -11
View File
@@ -210,19 +210,38 @@ async function main() {
return;
}
const runs = byRun(entries);
console.log(`${entries.length} turns logged across ${runs.size} run${runs.size === 1 ? '' : 's'} ` +
`(pack ${entries[0].pack_id} ${entries[0].pack_version ?? ''})`.trimEnd());
for (const [seed, run] of runs) {
const stages = [...new Set(run.map((e) => e.stage))];
console.log(` seed ${seed}: ${run.length} turns, ${stages.join(' → ')}`);
// One log can hold turns from more than one setting, and pooling them would
// put a mailroom and a freight yard in the same repetition table. The same
// rule as the run boundary in DECISIONS #30, a level up: every statistic
// here is per pack, and a log is not one sequence.
const byPack = new Map();
for (const entry of entries) {
const id = entry.pack_id ?? 'unknown';
if (!byPack.has(id)) byPack.set(id, []);
byPack.get(id).push(entry);
}
reportRepetition(runs);
reportChoices(entries);
reportGates(entries);
reportFeedback(entries);
console.log('');
if (byPack.size > 1) {
console.log(`${entries.length} turns logged across ${byPack.size} settings.`);
}
for (const [packId, packEntries] of byPack) {
const runs = byRun(packEntries);
console.log(
`${packEntries.length} turns logged across ${runs.size} run${runs.size === 1 ? '' : 's'} ` +
`(pack ${packId} ${packEntries[0].pack_version ?? ''})`.trimEnd(),
);
for (const [seed, run] of runs) {
const stages = [...new Set(run.map((e) => e.stage))];
console.log(` seed ${seed}: ${run.length} turns, ${stages.join(' → ')}`);
}
reportRepetition(runs);
reportChoices(packEntries);
reportGates(packEntries);
reportFeedback(packEntries);
console.log('');
}
}
main().catch((error) => {
tools/build.js
+5 -1
View File
@@ -79,7 +79,11 @@ async function collect(entryPath, seen = new Map()) {
const source = await readFile(entryPath, 'utf8');
seen.set(entryPath, null); // reserve the slot before recursing
const specifiers = [...source.matchAll(/^[ \t]*import\s.*?from\s*['"]([^'"]+)['"];?[ \t]*$/gm)]
// `[\s\S]*?` rather than `.*?`: a destructured import may be wrapped across
// several lines, and `transform` below already rewrites those — a scan that
// missed them produced a bundle with a __require for a module that was never
// collected, which only failed when the bundled game was run.
const specifiers = [...source.matchAll(/^[ \t]*import\s[\s\S]*?from\s*['"]([^'"]+)['"];?[ \t]*$/gm)]
.map((match) => match[1])
.filter((specifier) => specifier.startsWith('.'));