Cross-GDD Review Report

Date: 2026-08-27
Skill: /review-all-gdds (full mode)
GDDs reviewed: 5 full GDDs (tide-scheduler, combat-system, harvesting-system, crafting-system, base-building) + 8 quick-specs (netcode-session, camera, save-persistence, player-movement, inventory-hauling, land-dock-undock, enemy-ai, ui-hud) — all 13 MVP systems — plus game-concept.md, systems-index.md, and the entity registry
Pillars: 1 Tide Waits for No One · 2 Home Is the Fixed Point · 3 Made by Our Hands · 4 Scrappy Hands, Serious World · 5 Four Freedoms
Anti-pillars: not RTS · not treadmill MMO · not punishing survival sim (+ nothing happens offline) · not public live-service
Registry: populated (3 entities, 9 items, 12 formulas, 30 constants) — used as the Phase 2 conflict baseline
Verdict: FAIL at first pass (5 blocking items + 1 scenario blocker) → all six ruled and applied the same day → since-last-review: CONCERNS (see final sections; no blockers remain)

Consistency Issues

Blocking (must resolve before architecture begins)

🔴 C1 — Disconnect while Downed: body persists (Combat) vs. despawns (Netcode)

• combat-system.md Edge Case 2 + AC-41: "the Downed body persists host-side — the bleed-out timer keeps running, allies can still revive it… on reconnect the player resumes that entity in whatever state it is in."
• netcode-session-2026-08-27.md Rule 5 + AC-3: "their character despawns (no offline bodies — nothing simulates for the absent)… a rejoin after disconnect is simply a late join — no separate reconnect path exists."

Combat AC-41 and Netcode AC-3 cannot both pass. Netcode is the later document and declares its rails binding on every system, but never cites combat EC2. Also undefined under the despawn model: HP on rejoin (Save Rule 7's full-HP restore applies to load; combat EC2 says a live disconnect ≠ load, and its accepted "disconnect-to-heal" non-concern was reasoned against session restart, not a 30-second rejoin). One document must yield.

🔴 C2 — ItemStack = (itemId, count) cannot carry the maker's mark

• inventory-hauling-2026-08-26.md Rule 2: ItemStack = (itemId, count).
• crafting-system.md Rule 4: gear instance identity rides the stack as an opaque instanceTag ("⚑ proposed additive extension to Inventory's contract — flagged for its quick-spec"); AC-37 asserts the mark survives CARRY→STORAGE→CARRY and save/load.
• save-persistence-2026-08-26.md Rule 5 already assumes tags exist ("tag-without-row → mystery gear").
• Crafting OQ4 ("instanceTag additive extension — Inventory quick-spec sign-off") is still open; the Inventory quick-spec was never updated.

Two binding data contracts disagree on the stack shape. A one-line fix in Inventory, but architecture must not inherit the 2-tuple.

🔴 C3 — LDU's party-clock CI gate can never pass

land-dock-undock-2026-08-27.md Rule 7 / AC-5:

tripsPossible   = ⌊W / (2 × shoreToDeepSecs + bagFillSecs)⌋
partyClockRatio = totalSupply / (bagSlots × maxStack × harvesters × tripsPossible)  ≥ 1.0 at harvesters = 5

With W = 158,400 s (44 h), bagFillSecs = 90, and any plausible shoreToDeepSecs (~20 s at 6 u/s): tripsPossible ≈ 1,200, ratio ≈ 438 / (200 × 5 × 1200) ≈ 0.0004. The formula treats the entire 44-hour dock window as continuous harvesting time.

harvesting-system.md (Formulas → Scope honesty, CD C1) cites this rule as the authoritative party-scale protection: "at party scale, Pillar 1 is protected by the clock (travel time inside W)." It is not — by a factor of ~2,500. The gate needs a session-length term (e.g. sessionWindowSecs, ~2 h) in place of W, and harvesting's C1 claim needs restating: at party scale Pillar 1 is protected by real-life session scarcity, not by the dock window.

Warnings (should resolve, but won't block)

⚠️ W1 — Two grace windows for one transition

tide-scheduler.md Rule 9 / Edge Case 11 / Tuning Knobs: EvictionGrace 20 s — drift-out cosmetic, violet held, server-authoritative force-relocation of unresponsive clients at expiry. land-dock-undock Tuning Knobs: teardownGraceMs 500 ms — "delay between soft-close resolution and visual despawn." If LDU despawns at +0.5 s, tide's +20 s AFK relocation guarantee targets a land that no longer exists. LDU should cite EvictionGrace rather than own a second window. (~2-minute edit.)

⚠️ W2 — Durability event providers missing (Crafting OQ5 still open)

Crafting Rule 9 drains durability on swing landed and hit absorbed — both Combat events, both at MVP (wear states ship at MVP even though cloth has no mechanical loss). combat-system.md Dependencies "provides to Crafting" lists only the two hook signatures; harvesting-system.md likewise omits tool-swing events (Tier 1). Crafting flagged this as a bidirectional fix-pass item on 2026-08-26; neither doc has it.

⚠️ W3 — Home-island harvest nodes: banned, permitted, and unrepresentable

• harvesting-system.md Player Fantasy: "No safe, no-deadline resource tap may ever exist — every harvestable sits inside a docking window."
• Same doc, Rule 11 / AC-25: home-island nodes exist, "minor / shore-tier only."
• F4's HarvestDiff key is (epochIndex, socket, cycleIndex, nodeId) — a home node has no socket or cycleIndex, so its depletion either can't persist (an infinite regrowing tap) or can't be stored at all.
• crafting-system.md ("a first-session friend gears up from the beach") and base-building.md (bootstrap order "dock → harvest shore+mid") are ambiguous about whether the beach is home or the docked land.

Decide: no home nodes (delete Rule 11's clause and AC-25), or define their key and regrowth.

⚠️ W4 — moveSpeed ownership conflict

combat-system.md Tuning Knobs owns moveSpeed 6 u/s, safe 5–7. player-movement-2026-08-27.md Tuning Knobs owns moveSpeed 6 u/s, safe 5–8; Rule 7 claims the constant. design/registry/entities.yaml has two move_speed entries with different source: values. Combat's row should become "cited, not owned" (its own Interactions table already says Movement owns locomotion); the registry needs one entry.

⚠️ W5 — Dependency asymmetries

• BB ↔ Harvesting: BB's CI gates (AC-45/46) bind by name to harvesting's exported constants (lowEndPartyHaul, mixedHaulTimberPerSessionLow/High); harvesting names BB as "known consumer" in prose — but neither system's Dependencies table lists the other.
• Tide downstream table omits Crafting (craftedAtCycle consumer; crafting lists Tide as soft upstream) and Base Building (socket positions / depositPoint; BB lists Tide as soft upstream).
• BB ↔ Player Movement: movement Rule 4 cites BB AC-27 and Rule 6 registers BB Edge Case 21's snap event; BB's Dependencies tables have no Player Movement row.

⚠️ W6 — Stale references and status annotations (30-second edits)

• game-concept.md line 167: "Investment: the base, the gear you personally forged, your drifted skills" — skill-drift was cut 2026-08-25.
• combat-system.md Dependencies: "Player Movement quick-spec not yet written", "Crafting & Gear GDD pending", Netcode/UI "pending" — all exist. Combat OQ2 (dash/knockback at water edges) is answered by movement Rule 4 ("collision blocks, never damages; water is a hard edge") and can close.
• harvesting-system.md Dependencies: LDU "Quick-spec not yet written"; OQ5 (how carcass nodes spawn) is answered by LDU Rule 2 + Enemy AI Rule 10.
• tide-scheduler.md Dependencies: "none of the dependent GDDs exist yet."
• inventory-hauling-2026-08-26.md knob row: maxStack "Placeholder until Crafting locks per-item values" (locked 2026-08-26, registry entry superseded); Rule 1 "a host-authoritative shared container" (singular — BB now instantiates unbounded chests, each a SharedStorage).
• crafting-system.md F1 still calls stationPresent(tier); BB F3 split it into stationPresentExact / stationPresentAtLeast and requires each caller to name which.
• entities.yaml: rusher / spacer / bulwark referenced_by lack the Enemy AI quick-spec; cloth_garb_reinforced has no hooks line (see D1).

⚠️ W7 — "No mechanic branches on player count"

netcode-session Rule 3 states this as design law. combat-system.md Rule 9 makes Downed-vs-Dead depend on whether another living player is on the land; BB Edge Case 22's escape is social-only. Combat justifies its case explicitly; netcode's rule needs the carve-out (presence ≠ count) or it reads as a contradiction.

⚠️ W8 — "No tide replication exists"

netcode Rule 4 / AC-2 vs. tide-scheduler.md Rule 1: "the host replicates t (and its computed results) on join and on change." Both agree t is replicated and the host is authoritative; the wording conflict is whether derived booleans also travel. Pick one phrasing.

ℹ️ Info

• UI/HUD Rule 1's closed HUD list omits combat's host-confirmed damage numbers and harvesting's yield flyouts (each claims to be "the only numeric feedback") — clarify they are world-space, not screen-space HUD.
• The "equipped-tool/hotbar" HUD slot has nothing to hold at MVP (2 equipment slots, zero consumables, zero tools).
• Crafting Rule 3(b) needs a material→source-template mapping in data; no document names its owner.
• Harvesting Edge Case 6 calls its last-tick rule "deliberately inverted from combat Rule 13"; both docs actually agree (resolve < φ+W, discard ≥ φ+W) — the phrasing overstates the difference.

Game Design Issues

Blocking

🔴 D1 — The deep band has no MVP payoff: Reinforced Garb's DamageReduction is undefined

crafting-system.md F2 locks the cloth tier at DamageModifier 1.0 / DamageReduction 0.0 / HarvestModifier 1.0 — per tier, not per item. Cloth Garb, Reinforced (8 fiber + 3 sinew, "the deep-band reward: sinew gates the best cloth armor") is cloth tier; nothing anywhere gives it a different value (entities.yaml: cloth_garb has hooks: DamageReduction 0.0; cloth_garb_reinforced has no hooks line). Read literally it is mechanically identical to Cloth Garb.

Consequence across systems: sinew — harvesting's deep-band reward, Bulwark-guarded per Enemy AI Rule 9, "never in any structure" per BB — has a lifetime sink of 3 units per player for zero benefit. Harvesting's anchor fantasy ("a violet-lit vein deep inland… you swing anyway") and Enemy AI's entire risk gradient reward nothing at MVP.

Fix: give F2 a per-item override (e.g. reinforced DR ≈ 0.10), re-run combat's TTD check, register the hook in entities.yaml.

🔴 D2 — Fresh-world bootstrap: there is no unarmed strike, and the first weapon needs guarded timber

• Combat F1 draws weaponBaseDamage from "the equipped weapon"; the only defined value is the cloth sword's 28. No unarmed damage (or explicit "unarmed does 0") exists.
• Crafting: "no starting-inventory or pre-placed-structure system exists anywhere."
• The sword needs a workbench (BB); the workbench needs 10 timber; timber is mid-band-heavy (harvesting Rule 11: "Shore: fiber-heavy · Mid: timber-heavy"); Enemy AI Rule 9 puts 1–2 guards on every mid approach (guardDensityByBand mid = 1–2).
• Harvesting F1 mentions a "top-tier-to-bare-hands ratio," implying unarmed harvesting exists.

Session one of every world starts in undefined territory: either fists exist with no number, or a new group must clear guards with no weapon — contradicting BB's "base-up requires no inland risk, ever" and Pillar 5's first-session guarantee. Decide: define an unarmed baseline in Combat, or guarantee ≥10 shore-band timber with a 0-guard approach (Harvesting band skew + LDU template authoring rule + Enemy AI shore density).

Warnings

⚠️ D3 — MVP economy: every sink is one-time; the faucet recurs forever

Sinks: bootstrap 48 units + perimeter 200 timber + chests (8 fiber each, fully refundable). Sources: 438 units per docking, every ~3 days, regrown on recurrence. Repair is free, gear indestructible, no consumables, no bag upgrade. By session 3–4 fiber and timber are worthless; per D1, sinew is worthless from session one. BB's economy note and OQ11 accept this for BB; crafting OQ9 and BB's honesty clause accept the "home-facing dead zone." No document states the sum: the concept's core beat — "the bag going home is the point" — has no destination after base-up. Not a contradiction; a scoping fact the gate-check must read whole. Options (a design decision, not this review's): state the MVP playtest hypothesis as "≤4 sessions," or add one cheap recurring sink.

⚠️ D4 — Four of five headline fantasies are deferred past MVP

Crafting (maker's signature — "a Tier 1+ target"), Base Building (walls-as-memory — "Tier 1+"), Combat (weeks-long skill arc — "carried by Tier 1's roster"), Harvesting (discovery narrows to execution by ~session 4, OQ8). Each admission is honest in isolation; together they mean MVP validates the mechanical skeleton and the tide fantasy only. Pair with D3 when scoping the friend-group playtest's question.

⚠️ D5 — Tide legibility at MVP

game-concept.md MVP Definition defers "tide-clock visual polish" to Tier 1 (systems index row 14: Tide-Tint Render Pipeline, Tier 1). Harvesting's push-vs-bail is designed as "distance-from-shore and the land's tide-color state read as one glance"; tide's Player Fantasy is an amber horizon. At MVP the only tide readout is the compass glint (UI/HUD Rule 1). Confirm the glint alone makes the deadline legible enough that a missed vein reads as "I knew and pushed anyway," or pull a minimal single-channel tint forward — otherwise the harvesting fantasy's central test can't be run at MVP.

⚠️ D6 — Tier 1 curve (advisory)

Crafting's provisional ladder already breaks combat's 2–4-hit TTK band at bronze (owned by crafting OQ1); at iron (2.2) every MVP archetype dies in 1–2 hits. Cross-system note only: crafting AC-56 pins a provisional value (iron 2.2) as a pass/fail test.

Checked and clean

• Attention budget: ≈ 4 concurrent active systems during a deep push (combat, harvest swing, bag/bank decision, tide read + voice) — within the 3–4 comfort limit.
• Pillar alignment: every system maps to a pillar; no anti-pillar violations found. BB's placerHasExit Pillar 5 cost is CD-ruled and recorded.
• Player fantasy coherence: one identity (scrappy hauler-maker in a friend group) seen from five angles — no conflicts.
• Dominant-strategy watch items (dash-through, chest-carpeting) are already owned by combat OQ8 / BB OQ11.

Cross-System Scenario Issues

Scenarios walked: 6

• Fresh-world session one (bootstrap chain)
• Strike near a node with a Rusher closing
• Disconnect while Downed on a docked land, rejoin 30 s later
• φ+W with a Downed player, an enemy mid-windup, and a last-tick harvest
• Wall placement racing a craft draw and a chest demolish
• Reload mid-docking

Blockers

🔴 Strike near a node with a Rusher closing — Harvesting × Combat × Netcode

Trigger: strike input with a node in harvestRange and a hostile entering the arc.

• Harvesting Rule 6: client sends (nodeId, swingId) at windup start. Combat Rule 7: client sends (aimDirection, swingId).
• Harvesting Rule 2: "if a swing's test window contains both a live hostile and a node, the hit applies to the hostile" — the test window is the host's resolution instant — yet Rule 6's host resolution runs three gates (Docked, swingsRemaining, CanAdd) with no hostile check.
• Harvesting Rule 2 (H4): the windup tell "must visibly commit to its referent — node or enemy — before Active begins" (i.e. at intent time).
• Harvesting and Combat deliberately own separate windup/active constants (harvesting Rule 1).

Undefined: which message shape a strike sends; whether the referent is locked at windup or re-decided at resolution; which phase constants apply when the referent could flip. Both docs push the RPC shape to the netcode ADR, but when disambiguation is evaluated is a design rule nobody states.

🔴 Fresh-world session one → D2 (no unarmed strike; guarded timber before the first sword)

🔴 Disconnect while Downed, rejoin → C1 (persist vs. despawn; HP on rejoin undefined)

Warnings

⚠️ φ+W with a Downed player — Tide × Combat × LDU

Tide Rule 9 deposits everyone at depositPoint. Combat Rule 13: "arrives home still Downed, with the bleed-out timer running… if it expires they respawn normally, already home." Combat Edge Case 8: "Downed cannot exist at home — the home-island heal rule takes precedence and the player stabilizes." Combat Rule 6: HP restores to full while present at home. One tick after deposit the player's state is defined two ways, and the Rule 13 path lets a tide departure end in a Dead transition — brushing the "departure never converts to a death" invariant. Say explicitly whether home-heal applies to a deposited Downed body. The harvest and combat halves of this scenario are consistent (both resolve < φ+W, discard ≥ φ+W). W1's two teardown windows also land at this instant.

Info

• ℹ️ Wall placement racing a craft draw / chest demolish — fully covered by BB Edge Cases 1–6 and crafting Edge Case 2; the single-ordered-host-channel assumption is correctly flagged to the ADR by BB Edge Case 1.
• ℹ️ Reload mid-docking — enemies re-derive (Enemy AI Rule 7, accepted), harvest diffs persist, position on a still-docked land is unchanged; consistent across Save / LDU / Harvesting / Enemy AI.

GDDs Flagged for Revision

Verdict: FAIL

Five blocking items (C1, C2, C3, D1, D2) plus the strike-disambiguation scenario blocker must be resolved before /create-architecture. All six are narrow: two are one-paragraph rulings (C1, disambiguation timing), two are single-line contract edits (C2, plus a number for D1), one is a formula fix (C3), one is a design decision (D2). None reopens a locked rule.

Required actions before re-running

• Combat + Netcode: rule on Downed-disconnect (persist vs despawn) and rejoin HP; update combat EC2/AC-41 or netcode Rule 5/AC-3 to match. Add the "presence ≠ count" carve-out to netcode Rule 3.
• Inventory: add the opaque instanceTag to the ItemStack contract (closes crafting OQ4).
• LDU + Harvesting: replace W in the party-clock gate with a session-length term; restate harvesting's C1 party-scale claim honestly.
• Crafting: define Reinforced Garb's DamageReduction (per-item override on F2); register it; re-run combat's TTD check.
• Combat (+ Harvesting / LDU / Enemy AI as needed): define an unarmed strike, or guarantee a guard-free timber path for the first workbench.
• Harvesting: state when enemy-vs-node disambiguation is evaluated (intent or resolution) and what intent shape a strike sends; combat mirrors it.

Then re-run /review-all-gdds since-last-review.

Method note: Phases 2–4 were executed inline by the orchestrating session (all 13 documents fully loaded), not by parallel subagents — no context was lost to summarisation.

Rulings applied — 2026-08-27 (same session)

All six blockers were put to the user and resolved; edits applied the same day.

Not applied (warnings, still open): W1–W8, D3–D6, the Rule 13 vs EC8 home-deposit question, and the registry move_speed duplicate. Next: /review-all-gdds since-last-review to confirm the blockers are closed, then the warnings bundle.

Since-last-review pass — 2026-08-27 (same session)

Scope: the 8 edited docs + registry, checked against their untouched dependents (Save, Player Movement, Enemy AI, Tide, UI/HUD). Verdict: CONCERNS. All six blockers verified closed on both sides of each contract. Five residue references introduced by the changeset were found and fixed (harvesting Trip-texture note, AC-6, AC-13; crafting F3 itemValue + OQ1 clause (c); combat F4 unarmed contribution).

Warnings applied same session: W1 (LDU cites tide's EvictionGrace; teardownGraceMs retired), W2 (combat provides SwingLanded/DamageAbsorbed, harvesting provides HarvestSwingLanded Tier 1; crafting OQ5 resolved), W4 (combat moveSpeed row cited-not-owned; registry combat entry superseded), W5 (tide downstream rows for Crafting + BB; BB upstream rows for Harvesting + Player Movement; harvesting downstream row for BB), W6 (concept "drifted skills"; combat/harvesting/tide status strings; combat OQ2 + harvesting OQ5 resolved; inventory maxStack + plural containers; crafting F1 → stationPresentExact; registry entity referenced_by), W7 (netcode presence-vs-count carve-out), W8 (netcode tide-replication wording).

Still open (decisions): W3 home-island nodes; combat Rule 13 vs Edge Case 8 (deposited-Downed at home). Still open (design holism, playtest-scoped): D3 sink saturation, D4 deferred fantasies, D5 tide legibility at MVP, D6 Tier 1 curve. Systems index rows restored to Reviewed/Designed.

Final two rulings (same session): W3 → no home-island harvest nodes (harvesting Player Fantasy, Rule 11, AC-25 now a schema-negative load reject; crafting first-session note points at the docked land's shore). Rule 13 vs Edge Case 8 → home stabilizes a deposited Downed player at reviveHPFraction, timer cancelled (combat Rule 13 bullet, EC8, state table row, AC-35). Remaining open items are all playtest-scoped (D3–D6). Committed the same day.

Post-gate rulings (2026-08-27, Technical Setup gate): D5 resolved — minimal single-channel tide tint pulled into MVP (index row 14 MVP, new row 15 Tier 1 polish; art bible §8.B.3 MVP scope + §8.A.4 combat-sprite exemption; concept MVP Definition + Scope Tiers). D3/D4 accepted with the hypothesis window stated — concept Core hypothesis now "first 3–4 sessions; skeleton + tide fantasy". D6 addressed — crafting AC-56 tests the TTK band, not iron 2.2. BB OQ4 carries a provisional Tier 1 building sizing note (~2–3 weeks part-time).