Act Two: the field grows, the roads multiply, the dog points
The game had a first act and then a cliff. It now has a second one.
Clear a chapter and the field itself grows, in every direction, like a ring on a tree trunk — and the new ground is dressed as won land rather than unrolled as lawn. A half-ring when the Auditor falls, a full ring when the boss does, with a fanfare. By day ten a run’s field had gone from 8400 units wide to 13394, and the growth rings are visible from the air.
With more land come more doors. Attack lanes open one per chapter on a per-run seed — west first, north and south rolled between them, east last — and each new lane lays its own road the moment it opens, so the map tells you where the trouble comes from before the trouble does. Bosses walk the day’s primary lane while their escort splits between the others, which turns a multi-front day into a decision instead of a mess.
And Bounce is the compass. Through the whole of prep he posts himself at the day’s primary door and faces it, with the HUD seconding him in words. This was always the plan for the dog — a character instead of a chevron — and a wave that can now arrive from four directions is what finally made him load bearing.
The second shift the same night built the living village on top. Levelling up banks a pick rather than interrupting the fight, and the next calm morning deals you three paper cards, one key each. Seven passives are live and measured — fleet feet, stout heart, timber hands, piercing shot, mill contract, foreman’s whistle, barbed fences — and a learned skill fills a socket on the fight face. Houses are buildable, and every day you survive a family moves in if there is a bed free, so population is something you built rather than something you were granted. Everyone throws stones as a ranged baseline; the Ranger’s bow pierces.
Verified to day 38 with all four lanes open, and the autopilot learned thirteen skills and filled nine of nine beds in a single run. The game runs friendlier than it did — which is the expected cost of a week of handing out power, and the re-tune is a human’s job, not a robot’s.
