House rules
How we judge a door
A game that does not feel like a world you fell into is not a game we want to play. Loop first. Then beauty, wonder, air, score, and input that does not mush.
Seven rules. Not a completion meter. Live benches do not meet all of them yet.
This is the bar, not a claim. Live benches do not meet it yet. Do not ship a feature that fights these pillars. Do not fake a score, a fog, or a butter input with a pack.
Loop
Fun is first. If the thirty-second loop is not worth repeating with stand-in art, stop. Do not add a town, a lore dump, or a shader over a dead loop.
Look
Beautiful, and one look per door. Cohesion beats a mood-board mash. Sheets before meshes. No generic SVG bodies pretending to be style.
Wonder
Mystery, discovery, exploration. Lore is a world you walk into, not a wall of text. Leave something unexplained on purpose.
Air
Atmosphere is light plus life plus timing. Fog, shafts, weather. Particles, insects, critters, leaves. Ambient beds that change with the hour. The room has to breathe.
Score
Orchestral, theme-fit, zone-fit. The track belongs to this door and this biome. Signal stays void until a loop earns a bed.
Input
Smooth as butter. Animation cancel. No mush. If another action is legal, the press goes through. Blizzard spoiled this — WoW and Overwatch — and other games feel late after it.
Chrome
Clear, consistent UI. Per-door settings. Rebound keys. Colorblind modes. Typical options done once, done right, not a different menu language every bench.