nodecore-cd2025/docs/design.txt

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CORE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
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0.  Challenge assumptions from other games.
	- Do not blindly accept "intuition" which is actually learned.
	- Offer a unique experience, push the engine boundaries.
1.  No in-game GUIs.
	- Zero formspecs in gameplay.
	- Minimize use of HUDs; remove any standard ones feasible.
	- Player's guide only, must remain relatively isolated.
2.  Interact in node-space.
	- Everything possible should be a node.
	- Minimize use of off-grid entities.
	- Avoid encapsulating things in inventories or complex machines.
	- Crafting and transforming in-world.
3.  Focus on gameplay mechanics.
	- Focus will not be on visuals, mood, theme, storytelling.
	- Minimize elements that vary only in form, not function.
4.  Emergence from primitive elements.
	- Each node should do one job (or one part of a job).
	- Only include the most primitive, fungible components.
	- Mechanics of each element should interact with others.
5.  Puzzle challenge.  No pre-hoc shortcuts.
	- Limited inventory, complex processes, environmental
	  and process hazards.
	- Alternative processes must offer a new challenge compared
	  to existing ones; requirements cannot be a subset.
	- Conveniences must be higher on tech tree, require some work
	  to gain access.
6.  Transparency of the player character.
	- Focus is on builds and resources.
	- Player-centric mechanics like hunger and health are
	  de-emphasized.
7.  Depth and subtlety.
	- Focus on quality over quantity.
	- Distinct, unique materials and mechanics instead of e.g.
	  ores that mostly just vary by color.
	- Processes easy to basically solve, but leave much room
	  for optimization.
	- Modeling using [piecewise] continuous functions instead
	  of simple boolean expressions.
	- Wide range of process behaviors and time scales.
8.  Integrated cohesive experience.
	- Each element designed to fit with other elements.
	- Elements designed to take advantage of other existing ones
	  and build longer, deeper gameplay.
9.  All core materials sustainable/renewable, focus on processes.
	- Support skyblock and other mapgen-constrained gameplay.
	- Material synthesis as an alternative to exploration.
	- No material other than time should be absolutely lossy.
10. Mach relativity: everything should be transplantable.
	- No dependence on world elements that cannot be moved by
	  the player, such as special coordinates, or mapgen biome
	  parameters.
	- Only universal fine-scaled features can vary gameplay,
	  such as mapblock boundaries.
	- Players should be able to detect normally-invisible features
	  like mapblock boundaries.
11. Rolling releases, early access, development transparency.
	- Everything is kept in public git repos.
	- Notes marked with spoilers as needed.  Code assumed always
	  to contain spoilers.
	- Frequent releases to ContentDB for players, when stable.
	- Automatic CI/CD to separate Alpha edition in ContentDB from
	  latest development stream.
12. Flexible adaptive direction.
	- Any/all of these goals are subject to change based on
	  experiences or other new information.

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