# 01 — Player Experience
*"What do players do, feel, think, see?"*

This is the minute-by-minute fantasy. If a feature doesn't serve a moment
described here, it gets cut.

---

## 1. The first 60 seconds (the hook)

**SEE:** Terminal opens. Black. A phosphor-green prompt blinks:

```
HEXWORK v1.0 — a lantern in the deep
· new delver [n] · continue [c] · demo [d] · help [?]
```

Pick `n`. The screen *resolves* — ASCII density crawling out of darkness like
developing film. You're standing on a cobbled road at dusk. To the left, a
half-timbered coaching inn, warm amber windows (`#` glass glowing). To the
right, wheat fields rendered as whispering `,` `;` `'` drifting in wind.
Above: a sky of dim `.` stars and a huge low moon — a ring of `O`. A
signpost reads `MILTHOLLOW — pop. 312 — BY LANTERN-LAW`. Your lantern throws
a cone of `+*` light; beyond it, honest darkness.

**DO:** Walk (arrow keys / WASD / hjkl all work). Bump into the signpost —
it rattles with a `*clack*` log line. Bump into the inn door — it swings
open with a creak rendered as expanding `(` arcs.

**FEEL:** "Wait, this is IN my terminal?" Disbelief → delight. It looks like
1982 dreaming about 2032.

**THINK:** "I can go anywhere. Let me check that field."

## 2. The first 10 minutes (illiteracy)

You wander Milthollow. A bell tolls (the chapel's `∩` bell visibly swings).
NPCs with names and jobs walk home: `MARA the MILLER [carrying flour]`,
`TOMM the LAMPLIGHTER [lighting lamp 4/9]`. A notice board bristles with
contracts — this is the Witcher heartbeat:

```
> rats in the granary (2c) — easy?
> drowned bell in the mere (18c) — BRING ROPE, BRING A FRIEND
> my husband walks since the Last Boot (talk to Widow Rennick)
```

You take the rats job because you're genre-literate. The granary is dark.
Your lantern gutters. Something the size of a dog moves *above* you in the
rafters — represented by shifting `?` glyphs at the edge of light. You throw
a stone. It arcs (true parabola, you see the `·` trail), misses, clatters
three floors down through a knothole — and something down *there* squeaks.

**FEEL:** Vertigo. NetHack never had an "above you." Your instincts are
wrong here, and that's thrilling.

**THINK:** "I need to look UP. How do I look up?" (You learn: `x` = look
mode, mouse-drag = orbit, `>` = tilt camera up. The game never told you;
the key-hint ribbon glowed subtly when you stared into darkness.)

You kill one "rat." It was a **cable-rat**, belly full of copper wire,
sparking. Its corpse *hums*. Do you butcher it? Eat it? Sell the wire?
(Pocket the wire. The miller pays for copper. Everything has *some* use —
that's the promise.)

## 3. The first hour (first dungeon, first real story)

The granary cellar connects to the **Shallows** — dungeon floor 1, an old
Aetherium relay station dressed as a root cellar: brick arches plus dead
server shrines, cable-ducts like roots.

Core loop crystallizes — **DELVE → HAUL → PREP → DESCEND:**

1. **DELVE:** Push into darkness with limited lantern oil, rope, rations.
   Light is a resource. Sound is a resource (sneak vs. slam).
2. **HAUL:** Fill your pack with wire, relics, unidentified phials, a
   punchcard-scroll. Every kilo slows you. Dropping loot to flee *hurts*.
3. **PREP:** Back in town: identify (pay the tinker, or drink-and-see),
   mend, buy oil, read the board, sleep (the dungeon respawns *around* your
   absence — factions move).
4. **DESCEND:** Floor 2's elevator is dead. Drop a boulder down the shaft
   first — classic delver wisdom — and hear it *not* land. "How deep IS this
   place?" (Hook for the session.)

**A canonical first-hour story (emergent, unscripted, typical):**

> You find a sealed copper door with a grate. Behind it, glinting. You pour
> lamp oil under the door and light it — smoke gets sucked *through* the
> grate (airflow! rooms breathe). Inside, something coughs. The door's lock
> is rusted; you remember cable-rat blood is acidic (you watched it pit your
> spare knife). You smear blood on the hinges, wait, kick — the door sags.
> Inside: a dead delver, your oil-smoke choking out the **mimic-vending
> machine** that killed him, still sparking. You loot his lantern, his map
> (fog-of-war partially filled!), and a punchcard labeled `ELEVATOR HYMN`.
> You feel like a genius. Nobody scripted this.

**FEEL:** Cleverness. The game *respected* your reasoning.

## 4. The first 10 hours (literacy begins, hubris follows)

Now you have opinions: which oil burns longest, which god answers fastest,
which tinker waters the identification ink. You've died twice (rat-king +
your own fire — the replay showed the exact rule chain; you laughed, then
changed loadouts).

**Mid-game verbs unlocked:** contracts get stranger (haunted millstone,
a saint's ghost in the machine-chapel, a toll-bridge troll unionizing),
factions court you (the Lampwrights vs. the Salvage Congregation), gods
notice you (small boons, smaller print). You buy a mule. You name the mule.
You will lose the mule. (Everyone loses the mule. The mule's death-replay
is a rite of passage.)

**Signature mid-game moment:** the **storm-cellar descent** — Floor 5 to 6
is a flooded vertical shaft. You must rig a rope, douse the lantern (oil
and water...), navigate by tinker-moss glow, while **drowned bells** ring
below (sound pulls things). Half the players descend headfirst. Half lower
the mule first with a light. Both halves get stories.

## 5. The endgame (the Deep and the Choice)

The Deep (floors 9–12): the machine-god's corpse — the **Core Vault**.
Reality thins: gravity stutters (falls go sideways), dead delvers' lanterns
still burn, gods speak plainly for the first time (they're scared).

**The final choice (no wrong answer, both cost):**
- **SEAL THE CORE** (Lantern-law ending): bury the machine, end the salvage
  economy, towns go dark but free. Your name on the chapel wall.
- **CROWN YOURSELF** (Saint-of-the-Deep ending): take the Core's seat,
  become the thing future delvers loot. New Game+ as a dungeon *boss*
  haunting other players' demo-replays.

**FEEL:** Weight. The world kept receipts — every faction, debt, and spared
monster tallies into who stands with you at the Vault door.

## 6. Moment-to-moment texture (always-on)

- **Light:** lantern cone + carried glow + muzzle-flash of wands. Darkness
  is nearly total. The player *loves* their lantern like a pet.
- **Sound rendered visually:** `(` ripples for noise, direction + intensity.
  Slamming doors is a tactical choice with upstairs consequences.
- **Smell/weight words:** terse NetHack-voice log: *"You smell ozone and
  wet wool. Something large passed here recently."*
- **Camera:** first-person default; press `Tab` to toggle chase-orbit and
  first-person; `M` toggles the playable north-up tactical map, preserving the
  prior perspective angles. Perspective movement follows horizontal camera
  heading; tactical movement remains world-relative on the player's floor.
  `x` enters spatial look (movement keys rotate/tilt; `x`/Esc closes).
  All three share one sim: Classic remains live; Story tactical pauses between
  accepted actions. Canonical replay/headless directions remain world-relative.
  These approved interface controls are under recovery validation; see
  `player-interface-audit.md` for evidence and outstanding human acceptance.
- **Death:** slow zoom on the `@`, cause-of-death epitaph in NetHack voice
  (*"Slain by own cleverness, via falling boulder, while overburdened"*),
  then the replay prompt: `[r] watch how it happened [e] epitaph [n] new delver`.

## 7. Kindness layer (modern QoL, non-negotiable)

Auto-explore, auto-loot filters, searchable log (`/`), undo-able *interface*
mistakes (never sim mistakes), persistent tooltips with identification
state, full keyboard + optional mouse, colorblind palettes, screenreader
mode (sim events → text stream), gamma/FOV/shake sliders, story mode
(checkpoint at town entries, same sim, no shame).

**Rule:** kindness removes *friction*, never *consequence*.