Principles

Game Identity

An authored third-person action-adventure RPG with Souls-inspired combat, level design, progression, discovery, and world detail.

Elden Ring is the primary experiential reference, pared down in scale, punishment, opacity, class breadth, and grinding.
Zelda remains useful for authored hero and equipment structure, with some puzzles but less combat intensity.
Combat is one pillar alongside exploration and story.
Use a fully free third-person camera.

Strange, colorful people and events must follow understandable incentives and consequences.

Culture should grow from ecology, scarcity, politics, religion, and history; mystery comes from incomplete information, not arbitrary lore.

Each entity carries a concise current snapshot plus an append-only record of what changed and why.

Do not use hidden locked or provisional statuses as behavioral authority.
History provides trajectory and context; consequential prior assumptions must be surfaced conversationally before they constrain new work.
Entity references use one global ref format and globally unique IDs independent of entity class.

The Cinderfolk village, its work, neighbors, domestic spaces, and local humor remain the emotional center.

Use a small authored speaking cast with progressively lighter social rings and unnamed filler residents for breadth.

Move repeatedly between a high-level campaign skeleton and one deeply planned opening slice.

Test genre and system abstractions against Lamp Road through the Goat Fair, revise both layers, then extend beat by beat.

The legacy Breathsalt repository is evidence; Atlas is the authority for future design.

All runtime code, models, rigs, animation, and exact level geometry will be rebuilt from first principles.
Existing screenshots, music, mood, behavior, and documents may inspire decisions but do not become canon automatically.
Current music remains source material selected track by track; the title and village cues are the strongest compositional references.

Breathsalt targets smart, tasteful adult players while retaining beauty, sweetness, comedy, and moments of whimsy.

The prototype's childish, primitive, or overly cutesy qualities are not the target; darkness and loss can coexist with warmth.

Every spoken line from non-player actors is voiced and accompanied by text, while dialogue remains restrained in frequency.

Kip remains silent.

Each macro region has its own ecology, visual mood, sound, and culture, with transition routes blending neighboring identities.

Lamp Road's green lushness, amber lamps, fog, and angled light belong to the Cinderfolk reference rather than the whole game.

Dense levels reward attentive exploration without demanding paranoia or exhaustive secret hunting.

Optional valuables can occupy overlooked or difficult places, while essential content stays readable and environmental details tell small stories.