Design
If the way you win doesn't fit in two sentences, it isn't designed yet. One rule that travels, and one that has to be re-decided.
⚠ This is the same text as Design for Future game 1. There is not yet any basis on which the two slots differ, so I have not invented a difference.
An empty slot. What’s written here is only what has to exist before this slot counts as filled.
What travels — the way you win, in two sentences
The one rule from the wuxia game’s design that isn’t genre-bound.
When an enemy starts a form, a telegraph appears. Read its lineage, answer with the countering lineage, and the hit is negated.
Until those two sentences exist, adding systems doesn’t produce a game. In the wuxia project the form list actually got extended first — and the longer the list grew, the clearer it became that this was not a martial art but several attacks. Quantity is not a substitute for design.
What has to be re-decided — what the game grows
In the wuxia game what the player accumulates is not reaction speed but knowledge. That single choice determined the matchup table, the telegraph durations and the phase structure.
What the next game grows has to be decided here again. Settle it and the rest follows; leave it unsettled and everything else stays loose no matter how firmly it’s written down.