Prototype H-07: One Mechanic, Ninety Seconds

Every prototype in this lab starts with a constraint contract — a short list of rules that can't be broken no matter how tempting it gets mid-build. For H-07, the contract fit on an index card:

• One verb: dash.
• One screen, no camera.
• Ninety seconds per run.
• No text tutorials, ever.

What the constraint bought us

Constraints are free art direction. Because the whole game is "dash," every system has to answer a single question: does this make dashing more interesting? Enemies became dashes-shaped. The level became a dash-shaped obstacle. Even the UI got out of the way because there's only one thing to explain.

The greybox took six hours. The feel took three weeks.

Feel is a number soup

The dash is eleven parameters deep:

accel:  3800   friction: 6.5
charge: 0.18s  recovery: 0.22s
grace:  0.09s  coyote:   0.10s

None of those numbers matter individually. Together they decide whether the verb feels like a gift or a tax. The difference between those two games is maybe four tweaks of friction and grace.

What got cut

Two features died on the floor this month:

1. A combo multiplier that asked players to count. They wouldn't. Nobody counts.
2. A second verb (a slow-motion hold) that made the first verb feel worse by comparison. Interesting lesson: a second verb can be a nerf to the first one.

H-07 goes back in front of playtesters next week with cleaner feedback on near-misses. If near-misses start generating screams — good screams — it graduates to a project.