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Minimal 2-player hot-seat POC of the ley-line-pull mechanic

battle-arena-poc/001 · created 2026-08-05 · updated 2026-08-05

What to do

Build a throwaway, non-networked (single-machine, hot-seat) prototype of the core battle-arena loop from thought-specs/battle-areans-and-element-types.md and the loadout mechanism in overview.md: a shared mini-map with generator points (a volcano emitting Fire, a waterfall emitting Water), both players entering with a small fixed loadout, gathering ingredients via movement (from generators, ground, and kills) rather than dragging them into a pot, and casting directly once a loadout spell’s requirements are satisfied. Whoever picks this up should treat the following as a starting default to build against, not a settled decision: 4 spells per loadout, ingredients consumed on cast, and the existing Arena bag doubling as a small opening buffer so the match doesn’t open on totally empty hands. Change any of these on sight if they don’t hold up.

This POC must actively test for dead time — the overview’s named risk — not just validate that the core loop is fun. Watch specifically for stretches where a player has no castable spell and nothing productive to do about it.

Definition of done

A playable local prototype demonstrating: shared generators, movement-driven ingredient gathering, loadout-gated casting (not a crafting UI), and the minion-vs-spawn-point timing decision. A short write-up covering (a) what worked and what didn’t for the core tempo tradeoff, and (b) specifically whether dead time occurred, when, and what mitigated or worsened it.

Where the work lands

land-of-lor repo, likely under pocs/ alongside the existing object-gallery and poc-3d-app POCs.

Docs to read first

overview.md in full (the loadout mechanism section specifically); land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/battle-areans-and-element-types.md (the founding ley-lines vision); land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/conduit-and-changing-landscape.md (arena resets, Arena bag); land-of-lor/docs/WORLD_ZONES.md.

View source in repository · also available as raw markdown.