# Spell-crafting interface

## overview.md
```yaml
id: spell-crafting-interface
title: Spell-crafting interface
area: client
summary: The in-game interface for crafting — casting recipes onto the ground/casting-bench and filling formula-driven items with ports and stocks.
repo: land-of-lor
depends_on: []
```

## What this is

The player-facing UI/UX for creating things: laying out a recipe's spatial pattern (items/elements into slots), seeing which slots are open (any element) vs. keyed (one specific element, shown as a "ghostly hexagram" per `docs/README.md` §8), and — for Complex Items — the ongoing legibility of their formula (port levels, what's required, what happens at zero).

## Why it exists

This is the single most-touched surface in the game, ties directly to the recipes/formulas system (`land-of-lor/docs/README.md` §8, `RECIPES.md`, `slots-and-items.md`), and is explicitly meant to hide most of the underlying complexity. The design docs are unusually clear about the *feel* this needs, even though the visual/interaction design itself hasn't started:

> "Little Alchemy 2 onboarding feel. No tutorial; immediate play; smoosh things together and it makes sense." — `docs/README.md` §12

> "Most players won't want to memorise 64 Hexagrams... I think the Elements are, by and large, hidden — and Slots are filled by Items, not by raw Elements." — `RECIPES.md`

There's also a live, unresolved tension in the source material worth carrying into design: the ground-as-casting-table idea ("I like the casting table on the ground idea — that is the template," `RECIPES.md`) versus the cauldron/sequential-ingredient-drop idea from the Little Witches voice note (`thought-specs/little-witches.md`) — two different interaction models for the same underlying recipe-matching mechanic.

## Scope

- Rendering a recipe's slot layout (blueprint overlay) on the ground or casting bench, per `docs/README.md` §8 and `RECIPES.md`.
- The open-slot vs. keyed-slot distinction, and the "5 keyed items + 3 trigram-typed menus" minimal vocabulary worked out in `docs/slots-and-items.md` (Life Crystal, Will-stone, Heart of Heaven, Foundation Stone, Quickseed; SHAPE/COLOUR/KIND menus).
- Input-bar UI for Complex Item ports/stocks at tick-time (level, requirement, zero-state) — flagged in §8 as "a core legibility surface."
- Blueprint/schematic-as-inventory-item: how a player projects a known recipe's layout onto the ground.

## Non-goals

- Not the recipe-matching *engine* itself (pattern recognition, ground/field condition checks) — that's server-side, see `server-architecture`.
- Not deciding the cauldron-vs-ground-casting question outright — that interaction-metaphor question is independent of the (now-decided) title and needs its own design decision from Kris before UI work commits to one metaphor.

## Key open questions

- Ground-casting-table UI vs. cauldron/sequential-drop UI — genuinely open, not just a skin choice, since sequential-drop implies an ordered recipe rather than a spatial pattern. **Update (2026-08-06):** the earlier note here about the title decision weakly favouring ground-casting no longer holds — Kris's own current-thinking documents (`docs/thought-specs/little-witches.md`, now ranked as current per the repo's reorganisation) explicitly lean toward the cauldron/sequence model and away from the ground, independent of the title (which stays "Lor: The Ten Thousand Things" regardless of which interaction metaphor wins). See `/codex`'s "open front" section on the site for the current framing.
- How blueprint-overlay "ghostliness" is actually rendered for keyed vs. open slots.
- Whether the 8×8 grid (`RECIPES.md`) is the crafting surface for *all* recipes or just some.

## Relevant docs

- `land-of-lor/docs/README.md` §8 (recipes & formulas), §12 (design principles — Little Alchemy feel).
- `land-of-lor/docs/RECIPES.md` — the original recipe/slot thinking, including the 8×8 grid idea and the turret image reference.
- `land-of-lor/docs/slots-and-items.md` — the refined, small keyed-item + menu vocabulary.
- `land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/little-witches.md` — the cauldron/sequential alternative.
- `land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/inventory-interface.md` — Ingredients/Blueprints inventory tabs this UI plugs into.

## status.md
```yaml
updated: 2026-08-05
parked: true
tasks: {"backlog":2,"needs-input":0,"ready":0,"doing":0,"review":0,"done":0}
open_questions: []
tag: parked
next: Parked — not being worked right now.
```

## Task summary

2 backlog · 0 ready (parked, so nothing is marked ready regardless of what's underneath). This epic isn't being worked right now.

## Open questions

None tracked. The real open questions (ground-casting-table vs. cauldron UI, 8×8 grid scope) are recorded as plain prose in `overview.md`.

## Next

Nothing — this is parked. Pick up when Kris explicitly asks for it.

## tasks/ (2)

### spell-crafting-interface/001 — Low-fidelity mockups of the two crafting-interaction metaphors
```yaml
id: spell-crafting-interface/001
title: Low-fidelity mockups of the two crafting-interaction metaphors
epic: spell-crafting-interface
state: backlog
priority: 1
blocked_by: []
estimate: S
created: 2026-08-05
updated: 2026-08-05
claimed_by: null
claimed_at: null
delivers: []
review_artifact: null
```

## What to do

Produce 2-3 low-fidelity mockups (sketches, wireframe descriptions, or simple diagrams — whatever's fastest, no polish needed) exploring both competing interaction metaphors: the ground-as-casting-table spatial pattern (`RECIPES.md`) and the cauldron/sequential-ingredient-drop idea (`thought-specs/little-witches.md`). This is meant to give Kris something concrete to react to, not to pick a winner.

## Definition of done

2-3 mockups/descriptions covering both metaphors, plus a short honest note on what each makes easy vs. hard (e.g. sequential drop implies an ordered recipe; spatial pattern implies simultaneous layout).

## Where the work lands

`land-of-lor` repo (as design/UI sketches, likely under `docs/` or a new `design/` note — author's call where it fits best).

## Docs to read first

`land-of-lor/docs/RECIPES.md`, `land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/little-witches.md`, `land-of-lor/docs/slots-and-items.md` (the keyed-item + menu vocabulary either metaphor has to accommodate).

### spell-crafting-interface/002 — Prototype visual treatment for keyed vs. open slots
```yaml
id: spell-crafting-interface/002
title: Prototype visual treatment for keyed vs. open slots
epic: spell-crafting-interface
state: backlog
priority: 2
blocked_by: []
estimate: S
created: 2026-08-05
updated: 2026-08-05
claimed_by: null
claimed_at: null
delivers: []
review_artifact: null
```

## What to do

Prototype how a recipe's blueprint overlay actually renders the open-slot vs. keyed-slot distinction (open = any element in a menu; keyed = one specific element, shown as a "ghostly hexagram" per `docs/README.md` §8). Note this depends on which interaction metaphor the epic settles on — ground-casting-table vs. cauldron/sequential (see `overview.md`'s "Key open questions") — since a spatial ground-pattern overlay and a cauldron ingredient list would render this very differently; pick one explicitly and state it as an assumption rather than trying to design for both at once.

## Definition of done

A visual treatment (mockup or description) for both slot types, consistent with whichever metaphor was assumed.

## Where the work lands

`land-of-lor` repo.

## Docs to read first

`land-of-lor/docs/README.md` §8; `land-of-lor/docs/slots-and-items.md`; `overview.md`'s open questions section for the unresolved interaction-metaphor choice.

## questions/ (0)

## deliverables (1)

- #1 — The base elements of the game (2026-07-29) — /deliverables/1