7th Street Development Artbook

This is a public brainstorm and revision-history archive — not canon. This is an immutable historical revision. Status: published.

Balloon Chucker — v0.2

retired full revision

The throw survived the deterministic fixed-point port, and the Chucker read as a ranged unit within a squad; the character still existed mainly as mechanics and a letter glyph.

Why: Reconstructs the deterministic-mechanics era so the chain shows the Chucker's role proven before her science-book, sash, pail, age, race, or hedge legend existed.

Proven finding: The deterministic delayed-throw gate passed at a 3-tick delay ("definitely feels better"); MG0 validated the hill/clock/cut Chucker command loop and a 1.3 m square scatter; MG1 validated the Soaker matchup at delay 3 as the Stage 2 lockstep target.

Legend

No Legend existed yet beyond a deterministic gate passing. The throw was provably fair and repeatable; nobody had yet asked whose throw it was.

Suburb

No Suburb existed yet. There was a glyph on a tactical board and a squad role, not a silhouette, a burden, or a kid.

Current draft

By this date the throw had survived the deterministic fixed-point port and read as a proven ranged unit inside a squad, but the character still existed mainly as mechanics and a single letter glyph on the tactical board. Today's science-book, sash, pail, age, race, and hedge legend did not exist in the evidence.

What changed

The throw moved from a feel-spike scene into a deterministic, squad-tested mechanic. Commit 402e1a5 ported the balloon loop to the deterministic simulation; commits b3e7d72 and 23253c0 recorded the MG0 and MG1 human verdicts.

Why it changed

This revision exists so the chain shows exactly when the mechanic became trustworthy enough to build a character on top of, without projecting today's personality backward onto evidence that only supports mechanics.

Evidence and playtest marginalia

  • TUNING.md, "Stage 1 Sprint 1 delayed-throw gate — 2026-07-21": delay 3 (100 ms) "definitely feels better" than delay 6, and delay 10 failed ("10 is not acceptable"). This set the throw's responsiveness bar ahead of Stage 2's lockstep budget.
  • TUNING.md, "Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG0 - Chucker match spine — 2026-07-21": Anthony, "Yes, it works ... the game field feels good." The hill, clock, cut, Chucker command loop, 1.3 m square scatter, and a provisional 3-tick squad delay were accepted for the spine without a constant change.
  • TUNING.md, "Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG1 pre-gate - Soaker — 2026-07-21": delay 3 "feels great" for the squad-of-two field; delay 6 is "right at the edge of acceptable." Commit 23253c0 records the MG1 verdict.
  • docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §8: the roster-table matchup this character later reskins with a specific kid.

Rejected or alternate directions

Nothing character-level was rejected at this date; the only recorded decision was mechanical (accepting the 3-tick delay target over 6 or 10).

Still unresolved

  • The science-book premise, sash, pail, age, race, and hedge legend did not exist in the evidence at this date.
  • Whether the deterministic ranged role could carry a recognizable child without changing its tested mechanics remained an open question.

Editorial question assigned during reconstruction: how can this deterministic ranged role gain a recognizable child without rewriting its mechanics-first history?

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Evidence