Analysis by Claude (Fable 5), direction by a327ex

This is an independent redo of Roguelite Design Analysis (January 2026, by Claude Opus 4.5). Same process, walked through again — framework, classification of the same 22 games, frequency analysis, hypothetical designs, comparison — but re-derived from scratch rather than assuming the original's content was correct. Where the two analyses converge, the convergence was earned independently; where they diverge, this one supersedes. The original stays up as the historical artifact, and each section here notes what changed and why.

Roguelite Design Analysis 2

Contents

1. The Framework — 21 axes organized by the acquisition pipeline
2. Game Classifications — 23 entries across 22 games
3. Frequency Analysis — the corrected counts, and what they change
4. Hypothetical Designs — 3 archetypal + 12 experimental games
5. Experimental Frequency Analysis — patterns in the surviving designs
6. Summary — what the experimental set actually says

The Framework

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

The seed observation separates two events that most roguelites fuse into one moment: the instant you decide on a power and the instant you receive it. "Choose 1 of 3, get it now" fuses them; deckbuilders split them (acquire now, draw later); a pre-run draft splits them the other way. Taking that seriously, the natural spine for the whole framework is the acquisition pipeline — every power in every roguelite passes through the same stages:

offer → decision → receipt → holding → trajectory, with meta (across runs) and experience (how it feels to play) as cross-cutting layers.

The two seed axes are the timing dimensions of decision and receipt. Each pipeline stage has its own small set of axes, and organizing by stage rather than by loose category makes redundancy visible: two axes are suspect if they describe the same pipeline stage in overlapping words, and fine if they describe different stages even when correlated.

OFFER — what power appears

1. Supply

How much power is on offer relative to what you can take?

Note the deliberate split from axis 6 (Cost): FTL is starved because scrap is scarce even though stores are full of goods; Spelunky is starved because offers themselves barely appear. The original framework's "Scarce" fused these two different phenomena.

2. Foresight

What can you see about power that isn't yours yet?

Strictly defined as information about available or upcoming power. Being able to inspect your own deck or boon list is not foresight — every sane game allows that, and counting it made "Complete visibility" meaninglessly common in the original analysis.

DECISION — how you choose

3. Choice Timing

Where in the run do power decisions live?

On back-loaded: it's coherent, not senseless — imagine accumulating unchosen or inert power all run, then choosing what to activate for the finale. Nothing ships this because decisions need a consequences-phase after them, so the latest viable decision point is "the start of the finale," and pushing it later just shrinks the game the decision was for. The cell stays in the table precisely so the frequency analysis can show it empty — and the design exercise below argues the emptiness is load-bearing.

4. Trigger (subtable of Choice Timing)

What summons a decision point into existence? Timing says where decisions fall in the run; trigger says what causes them.

"Reactive" choice lives here as Discovery, not in axis 3 — a restructure from the original, where reactive was a timing value.

5. Agency

How much say do you have over what you get?

One deliberate removal: the original framework listed "Competitive" as an agency value. A contested pool doesn't change how much say you have over what you take from what's available — it changes what's available. It lives in Supply (Contested) only.

6. Cost

What does acquiring power cost you?

This axis is new relative to the original framework, and it absorbs three things that were scattered there as patches: "Resource-gated" pacing, "Time-pressured" scarcity (invented for Risk of Rain), and half of the Traded/Optional negative-acquisition mess. Devil deals are not "optional negatives" — they're vitality-priced acquisitions. Pricing is a cost phenomenon; negatives (axis 14) are reserved for negatives that enter your build.

7. Legibility

Can you evaluate a power at decision time?

RECEIPT — when acquired power actually works

8. Distribution Timing

HOLDING — the build in hand

9. Capacity

10. Reversibility

Once it's yours, can you un-choose it?

Derived rating — Commitment Weight (Light / Medium / Heavy / Critical): not an independent axis, but the felt product of reversibility × choice frequency × impact per choice. SAP is Light, Hades Medium, FTL purchases Heavy, Into the Breach's squad pick Critical. Always presented as derived.

11. Mutability

Can an individual power change after acquisition?

12. Composition

How do powers relate to each other?

13. Arrangement

Does the configuration of your powers matter, beyond owning them?

New relative to the original framework, which had nowhere to put the fact that in Noita how you assemble the wand is most of the game, or that Backpack Hero's entire genre exists. Arrangement is where build expression lives for a whole family of games.

14. Negatives

Do negatives enter your build? Prices don't count — that's Cost. This axis is for negatives that persist as part of what you are.

Deliberately reduced from the original's five fuzzy values to an avoidability spectrum, with the mechanism (rider attached to a positive, or standalone curse) noted per game during classification. The original's "Traded" value did double duty for "sacrifice as price" (now Cost: Vitality) and "opportunity cost under constraints" (now just Capacity and Supply doing their jobs) — which is how its summary ended up with a false "no real game trades for power" finding.

15. Source Structure

How many distinct systems feed the build?

16. Embodiment

Where does power physically live?

TRAJECTORY — power over the run

17. Growth Shape

18. Identity Formation

When does "what this run is" get decided?

META — across runs

19. Persistence

20. Start Variance

EXPERIENCE

21. Skill Weighting

What actually wins runs?

Divergence map vs the original framework

New: Cost (6), Arrangement (13), Embodiment (16). Cost dissolves three of the original's patches (Resource-gated, Time-pressured, half of Traded); Arrangement captures Noita/TFT/SAP/backpack-genre build expression that previously had no home; Embodiment separates auto-battlers from action roguelites at the power-system level.

Restructured: Negatives reduced to an avoidability spectrum with sacrifice moved to Cost; "Reactive" moved from timing to trigger (Discovery); "Competitive" consolidated into Supply; Foresight redefined to exclude viewing your own build; "Scarce" split into offer-starved vs currency-starved.

Convergent, defensibly: the decision/receipt timing pair (the seed), Curated/Found/Free agency, the capacity types, the reversibility ladder, deck-draw as Randomized distribution, Partitioned, the persistence and start-variance menus, and Commitment Weight as a derived rating. These fall out of the pipeline model no matter who derives it.

Still dead: Difficulty Coupling, Decision Density, Information Asymmetry, Failure Mode — removed in the original session for reasons that survive re-derivation.

Game Classifications

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

23 entries across 22 games (Rogue Legacy split into Early/Late, Spelunky 1/2 merged, both Risks of Rain separate). Same game list as the original analysis; classifications re-derived, with uncertain mechanics verified against wikis or — for SNKRX — read directly from the game's source code. Where an entry materially corrects the original post, the correction is noted.

The Binding of Isaac (Repentance)

1. Supply: Matched — enough items to build around, never everything; keys and coins bind. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Hidden — you see the current room's offer; Curse of the Blind and the alt-path's veiled items are true concealment. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery — room clears, shops, and found item rooms. 5. Agency: Curated + Found + Shaped — devil/shop choices, random drops, and genuine pool manipulation (item pool effects, D6-style rerolls). 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Vitality + Risk — pedestals, shops, devil deals priced in heart containers, curse rooms priced in danger. Under the corrected framework the devil deal is a vitality-priced acquisition, not an "optional negative." 7. Legibility: Experiential + Unidentified — hundreds of items with undocumented interactions; pills literally unknown until identified each run. 8. Distribution: Immediate + Conditional — passives now, actives on charge. 9. Capacity: Typed — unlimited passives, one active (two with Schoolbag), consumable slots. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium — permanent choices, many per run. 11. Mutability: Static, with transformative edges (Guppy and the other set-transformations). 12. Composition: Synergistic + Exclusive — the deepest authored combo web in the genre, plus devil/angel exclusivity; the tear pipeline has systemic tendencies. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — downside items and curse exposure are skippable in a normal run. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — items, actives, pills, cards, runes, trinkets. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Units — the body-horror stat sheet, plus familiars as a genuine unit layer. 17. Growth: Climbing + Stepped — steady accretion punctuated by run-warping finds. 18. Identity: Emergent — the genre's reference case. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit + Randomized — characters, and Eden. 21. Skill Weighting: Knowledge-led — execution matters, but knowing the catalog matters more.

Hades

1. Supply: Matched. 2. Foresight: Forecast + Immediate — door symbols are the genre's canonical preview. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — 1-of-3 boons; keepsakes force which god appears, a real pool-shaping tool. 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Vitality — boons, Charon's shop, Chaos gates priced in health. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate + Scheduled — Chaos boons are the lone real-game case of scheduled delivery: a debt now, a payout N rooms later. 9. Capacity: Typed — and this corrects the original post's "Unlimited": the core slots (Attack/Special/Cast/Dash/Call) are exclusive, one boon each; a new god's attack boon replaces yours. Slot exclusivity is the game's central capacity mechanic and the original missed it entirely. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium. The original claimed boons are sellable at Wells of Charon — false; Wells sell temporary items, they don't buy boons. 11. Mutability: Scalar — Poms of Power. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated + Exclusive — duo prerequisites, legendary requirements, slot replacement. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — Chaos curses are opt-in and temporary. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — boons, hammers, keepsakes, aspects, mirror. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power + World-state — unlocks, the Mirror, and the genre's flagship story persistence. 20. Start Variance: Assembled kit — weapon + aspect + keepsake composed per run. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced.

Dead Cells

1. Supply: Oversupplied — constant gear; the decision is what to keep. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed + Milestone — drops throughout, mutations at biome transitions. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Found + Free — shops and mutation picks, random drops, free stat-scroll allocation. 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Risk — drops, shops, cursed chests as the canonical risk-priced acquisition. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — two weapons, two skills, mutation slots. 10. Reversibility: Swappable + Removable — gear swaps freely; mutations respec at transitions for gold. Weight: Light-to-Medium. 11. Mutability: Static within the run — gear level rises via later drops, not upgrades to owned items. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — status combos; colorless/color scaling gates. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None at base, Unavoidable at high Boss Cells — malaise is difficulty-gated imposed negativity, a pattern shared with Slay the Spire's Ascender's Bane. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — weapons, skills, mutations, scrolls. 16. Embodiment: Gear + Avatar. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power — unlocks plus forge quality. 20. Start Variance: Fixed, minor randomization. 21. Skill Weighting: Execution-led.

Enter the Gungeon

1. Supply: Starved-to-Matched — keys are the real bottleneck; chest tension is the game's economy. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Found — shops choose, chests roll. 6. Cost: Currency + Free + Risk — casings, drops, cursed shrines. 7. Legibility: Experiential — the synergy web is learned, not read. 8. Distribution: Immediate + Conditional — passives now, actives on cooldown/charge. 9. Capacity: Unbounded + Typed — carry every gun; one active at a time. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Static, with transformative edges via explicit synergy forms. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — curse is opt-in. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — guns, passives, actives. 16. Embodiment: Gear + Avatar. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent, weakly — skill floors flatten build expression. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Execution-led.

Noita

1. Supply: Starved-to-Matched — good wands and spells are rare; Holy Mountains are few. 2. Foresight: Explored + Immediate — power is revealed by reaching it; the map hides everything else. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed + Milestone — finds throughout, perks at Holy Mountains. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Found + Free — perks offered, wands found, and the wand editor as the genre's purest free agency: what you build is exactly what you chose. 6. Cost: Free + Currency. 7. Legibility: Experiential + Opaque — cast delay, recharge, and mana interactions resist evaluation even with experience; the wiki is a prosthetic. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — four wand slots, per-wand spell slots. 10. Reversibility: Fluid (wands) + Locked (perks) — full wand reconfiguration at will is the genre's best Fluid case. Weight: Light for wands, Heavy for perks. 11. Mutability: Static — spells are what they are; the assembly changes, which is the point. 12. Composition: Systemic + Rivalrous — emergent spell physics, plus mana/cast-time as a shared budget every spell competes for. 13. Arrangement: Structural — the flagship: wand topology (order, triggers, modifiers) IS the build. The original framework had no axis for this; it's the single clearest thing the redo adds. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — downside perks are opt-in. 15. Source Structure: Interlocking — perks modify wand behavior modifies material interactions. 16. Embodiment: Gear + Avatar. 17. Growth: Stepped — a god-wand is a cliff, not a slope. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool, thin. 20. Start Variance: Fixed + Randomized — same cave, slightly rolled starting wands. 21. Skill Weighting: Knowledge-led.

Nuclear Throne

1. Supply: Matched. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Performance + Structural — rads from kills drive leveling; mutation picks land between levels. 5. Agency: Curated + Found — 1-of-4 mutations; weapons drop as they drop. 6. Cost: Free. 7. Legibility: Explicit + Experiential — mutation text is clear; weapon feel is learned. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — two weapons, bounded mutations. 10. Reversibility: Locked + Swappable — mutations forever, weapons by pickup. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Static + Branching — mutations don't grow, but Ultra mutations at max level are a genuine branching choice, the framework's only real-game Branching case. 12. Composition: Synergistic — Bolt Marrow with bolt weapons, character-mutation fits. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — this corrects the original's "None": crowns are exactly coupled positives-and-negatives taken mid-run, and the original forgot they exist. 15. Source Structure: Dual — weapons + mutations, on strong character kits. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — characters, golden weapons, crowns. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit — the cast is the variety engine. 21. Skill Weighting: Execution-led — the twitchiest game in the set.

Vampire Survivors (current version)

1. Supply: Oversupplied — the constraint is 6+6 slots, never availability. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Performance + Discovery — XP is kill-driven (level thresholds fixed, income isn't), plus elite chests. This corrects the original's "fixed interval" call, and with it the false finding that Performance-based pacing is unused in real games. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — 3-4 options per level; banish/skip/reroll are literal pool-shaping tools. 6. Cost: Free. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — 6 weapons, 6 passives. 10. Reversibility: Improvable-only — nothing leaves once slotted. Weight: Medium, Heavy for the first few slots. 11. Mutability: Scalar + Transformative + Unbounded — 8 levels, evolutions, and Limit Break past the cap. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — evolutions are prerequisite structures. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source Structure: Dual — the level-up pool plus arcanas; the original's "single source" predates or ignored the second system. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Compounding — the original's "Additive (exponential in practice)" was fighting its own vocabulary. 18. Identity: Early-locked. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power — PowerUps. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Build-led.

Brotato

1. Supply: Matched-to-Oversupplied — 4-slot shop plus batched level-ups every wave. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed, batched at wave ends. 4. Trigger: Performance + Structural + Economic — materials from kills are simultaneously XP and currency, so the economy is performance. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — 1-of-4 upgrade picks and shop, with reroll and item lock. 6. Cost: Currency + Free — spending materials is spending your own XP stream. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Typed — weapon slots (6, character-modified), unlimited items. 10. Reversibility: Refundable (weapons) + Locked (items). Weight: Light-to-Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar — weapon tiers via merging and shop upgrades. 12. Composition: Synergistic — stat-scaling webs plus weapon-class set bonuses. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — the item pool is a flagship rider economy: most strong items carry stat downsides; character negatives belong to start variance instead. 15. Source Structure: Dual — weapons + stat items. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent, heavily character-tilted. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — plus Danger levels as difficulty meta. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit — character + starting weapon. 21. Skill Weighting: Build-led, with real dodging.

SNKRX (classified from source)

1. Supply: Matched — gold-bound with interest (1 per 5, max 5; nothing above 25 banked). 2. Foresight: Immediate + Pool — unit tiers are known and gated by buyable shop levels. 3. Choice Timing: Continuous — a shop every floor. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — rolled shop, 2g reroll, shop lock, shop-level purchases shifting tier odds, passive offers rerollable for 5g. 6. Cost: Currency — everything through gold. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted + Elastic — 7 base, +1 per NG+ and +1 per loop up to 12; capacity growth is real, both meta and in-run. 10. Reversibility: Refundable + Fluid — sell units, reorder the snake freely. Weight: Light. 11. Mutability: Scalar — duplicates merge toward Lv.3; passive items level with XP too. 12. Composition: Synergistic — class-threshold set bonuses. 13. Arrangement: Ordered, weakly — snake position governs contact exposure and is freely rearrangeable. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source Structure: Dual — units + passive items. The original post's "single source, just units with class bonuses" is contradicted directly by the game's own run_passive_pool. 16. Embodiment: Units. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent, leaning Fluid — selling is cheap enough to pivot. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + the NG+ ladder (raises cap and difficulty). 20. Start Variance: Fixed — empty party, first shop roll; NG+ level selectable. 21. Skill Weighting: Build-led, with snake-piloting execution as a real secondary.

20 Minutes Till Dawn

1. Supply: Oversupplied — frequent kill-driven level-ups. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Performance. 5. Agency: Curated. 6. Cost: Free. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Unbounded, with per-line caps — no overall slot limit; each upgrade tree tops out. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — deeper tiers require their base picks. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source Structure: Dual — chosen weapon/character kit + the upgrade pool. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent, steered hard by the pre-run weapon. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power — runes are permanent soul-bought upgrades, two equipped at a time; the original's "unlocks only" was wrong. 20. Start Variance: Assembled kit — character + weapon + rune pair, chosen independently. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced — aiming and reload management are real.

Slay the Spire

1. Supply: Matched — the skip button is load-bearing. 2. Foresight: Forecast + Immediate — the map is the genre's canonical forecast. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — 1-of-3-or-skip; relics that modify future rewards, removal/transform services. 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Vitality + Opportunity — many events price rewards in HP; resting versus upgrading is pure opportunity cost. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Randomized + Immediate — cards through draw; relics and potions now. 9. Capacity: Diluting + Typed — deck dilution; potion slots. 10. Reversibility: Removable (cards) + Locked (relics). Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar + Transformative — one upgrade per card; transform events. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Rivalrous — archetype combos, and cards genuinely compete for the 3-energy budget every turn. The energy economy is Rivalrous composition the original framework had no word for. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant — the deck is shuffled; you don't arrange it. 14. Negatives: Avoidable, Unavoidable at high Ascension — curses are mostly declinable until Ascender's Bane. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — cards, relics, potions. 16. Embodiment: Gear — the deck is an external, configurable object. 17. Growth: Climbing — removal is consistency gain, not power loss; the original's "Subtractive" misread its own definition. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced, Knowledge-led at the top.

Balatro

1. Supply: Matched — money binds; the interest economy again. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Forecast — boss blinds previewed, a threat forecast that shapes build decisions. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic — shop after every blind. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — shop; vouchers, tags, and rerolls bend future shops. 6. Cost: Currency + Opportunity — interest breakpoints make every purchase price in forgone income. 7. Legibility: Computable — the flagship example. 8. Distribution: Immediate (jokers) + Randomized (deck). 9. Capacity: Slotted + Elastic — joker/consumable slots, expandable via vouchers and Negative editions; the original's "hard cap" hid the elasticity. 10. Reversibility: Refundable + Removable — sell jokers, destroy cards. Weight: Light-to-Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar + Transformative — scaling jokers grow with play; cards take enhancements, editions, seals. 12. Composition: Synergistic — the chip/mult/xmult chain is the game. 13. Arrangement: Ordered — joker order is mechanically significant (left-to-right evaluation, mult before xmult) and freely rearrangeable. The original framework couldn't see this at all. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — perishable/rental stickers are opt-in. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — jokers, deck modification, vouchers, consumables. 16. Embodiment: Gear. 17. Growth: Compounding — structurally mandatory; blind requirements are exponential. 18. Identity: Emergent, leaning Early-locked. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — plus stakes as difficulty meta. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit — decks. 21. Skill Weighting: Knowledge-led + Build-led.

Peglin

1. Supply: Matched. 2. Foresight: Forecast + Immediate — StS-style map. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated. 6. Cost: Free + Opportunity — no currency economy to speak of. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Randomized + Immediate — orbs drawn from the bag; relics now. 9. Capacity: Diluting — the orb bag is a deck. 10. Reversibility: Removable — orb removal at events. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar — orb levels. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable. 15. Source Structure: Dual — orbs + relics. 16. Embodiment: Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — plus Cruciball. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced — peg aiming is genuine execution.

Super Auto Pets

1. Supply: Matched — fixed 10 gold per turn; and note it is not Contested: pools aren't shared in async play, a distinction the original blurred by analogy to TFT. 2. Foresight: Pool + Immediate — the tier unlock schedule is public. 3. Choice Timing: Continuous. 4. Trigger: Structural. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — rolls, plus freeze as pool-shaping. 6. Cost: Currency. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — 5 team slots and no bench: freezing shop pets is the storage mechanism. The original's "bench for holding pets" doesn't exist. 10. Reversibility: Refundable + Fluid — sell for 1 gold, reposition freely. Weight: Light — the flagship. 11. Mutability: Scalar — merge toward level 3; food buffs accumulate. 12. Composition: Synergistic — trigger chains. 13. Arrangement: Ordered — the flagship Ordered game; front-to-back trigger order is the build. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source Structure: Dual — pets + food. 16. Embodiment: Units. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Fluid — pivoting is the core skill. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — packs. 20. Start Variance: Fixed, plus pack choice. 21. Skill Weighting: Build-led + Knowledge-led.

Teamfight Tactics

1. Supply: Contested — the flagship; 8 players drain one pool. 2. Foresight: Pool + Forecast — public tier odds; visible carousel. 3. Choice Timing: Continuous. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic — rounds, plus player-initiated rerolls and leveling any time gold allows. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — shop rolls; leveling and rolling to shift odds is the deepest pool-shaping in the genre. 6. Cost: Currency + Opportunity — interest and streak economics make every action price in forgone gold. 7. Legibility: Explicit + Experiential — text is clear, evaluation is meta-knowledge. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted + Elastic — board size is your level: capacity is directly buildable. 10. Reversibility: Refundable + Fluid. Weight: Light early, Heavy once committed. 11. Mutability: Scalar — star-ups; item crafting bonds components. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Systemic — trait thresholds; positioning interactions. 13. Arrangement: Spatial — the flagship Spatial game. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — champions, traits, items, augments. 16. Embodiment: Units. 17. Growth: Oscillating — spikes at upgrades and thresholds, power meaningful only relative to the lobby. 18. Identity: Fluid, Early-locked when the lobby forces it. 19. Persistence: None. 20. Start Variance: Fixed + Randomized — same start, randomized augment/item openings. 21. Skill Weighting: Knowledge-led + Build-led.

Dota Underlords

As TFT, with these differences (final, frozen version): item power comes as Curated 1-of-3 drafts after PvE rounds — a free, draft-based item system rather than TFT's component drops; there's a Milestone pick TFT lacks, the Underlord unit itself, chosen mid-run with its own ability build; Source Structure: Parallel (heroes, alliances, items, the Underlord); Persistence: None; Embodiment: Units; Arrangement: Spatial. Everything else tracks TFT.

Into the Breach

1. Supply: Starved — reputation is tight and shared across wants. 2. Foresight: Catalog — the flagship: full content and full enemy intent visible. 3. Choice Timing: Pre-run + Milestone. 4. Trigger: Structural (island ends) + Discovery (time pods). 5. Agency: Free + Curated — exact squad choice; pod and store offers. 6. Cost: Currency + Opportunity — reputation and cores; every grid-power purchase trades against weapons. 7. Legibility: Explicit — perfect information as identity. 8. Distribution: Front-loaded + Immediate. The original's "Distributed" wasn't a value on its own axis — mid-run acquisitions are simply Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — weapon slots, core budget. 10. Reversibility: Locked (squad) + Swappable (weapons/pilots between missions). Weight: Critical at squad select, Medium after. 11. Mutability: Scalar — cores, pilot XP. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Rivalrous — team combos; cores are a shared budget across three mechs. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant — positioning is tactics, not build. 14. Negatives: None — pilot death and grid attrition are losses, which belong to growth, not negative acquisition. The original's "None" was right; its reasoning wasn't tested. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — mechs, pilots, cores, grid. 16. Embodiment: Units. 17. Growth: Climbing, small increments, with real Declining pressure — pilots can die mid-run, grid damage persists. 18. Identity: Pre-committed — the flagship. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Legacy — coins buy squads; one pilot survives the timeline. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit + Inherited — squad plus the carried-over pilot. 21. Skill Weighting: Execution-led — puzzle execution dominates.

FTL: Faster Than Light

1. Supply: Starved — the flagship scrap economy. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Forecast — map beacons; and foresight is purchasable (Long-Range Scanners), gear buying information. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Discovery + Economic — events at jumps; upgrades and stores player-initiated. 5. Agency: Found + Curated + Free — event RNG; store stock; system upgrades as free-pick ship engineering. 6. Cost: Currency + Risk — scrap for everything; risky event options price rewards in hull and crew. The original's "Forced negatives — blue options require equipment" was a category error: that's positive gating, not negative acquisition. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — weapon/drone/augment slots, power caps. 10. Reversibility: Refundable + Swappable + Locked — sell gear; rearrange loadout; system upgrades permanent. Weight: Heavy — scarcity makes each purchase binding. 11. Mutability: Scalar — system levels, crew skills. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Rivalrous — ion/beam combos; the reactor is the genre's purest shared-budget composition. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None — risk costs resources, not build. 15. Source Structure: Interlocking — systems, crew, weapons, augments all modify each other. 16. Embodiment: Gear + Units — the ship and its crew. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent, hull-tilted. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — ships, layouts. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced, Knowledge-led at the top — pause micro plus event knowledge.

Spelunky 1/2

1. Supply: Starved. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed, thin. 4. Trigger: Discovery + Economic. 5. Agency: Found + Curated — and theft is the fun edge case: Free agency priced in Risk — you may take anything in the shop if you're willing to fight the shopkeeper economy. 6. Cost: Currency + Risk + Vitality — shops; theft and cursed pots; Kali sacrifices trade health-bearing assets for favor. 7. Legibility: Experiential. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Typed — 1 held item, 1 back slot, unlimited stacking passives (paste, gloves, spectacles). The original's "hard cap: 1 held item" ignored the entire passive layer. 10. Reversibility: Swappable (held) + Locked (passives). Weight: Light-to-Medium. 11. Mutability: Static. 12. Composition: Systemic — the physics sandbox. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — the Curse is opt-in-by-recklessness. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — held, back, passives, consumables. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing, shallow and supply-starved — not "minimal," which was never a value; jetpack-plus-paste runs are genuinely powered up. 18. Identity: Emergent, weakly. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool, thin — shortcuts and characters are convenience and cosmetics; effectively no power persistence. 20. Start Variance: Fixed. 21. Skill Weighting: Execution-led — the genre's flagship.

Rogue Legacy (Early / fresh save)

1. Supply: Starved — manor prices dwarf early gold. 2. Foresight: Catalog — the full manor tree and gear lists are visible from the first death; you always know what you're saving toward. The original missed the genre's best example of complete meta-visibility. 3. Choice Timing: Pre-run + Distributed, thin. 4. Trigger: Economic (manor) + Discovery (blueprints, chests). 5. Agency: Free (manor spending) + Curated (3 heirs) + Found (blueprints). 6. Cost: Currency — with Charon's toll taxing unspent gold, a deliberate anti-banking pressure. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Front-loaded — runs start with everything the manor has bought. 9. Capacity: Slotted. 10. Reversibility: Locked (manor) + Swappable (gear/runes). Weight: Heavy — every purchase is precious. 11. Mutability: Scalar — manor ranks, gear tiers. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — manor tree prerequisites. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Semi-avoidable — heir traits are imposed on every candidate, but you select among three rolled heirs; some negative traits are even gold-positive. Genuinely between Avoidable and Unavoidable, worth the note rather than a forced call. 15. Source Structure: Parallel — manor, gear, runes, class, traits. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Flat within-run, Climbing across runs — the run is a gold-harvesting expedition for the real, meta-level growth loop. 18. Identity: Pre-committed — heir choice defines the run. 19. Persistence: Permanent power + Banked resources + Unlock-pool — the manor IS the game. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit + Inherited. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced — skill compensates for weakness while build catches up.

Rogue Legacy (Late / full manor)

Differences from Early only: 1. Supply: Oversupplied (gold exceeds needs); 6. Cost: trivialized; 10. Weight: Light — heir choice barely matters when overleveled; 17. Growth: Flat at saturation; 19. Persistence: saturated; 21. Skill Weighting: Build-led at base difficulty, Execution-led again in NG+. The pair is the framework's cleanest demonstration that meta-progression moves a game along the axes over calendar time — same game, different classification.

Risk of Rain 1

1. Supply: Matched, browsing-taxed — chests are plentiful but every minute spent opening them raises difficulty. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice Timing: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Discovery + Economic + Performance — gold comes from kills. 5. Agency: Found — chests roll; you choose only whether and which chest, not what. 6. Cost: Currency + Time — the Time value's flagship: the difficulty clock prices acquisition in escalation. 7. Legibility: Explicit, terse. 8. Distribution: Immediate + Conditional — use items on cooldown. 9. Capacity: Unbounded — stacking is the thesis. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Light — few real decisions per acquisition. 11. Mutability: Unbounded — duplicates are the upgrade system. 12. Composition: Independent + Synergistic — most items stack independently; combos are emergent bonuses, not requirements. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None in practice. 15. Source Structure: Dual — items + use item, on fixed character kits. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Compounding. 18. Identity: Emergent, drifting Convergent — stack-everything sameness at scale. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit. 21. Skill Weighting: Balanced — execution early, build godhood late.

Risk of Rain 2

As RoR1, with material differences: 5. Agency: Found + Shaped — printers and scrappers are real pool-conversion tools RoR1 lacked; 6. Cost: Currency + Time + Risk — shrines of chance, lunar pods priced in a persistent meta currency; 7. Legibility: Explicit-simplified + Experiential — pickup text hides numbers the logbook reveals, closer to Experiential than the original's "Transparent"; 11. Mutability: Unbounded + Transformative — void items corrupt entire stacks of their counterpart; 14. Negatives: Avoidable — lunar items are the classic opt-in rider family; 15. Source Structure: Parallel — items, equipment, lunar/void families, alternate skills; 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Banked resources — lunar coins persist across runs; 20. Start Variance: Chosen kit + Assembled — survivor plus alternate-skill/equipment loadout.

Frequency Analysis

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

Counted from the corrected grids: 23 classification entries. Where an entry got a ranged call (e.g. Gungeon's "Starved-to-Matched"), both values are counted and the secondary is marked ~. A note on arithmetic: the original analysis ran these same 23 sections while calling them 22.

1. Supply

• Matched (11 +2~): Isaac, Hades, Nuclear Throne, Brotato, SNKRX, Slay the Spire, Balatro, Peglin, SAP, RoR1, RoR2 (~Gungeon, ~Noita)
• Starved (6): Gungeon, Noita, Into the Breach, FTL, Spelunky, Rogue Legacy Early
• Oversupplied (4 +1~): Dead Cells, Vampire Survivors, 20MTD, Rogue Legacy Late (~Brotato)
• Contested (2): TFT, Underlords
• Pulsed (0)

2. Foresight

• Immediate (18): everything except ItB, TFT, Underlords, RL Early, RL Late
• Forecast (6): Hades, Slay the Spire, Balatro, Peglin, TFT, FTL
• Pool (4): SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords
• Catalog (3): Into the Breach, RL Early, RL Late
• Explored (1): Noita
• Hidden (1): Isaac

3. Choice Timing

• Distributed (18): all except SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB
• Continuous (4): SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords
• Milestone (4): Dead Cells, Noita, Underlords, Into the Breach
• Pre-run (3): Into the Breach, RL Early, RL Late
• Front-loaded (0), Back-loaded (0)

4. Trigger

• Economic (17): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, Brotato, SNKRX, StS, Balatro, TFT, Underlords, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Structural (15): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Brotato, SNKRX, StS, Balatro, Peglin, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB
• Discovery (14): Isaac, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, VS, StS, Peglin, ItB, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Performance (6): Nuclear Throne, Vampire Survivors, Brotato, 20MTD, RoR1, RoR2
• Clock (0), Player-summoned (0)

5. Agency

• Curated (21): all except RoR1, RoR2
• Found (11): Isaac, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Shaped (11): Isaac, Hades, VS, Brotato, SNKRX, StS, Balatro, SAP, TFT, Underlords, RoR2
• Free (6): Dead Cells, Noita, ItB, FTL, RL Early, RL Late
• Predetermined (0)

6. Cost

• Currency (19): all except NT, VS, 20MTD, Peglin
• Free (12): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, VS, Brotato, 20MTD, StS, Peglin, Underlords
• Risk (6): Isaac, Dead Cells, Gungeon, FTL, Spelunky, RoR2
• Opportunity (6, counted only where mechanically sharpened): StS, Balatro, Peglin, TFT, Underlords, ItB
• Vitality (4): Isaac, Hades, StS, Spelunky
• Time (2): RoR1, RoR2

7. Legibility

• Explicit (18): all except Isaac, Gungeon, Noita, Spelunky, Balatro
• Experiential (8): Isaac, Gungeon, Noita, NT, TFT, Underlords, Spelunky, RoR2
• Computable (1): Balatro
• Opaque (1): Noita
• Unidentified (1): Isaac

8. Distribution Timing

• Immediate (21): all except RL Early, RL Late
• Conditional (4): Isaac, Gungeon, RoR1, RoR2
• Randomized (3): Slay the Spire, Balatro, Peglin
• Front-loaded (3): Into the Breach, RL Early, RL Late
• Scheduled (1): Hades (Chaos boons)
• Partitioned (0)

9. Capacity

• Slotted (13): Dead Cells, Noita, NT, VS, SNKRX, Balatro, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB, FTL, RL Early, RL Late
• Typed (6): Isaac, Hades, Gungeon, Brotato, StS, Spelunky
• Unbounded (4): Gungeon, 20MTD, RoR1, RoR2
• Elastic (4): SNKRX, Balatro, TFT, Underlords
• Diluting (2): Slay the Spire, Peglin

10. Reversibility

• Locked (15): Isaac, Hades, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Brotato, 20MTD, StS, ItB, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Swappable (8): Dead Cells, Noita, NT, ItB, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late
• Refundable (7): Brotato, SNKRX, Balatro, SAP, TFT, Underlords, FTL
• Fluid (5): Noita, SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords
• Removable (4): Dead Cells, StS, Balatro, Peglin
• Improvable-only (1): Vampire Survivors

Commitment Weight: Medium is the mode; Light clusters in the sell/reposition games (SNKRX, SAP, TFT/Underlords early, RL Late, both RoRs); Heavy where currency is scarce (FTL, RL Early); Critical only at Into the Breach's squad select.

11. Mutability

• Scalar (15): Hades, VS, Brotato, SNKRX, 20MTD, StS, Balatro, Peglin, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB, FTL, RL Early, RL Late
• Static (6): Isaac, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Spelunky
• Transformative (4 +2~): VS, StS, Balatro, RoR2 (~Isaac transformations, ~Gungeon synergy-forms)
• Unbounded (3): VS (Limit Break), RoR1, RoR2
• Branching (1): Nuclear Throne (Ultras)

12. Composition

• Synergistic (21): all except Noita, Spelunky
• Gated (6): Hades, Dead Cells, VS, 20MTD, RL Early, RL Late
• Rivalrous (4): Noita, Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, FTL
• Systemic (4 +1~): Noita, TFT, Underlords, Spelunky (~Isaac's tear pipeline)
• Exclusive (2): Isaac, Hades
• Independent (2): RoR1, RoR2

13. Arrangement

• Irrelevant (17)
• Ordered (3): Balatro, SAP, SNKRX (weak)
• Spatial (2): TFT, Underlords
• Structural (1): Noita

14. Negatives

• Avoidable (11 +2~): Isaac, Hades, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Brotato, StS, Balatro, Peglin, Spelunky, RoR2 (~RL Early/Late's semi-avoidable heir traits)
• None (10): Dead Cells (base), VS, SNKRX, 20MTD, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB, FTL, RoR1
• Unavoidable (2, both difficulty-gated): Dead Cells at high Boss Cells, StS at high Ascension

15. Source Structure

• Parallel (13): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, StS, Balatro, TFT, Underlords, ItB, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR2
• Dual (8): NT, VS, Brotato, SNKRX, 20MTD, Peglin, SAP, RoR1
• Interlocking (2): Noita, FTL
• Unified (0)

16. Embodiment

• Avatar (14): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, VS, Brotato, 20MTD, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Gear (14): Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Brotato, 20MTD, StS, Balatro, Peglin, FTL, Spelunky, RL Early, RL Late
• Units (7): Isaac (familiars), SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords, ItB, FTL (crew)
• World (0)

17. Growth Shape

• Climbing (14): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, NT, Brotato, SNKRX, 20MTD, StS, Peglin, SAP, ItB, FTL, Spelunky
• Compounding (4): VS, Balatro, RoR1, RoR2
• Stepped (2): Isaac, Noita
• Oscillating (2): TFT, Underlords
• Flat (2): RL Early, RL Late (within-run)
• Declining (1~): Into the Breach (pilot loss, grid attrition)
• Metamorphic (0)

18. Identity Formation

• Emergent (16): Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Gungeon, Noita, NT, Brotato, SNKRX, 20MTD, StS, Balatro, Peglin, FTL, Spelunky, RoR1, RoR2
• Fluid (3 +1~): SAP, TFT, Underlords (~SNKRX)
• Pre-committed (3): Into the Breach, RL Early, RL Late
• Early-locked (1 +2~): Vampire Survivors (~Balatro, ~TFT when forced)
• Convergent (0 +2~): (~RoR1, ~RoR2 at scale)

19. Persistence

• Unlock-pool (21): all except TFT, Underlords
• Permanent power (6): Hades, Dead Cells, VS, 20MTD, RL Early, RL Late
• Banked resources (3): RL Early, RL Late, RoR2 (lunar coins)
• None (2): TFT, Underlords
• World-state (1): Hades
• Legacy (1): Into the Breach

20. Start Variance

• Chosen kit (14): Isaac, Gungeon, NT, VS, Brotato, StS, Balatro, Peglin, ItB, FTL, RL Early, RL Late, RoR1, RoR2
• Fixed (7): Dead Cells, Noita, SNKRX, SAP, TFT, Underlords, Spelunky
• Randomized (4): Isaac (Eden), Noita, TFT, Underlords
• Assembled kit (3): Hades, 20MTD, RoR2
• Inherited (3): Into the Breach, RL Early, RL Late
• Seeded (0 as default mode) — dailies exist widely but aren't the core run

21. Skill Weighting

• Balanced (8): Hades, 20MTD, StS, Peglin, FTL, RL Early, RoR1, RoR2
• Build-led (8): VS, Brotato, SNKRX, Balatro, SAP, TFT, Underlords, RL Late
• Knowledge-led (6): Isaac, Noita, Balatro, SAP, TFT, Underlords
• Execution-led (5): Dead Cells, Gungeon, NT, ItB, Spelunky

What the recount changes versus the original analysis

1. "Performance-based: 0" flips to 6. The original's cleanest "unused option" was an artifact of misclassifying kill-driven XP as fixed-interval. Kill-fed acquisition is a solved, common pattern — it is not open design space.
2. The Traded gap dissolves. Sacrifice-priced acquisition, recategorized as Cost: Vitality/Risk, shows up in 8 entries. "No real game trades for power" was a bookkeeping error, not a design-space observation. What's actually rare on this axis: Time (2, both Risk of Rain).
3. Unified source: 0. The original had VS and SNKRX as single-source; both are Dual on inspection (arcanas; passive items). Not one of the 23 entries runs on a genuinely single system.
4. Elastic capacity: 0 → 4. Buildable capacity (Balatro slots, TFT levels, SNKRX loops) existed all along; the original framework's "Hard cap" hid it.
5. Arrangement: 6 entries have it, 17 don't. A new, real cleavage the original couldn't count at all: Balatro's joker order, SAP's line, TFT's board, Noita's wand topology. Structural arrangement (1: Noita) is close to unowned.
6. The genuinely empty values, post-correction: Pulsed supply; Front-loaded and Back-loaded choice timing; Clock and Player-summoned triggers; Predetermined agency; Partitioned distribution (and Scheduled at exactly 1, a Hades footnote); Unified source; World embodiment; Metamorphic growth; Seeded default starts. This list — not the original's — is the honest map of unexplored space, and it's what the experimental designs below are built against.
7. Near-universals confirmed: Immediate distribution (21/23), Curated agency (21/23), Synergistic composition (21/23), Unlock-pool persistence (21/23), Distributed choice (18/23). The fused choose-now-receive-now moment is the genre's deepest rut.

Hypothetical Designs

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

Fifteen imaginary games. The three archetypal designs assemble the most-common column of the frequency analysis — they will, unavoidably, resemble the genre's three ruts, which is the point. The twelve experimental designs were generated in batches against the corrected empty-cells map and curated across four rounds; roughly two thirds of everything generated was killed. Every design is build-heavy by mandate, favors feasibility over rarity-bingo, and carries one flagship gap value plus a defensible fun-thesis.

Archetypal 1: "Vaultbreaker" — the standard action roguelite

Room-clearing action through procedural vaults: fight, get offered a power, pick one of three, descend. The mode of every axis, deliberately.

1. Supply: Matched — a reward per room, never enough for everything. 2. Foresight: Forecast + Immediate — door icons preview reward types. 3. Choice: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — 1-of-3 plus a stingy reroll/ban economy. 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Vitality — rewards, shops, one blood-price vendor per floor. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Typed — exclusive core slots (attack/dash/guard), stacking passives. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — combo powers with prerequisites. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable. 15. Source: Parallel — powers, weapon mods, charms. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Balanced.

Archetypal 2: "Nightswarm" — the standard survivors-like

Auto-firing weapons, kill-driven XP, level-up picks, twenty minutes to dawn. Note the corrected trigger: this archetype is Performance-triggered, not fixed-interval — killing faster is choosing more.

1. Supply: Oversupplied. 2. Foresight: Immediate. 3. Choice: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Performance + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — banish/reroll as meta-unlocked pool tools. 6. Cost: Free. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — 6+6. 10. Reversibility: Improvable-only. Weight: Medium, Heavy for early slots. 11. Mutability: Scalar + Transformative — levels, then evolutions. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated — evolution recipes. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source: Dual — the level pool plus run-relics. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Compounding. 18. Identity: Early-locked. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool + Permanent power. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Build-led.

Archetypal 3: "Cinderdeck" — the standard deckbuilder

Cards in, consistency out; a map of forks and a skip button that's usually correct.

1. Supply: Matched. 2. Foresight: Forecast + Immediate. 3. Choice: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Economic + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — removal and transformation services. 6. Cost: Free + Currency + Vitality + Opportunity. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Randomized + Immediate — draw for cards, now for relics. 9. Capacity: Diluting + Typed. 10. Reversibility: Removable + Locked. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Rivalrous — archetypes over a fixed energy budget. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable, Unavoidable at high difficulty. 15. Source: Parallel. 16. Embodiment: Gear. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Balanced.

Experimental 1: "Manifest" — the seed hypothesis, built

Before the run, you draft twelve powers from an open catalog and set their delivery order. They arrive on fixed bells as the run escalates along a published threat curve. The build isn't a set, it's a curve — sequencing against the enemy curve is the whole strategic art (rush the early game and starve late, or white-knuckle the opening for a late spike). One in-run lever keeps the middle alive: you can pay to expedite the next delivery, and "rush orders" arrive early but bring an ambush with them. This is the design the original 2023 problem statement asked for — frontloaded power choice with distributed power distribution — which, notably, the original analysis never actually built: its "Loadout" fused choice and distribution up front.

1. Supply: Matched — the draft budget binds. 2. Foresight: Catalog — full catalog, your manifest, and the threat curve all visible. 3. Choice: Pre-run, thin Distributed via expediting. 4. Trigger: Clock + Player-summoned. 5. Agency: Free. 6. Cost: Currency + Risk — draft points; rush orders priced in ambushes. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Scheduled — the flagship; the near-empty cell (Hades' Chaos boons at 1) made load-bearing. 9. Capacity: Slotted — twelve manifest lines. 10. Reversibility: Locked — the manifest is a contract. Weight: Critical. 11. Mutability: Static. 12. Composition: Synergistic — combos have an ETA; waiting for a combo's second half is the run's drama. 13. Arrangement: Ordered — delivery order is the build. 14. Negatives: Avoidable. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Stepped. 18. Identity: Pre-committed. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — the catalog grows. 20. Start: Assembled kit, Seeded dailies natural. 21. Skill: Balanced — plan the curve, survive its gaps.

Experimental 2: "Summit" — phase purity: gather, then choose, then use

Act one, the Climb: fast, flowing ascent — you auto-gather every ore, relic, and shard you touch, unidentified, zero decisions, pure momentum. At the peak, the Forge: everything identifies at once, the descent's threats are revealed, and you make the run's only build decisions in one sitting — smelt the haul, combine pieces, sacrifice surplus to rank up keepers, carry what fits through the gate. Act three, the Descent: the actual gauntlet, fought with what you forged, nothing new coming. Mainstream roguelites blend acquiring, choosing, and using every two minutes; Summit sorts them into three pure sequential phases. It works precisely when the finale is long enough to deserve the planning — the descent is half the run. And its lesson about the framework: the choice point here is a single mid-run Milestone, not Back-loaded — decisions need a consequences-phase, so true back-loading is bounded by the run's own need to still be a game.

1. Supply: Oversupplied, then shut off — one great pulse. 2. Foresight: Immediate → Catalog — blind gathering, omniscient forging. 3. Choice: Milestone, single and massive. 4. Trigger: Structural — one summit. 5. Agency: Free — at the forge, anything combines. 6. Cost: Free + Opportunity — every smelt is the pieces you fed it. 7. Legibility: Unidentified → Explicit — identification deferred to the decision point, inverting Isaac. 8. Distribution: Front-loaded — relative to the act that matters. 9. Capacity: Typed — infinite cargo, finite gate. 10. Reversibility: Locked after the forge. Weight: Critical — one decision point, total commitment. 11. Mutability: Scalar — at the forge only. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — cursed ore is potent and descent-long. 15. Source: Unified — one forge. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Stepped — flat, cliff, flat. 18. Identity: Emergent, compressed into a single late moment. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Fixed. 21. Skill: Balanced — climb execution, forge puzzle, descent execution.

Experimental 3: "Eventide" — be somewhere on purpose when power arrives

Power comes only when the bells toll — dusk, midnight, dawn, across several nights — and what you're offered depends on where you're standing when they do. Each district of the cursed town has a domain: the forge quarter deals weapons at its bell, the chapel deals wards, the witching market deals riders-with-teeth. Between bells there are no upgrades at all — only survival, and routing: crossing town at night is dangerous, so being in the right district at the right toll is itself the build decision, paid in risk. District loyalty deepens that district's line.

1. Supply: Pulsed — the empty cell: nothing between bells, a burst at each. 2. Foresight: Pool + Forecast — domains known, countdown always visible. 3. Choice: Milestone. 4. Trigger: Clock — the flagship; the game's schedule, not yours, deals power. 5. Agency: Shaped + Curated — position as pool-shaping, a genuinely new expression of Shaped. 6. Cost: Free + Risk — offers are free; being there isn't. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Heavy — perhaps nine picks a run. 11. Mutability: Scalar — loyalty ranks district lines. 12. Composition: Synergistic + Gated. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — the witching bell. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Stepped — a staircase with the treads at fixed times. 18. Identity: Emergent — your route writes it. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — districts open across runs. 20. Start: Chosen kit, town layout Seeded per run. 21. Skill: Balanced — routing is planning; the nights are execution.

Experimental 4: "Castoff" — everything you skip arms your enemy

A rival delver runs the mirrored dungeon on the same seed, drawing from the same pool — single-player Contested supply. Every offer you see, they effectively see: what you take is denied to them; what you skip, they keep. Skirmish rooms let you inspect their growing build mid-run. The finale is the rival, wearing every rejection you made all run — your decision history as the final boss. Denial drafting becomes real in single-player: taking a mediocre item to keep it from them is a legitimate, slot-costing play, and the discard button feeds them directly.

1. Supply: Contested — the value escapes PvP autobattlers for the first time. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Pool — their inventory is inspectable; the endgame threat is knowable. 3. Choice: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural. 5. Agency: Curated, with denial as second-order agency. 6. Cost: Free + Opportunity — hate-picks cost slots. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — tight, so denial hurts. 10. Reversibility: Removable, with teeth — discards go to the rival. Weight: Medium-Heavy. 11. Mutability: Scalar. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None on your sheet — and worth flagging for the framework: this game's negatives accrue to the opposition, a mechanism the axis has no value for. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Climbing, mirrored. 18. Identity: Emergent, adversarially co-authored. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — rival personalities unlock. 20. Start: Chosen kit + Seeded parity. 21. Skill: Balanced + Knowledge-led — drafting theory matters.

Experimental 5: "B-Side" — the run as a record

Two prior ideas fused: the black midi "Slow" run from Son of a Serpent, and Summit's forge. Side A is the musical gather, structurally intact: one song, played whole, is the entire acquisition phase — collapse speed rides the track's intensity, slow passages are scavenging windows, fast passages are flight, the late calm before the final surge holds the best loot at the worst price. Grabbing is done at speed, unread — you're stuffing a trunk, not reading tooltips. The Flip is the forge: the needle lifts, everything identifies at once, and you make the run's only build decisions in stillness. Side B is the gauntlet, fought with what you pressed. New songs unlock as new Sides — the tracklist is the content pipeline, and each track's structure is a run archetype.

1. Supply: Pulsed — scarcity conducted by the song. 2. Foresight: Pool + Immediate — on repeat plays you know the track like a map; that's what song familiarity is. 3. Choice: Front-loaded (grabs) + Milestone (the Flip). 4. Trigger: Clock — the purest possible: the clock is the music. 5. Agency: Found + Free — grab what your route reaches; route freely. 6. Cost: Time + Risk — every second scavenging is collapse gaining. 7. Legibility: Unidentified → Explicit — blind at speed, omniscient at the Flip. 8. Distribution: Front-loaded relative to Side B. 9. Capacity: Typed — the trunk and your back. 10. Reversibility: Locked after the Flip. Weight: Critical, once. 11. Mutability: Scalar — at the forge only. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant — though trunk-Tetris under a fast section is sitting right there if Spatial ever beckons. 14. Negatives: Avoidable. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + Gear. 17. Growth: Stepped — flat, cliff, flat. 18. Identity: Emergent, compressed to the Flip. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — songs as unlocks. 20. Start: Fixed — the song is a permanent seed; identical structure, different scavenge. 21. Skill: Balanced — Side A execution, Flip puzzle, Side B execution.

Experimental 6: "Tab" — choice timing as a resource the player spends

The framework's seed axis, made into a mechanic. Every offer in the dungeon can be banked instead of decided: you pocket an unspent pick and walk on. Cash in banked picks at any shrine, and they compound — one pick buys a normal offer; five picks spent at once buy a tier-five offer: fused, build-defining, the kind of thing no drip-feed ever deals. So you choose your position on the distributed-to-concentrated spectrum, per run, continuously: drip-spend and play a normal roguelite, or starve yourself toward one colossal mid-run forge. The tension is that banked picks are carried risk — take a hard hit and your tab spills.

1. Supply: Matched. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Forecast — upcoming shrine tiers visible, so banking has targets. 3. Choice: Distributed, player-shiftable toward Milestone — the axis as a dial. 4. Trigger: Player-summoned — the empty cell, structural at last. 5. Agency: Curated, tier-scaled. 6. Cost: Opportunity + Risk — every banked pick is power not yet working and droppable. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate on spend. 9. Capacity: Slotted + Elastic — the tab's ceiling is upgradeable. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: self-set — Light in singles, Critical in fives; the derived rating becomes a player choice. 11. Mutability: Scalar. 12. Composition: Synergistic — high-tier fused offers are synergy packages by construction. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: player-authored — Climbing if you drip, Stepped if you hoard; the growth curve is the build. 18. Identity: Emergent, crystallizing when you say so. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Balanced + Knowledge-led — banking theory will grow a wiki.

Experimental 7: "Ferment" — nothing you decline disappears

A skipped offer stays where it was and ripens — return two floors later and the plain blade has grown veins, a level, a new verb; leave it five floors and it's something else entirely. The dungeon is a pantry of your own omissions, and skipping becomes investing: take now, leave to ripen, or burn it so nothing gets it. Because there's spoilage — ferments left too long turn feral or get absorbed by elites, and the final door harvests everything still unclaimed: the last fight wears your oldest abandons.

1. Supply: Matched, conserved — the thesis: nothing is wasted, only deferred; the offer pool obeys a conservation law. 2. Foresight: Immediate + Explored — a ledger tracks what's ripening where. 3. Choice: Distributed, three-valued — take, leave, burn. 4. Trigger: Structural + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped — the deepest Shaped in the set: your future pool literally is your past skips. 6. Cost: Free + Time + Risk — ripening takes floors, backtracking costs ground, spoilage looms. 7. Legibility: Explicit + Experiential — maturation rules are learned lore. 8. Distribution: Immediate, with kinship to Scheduled: a ferment is a delivery you scheduled by walking away. 9. Capacity: Slotted — the world holds your surplus options; your potential build lives in the map, your actual build on your back. 10. Reversibility: Locked once taken. Weight: Medium, compounding for leavers. 11. Mutability: Transformative — of the offer, not the owned. A framework footnote earned: Mutability means change in powers you hold; Ferment mutates powers you haven't taken, and no axis names that. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant, though where things ferment shades toward Spatial. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — over-ripe items turn feral. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar + half-World. 17. Growth: Climbing + Stepped — harvest days. 18. Identity: Emergent, authored by omission — you are what you didn't eat. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Knowledge-led + Balanced — orchard theory.

Experimental 8: "Cordon" — enclosure drafting: you claim what you encircle

The Qix reading of UFO 50's Paint Chase. You move continuously through arena floors, trailing a line; close a loop and everything inside becomes yours — indivisibly. The shrine grants its boon, enclosed enemies convert to tribute, hazard patches come with the package: you can't cherry-pick inside a loop, so precision geometry is the drafting skill. Your open trail is your exposure — cut it and you bleed. Enclosed ground stays painted for the arena's duration, granting a modest standing bonus on your own color, and total coverage gates the exit; special enclosures grant portable powers that persist the whole run. Re-encircling the same power family upgrades it. Your starting pick is a handling profile — turn radius, speed, trail length — because movement stats are build stats here.

1. Supply: Matched — each arena seeds a finite set of enclosables; the coverage gate forces you to engage most of the board. 2. Foresight: Immediate, whole-arena. 3. Choice: Distributed, one loop at a time. 4. Trigger: Player-summoned + Structural — a claim happens exactly when you choose to close the line. 5. Agency: Free, by geometry — you enclose precisely what you dare, bundled. 6. Cost: Risk + Time — trail exposure scales with loop ambition, and spawns ramp while you draw. 7. Legibility: Explicit. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted — portable-power slots; surplus enclosures cash out as coverage. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium. 11. Mutability: Scalar — re-enclosure upgrades families. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Spatial — the painted arena map is live build state. 14. Negatives: Avoidable, by geometry — a new avoidance mechanism: negatives are dodged with line-work, not menus. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: World + Avatar. 17. Growth: Climbing. 18. Identity: Emergent — the arena prices your options; your nerve does the rest. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit — handling profiles. 21. Skill: Execution-led, leaning Balanced.

Experimental 9: "Almanac" — Ferment on a calendar

The dungeon runs on a public calendar: each floor advances the date, seasons turn every few floors, and this year's almanac — which item families ripen in which season, what the year holds — is readable from floor one. Skipped items are planted: they travel forward and reappear matured in the season their kind ripens in, delivered into whatever floor you've reached by then. You never backtrack — where Ferment is a garden you return to, Almanac is always planting ahead of yourself. What you find to plant is random; the calendar is fixed; the build is fitting random finds onto a known schedule. Unclaimed harvests go feral by year's end, and the year-end gate collects what you never came for.

1. Supply: Matched + Pulsed — steady drops, seasonal harvest bursts. 2. Foresight: Catalog — the calendar and ripening rules, plus a ledger of your plantings. 3. Choice: Distributed, take-or-plant at every offer. 4. Trigger: Clock + Structural + Discovery — seasons are the metronome. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped + Found. 6. Cost: Free + Time + Opportunity — a planted item is power foregone for floors. 7. Legibility: Explicit, including the future — the most legible design in the set; even tomorrow is documented. 8. Distribution: Scheduled — the flagship: planting is authoring a delivery date, the framework's emptiest real cell made player-operated. 9. Capacity: Slotted. 10. Reversibility: Locked; planted items unreachable until delivery. Weight: Medium, compounding for heavy planters. 11. Mutability: Transformative, offer-side — season-ruled maturation. 12. Composition: Synergistic, across time — plant the combo's other half to arrive in its season; combos have seasons. 13. Arrangement: Ordered — the planting schedule is a timeline you compose. 14. Negatives: Avoidable — feral spoilage, the year-end collection. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Stepped — spikes on season boundaries. 18. Identity: Emergent, farmed — committed floors before it's felt. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit + Seeded — the year's almanac is rolled, then published. 21. Skill: Knowledge-led + Balanced.

Experimental 10: "Pilgrim" — vows now, power at the next station

A holy route, fixed and fully known. At each station you're offered three vows from your codex — real constraints on play: no ranged attacks, no healing, never stop moving — each binding until the next station. Arrive with a vow intact and it pays out power scaled to its severity, drawn from a pool aligned with the vow: renounce ranged and the payout deepens melee. You become what you practiced under constraint. Break a vow and there's no payout, plus a scar. Vows chain — consecutive keeps multiply — and up to three may run concurrently, so the deep builds are lattices of overlapping promises stacked stations ahead. Every vow is a wager on your own execution.

1. Supply: Matched — the offer volume equals your appetite for constraint. 2. Foresight: Catalog — the route, its stations, the codex. 3. Choice: Milestone — stations are the only decision points. 4. Trigger: Structural. 5. Agency: Curated — over constraints, not powers; power is downstream of discipline. 6. Cost: Risk, mechanism constraint-as-price — a framework footnote earned: the Cost axis has no value for paying in behavior; Pilgrim pays forward in restricted play. 7. Legibility: Explicit — terms and payouts stated like contracts. 8. Distribution: Scheduled, always one station late — the design in one clause. 9. Capacity: Slotted — concurrent-vow limit, power slots. 10. Reversibility: vows breakable at scar cost, powers Locked. Weight: Heavy — a vow shapes whole minutes of play. 11. Mutability: Scalar — renewing the same vow deepens its line. 12. Composition: Synergistic — lattice multipliers, aligned payout families. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant, though chain order carries multipliers. 14. Negatives: Avoidable, self-authored, binding once sworn — scars are the earned unavoidables. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar. 17. Growth: Stepped — payouts land at stations. 18. Identity: Pre-committed per leg, Emergent at run scale — the run's identity is the vow history read backward. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool — the codex grows. 20. Start: Chosen kit — a creed with vow affinities. 21. Skill: Balanced — the payout screen is a mirror of your self-assessment.

Experimental 11: "Unmade" — you will meet the build you didn't choose

Forges appear every floor and offer three recipes. You take one; the other two are cast — assembled into constructs, seeded into the floors ahead, visibly wearing the items you declined. Killing an unmade yields materials to upgrade what you did make — never the recipe itself; the road not taken stays not taken. Whatever survives to the act's end fights you amalgamated at the door. Leave both halves of a combo unpicked and they pair-hunt you, because the enemy side composes by the same synergy rules you do. Every recipe card therefore reads twice — as a power for you and as a stat block against you — and drafting theory becomes threat assessment becomes self-knowledge.

1. Supply: Matched, conserved — offers are never destroyed, only repurposed; Ferment's conservation law, adversarial branch. 2. Foresight: Pool + Immediate — the enemy roster is your own decline history, perfectly known. 3. Choice: Distributed — a forge per floor. 4. Trigger: Structural. 5. Agency: Curated, with adversarial consequence. 6. Cost: Free, priced in opposition — the axis has no value for costs that accrue to your enemies' benefit. 7. Legibility: Explicit, bidirectionally — the same card is a purchase and a scouting report. 8. Distribution: Immediate. 9. Capacity: Slotted. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Heavy — every pick is also world-authorship. 11. Mutability: Scalar — your unmade feed your made. 12. Composition: Synergistic, on both sides of the screen. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None on your sheet — they all walk. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar, with your anti-build embodied as Units. 17. Growth: Climbing, mirrored. 18. Identity: Emergent, dialectically — shaped by what you refuse. 19. Persistence: Unlock-pool. 20. Start: Chosen kit. 21. Skill: Knowledge-led — the set's deepest drafting theory.

Experimental 12: "Heirloom" — Ferment across runs: last run's skips seed this world

Everything you declined last run was planted, and this run's world grows around it: the baseline generator plus an heirloom layer, your previous run's skips matured and standing in shrines, marked so you recognize your own leavings. The window rolls one run deep — this world remembers exactly one past. Maturation quality scales with the depth at which you skipped: an item passed up on floor eight ripens into something extraordinary; a floor-two skip barely improves. That kills the throwaway-farm-run exploit — investing in your next run requires going deep in this one while exercising restraint, the genre's two costliest virtues spent simultaneously. Dying plants. Winning plants. Runs are seasons of one orchard.

1. Supply: Matched, enriched in proportion to last run's restraint. 2. Foresight: Pool — the pre-run orchard manifest: you half-know this world because you authored it. 3. Choice: Distributed. 4. Trigger: Structural + Discovery. 5. Agency: Curated + Shaped, one run removed — the set's slowest pool-shaping. 6. Cost: Free + Opportunity at two timescales — now versus next run. 7. Legibility: Explicit + Experiential — maturation rules are meta-knowledge. 8. Distribution: Immediate in-run, Scheduled across the run boundary — the run itself is the delivery interval. 9. Capacity: Slotted. 10. Reversibility: Locked. Weight: Medium in-run, generational for skips. 11. Mutability: Transformative, offer-side, across runs. 12. Composition: Synergistic. 13. Arrangement: Irrelevant. 14. Negatives: None — unclaimed heirlooms simply pass; the orchard doesn't hoard grudges, which separates it from Ferment's feral spoilage and Unmade's walking ones. 15. Source: Unified. 16. Embodiment: Avatar, with the world as granary. 17. Growth: Climbing in-run — the real curve is the two-run envelope. 18. Identity: Emergent on a two-run wavelength — this build is partly last run's conscience. 19. Persistence: Legacy + Unlock-pool — the flagship for the cell only Into the Breach's pilot touches. 20. Start: Inherited + Chosen kit — the natural pairing. 21. Skill: Knowledge-led + Balanced.

Experimental Frequency Analysis

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

Counted over the 12 experimental designs, archetypal games excluded. Real-game comparisons refer to the 23-entry counts above.

1. Supply

• Matched (8): Manifest, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Pilgrim, Unmade, Heirloom
• Pulsed (3): Eventide, B-Side, Almanac — 0/23 in real games
• Oversupplied (1): Summit (then shut off)
• Contested (1): Castoff — escapes PvP autobattlers for the first time
• Starved (0)

2. Foresight

• Immediate (7): Summit, Castoff, B-Side, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Unmade
• Pool (5): Eventide, Castoff, B-Side, Unmade, Heirloom
• Catalog (4): Manifest, Summit, Almanac, Pilgrim — proportionally ~3× the real games
• Forecast (2): Eventide, Tab
• Explored (1): Ferment
• Hidden (0)

3. Choice Timing

• Distributed (7 +1~): Castoff, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Unmade, Heirloom (~Manifest's expedite lever)
• Milestone (4): Summit, Eventide, B-Side, Pilgrim
• Pre-run (1): Manifest
• Front-loaded (1): B-Side — 0/23 in real games
• Continuous (0), Back-loaded (0) — empty by argument now, not by neglect

4. Trigger

• Structural (8): Summit, Castoff, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Pilgrim, Unmade, Heirloom
• Clock (4): Manifest, Eventide, B-Side, Almanac — 0/23 real
• Player-summoned (3): Manifest, Tab, Cordon — 0/23 real
• Discovery (3): Ferment, Almanac, Heirloom
• Economic (0) — 17/23 in real games; the genre's default trigger, entirely absent here
• Performance (0)

5. Agency

• Curated (8): Eventide, Castoff, Tab, Ferment, Almanac, Pilgrim, Unmade, Heirloom
• Free (4): Manifest, Summit, B-Side, Cordon
• Shaped (4): Eventide, Ferment, Almanac, Heirloom
• Found (2): B-Side, Almanac
• Predetermined (0)

6. Cost

• Risk (7): Manifest, Eventide, B-Side, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Pilgrim
• Free (7): Summit, Eventide, Castoff, Ferment, Almanac, Unmade, Heirloom
• Opportunity (5): Summit, Castoff, Tab, Almanac, Heirloom
• Time (4): B-Side, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac — 2/23 real, both Risk of Rain
• Currency (1): Manifest — 19/23 real
• Vitality (0)

7. Legibility

• Explicit (12): all, at least by the decision moment
• Unidentified (2): Summit, B-Side — deferred to the forge/Flip
• Experiential (2): Ferment, Heirloom — maturation lore
• Computable (0), Opaque (0)

8. Distribution Timing

• Immediate (8): Eventide, Castoff, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Unmade, Heirloom
• Scheduled (4): Manifest, Almanac, Pilgrim, Heirloom — 1/23 real (the Hades Chaos footnote); the near-empty cell is this set's signature move
• Front-loaded (2): Summit, B-Side
• Randomized (0), Conditional (0), Partitioned (0)

9. Capacity

• Slotted (10): all except Summit, B-Side
• Typed (2): Summit, B-Side — the trunk and the gate
• Elastic (1): Tab
• Unbounded (0), Diluting (0)

10. Reversibility

• Locked (11): everything except Castoff's feed-the-rival discards and Pilgrim's breakable vows
• Removable (2): Castoff (with teeth), Pilgrim (at scar cost)
• Swappable (0), Refundable (0), Fluid (0), Improvable-only (0)

Commitment Weight: Critical (3): Manifest, Summit, B-Side; Heavy (3): Eventide, Pilgrim, Unmade; Medium (5): Castoff, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Heirloom; self-set (1): Tab — the derived rating made a player decision.

11. Mutability

• Scalar (8): Summit, Eventide, Castoff, B-Side, Tab, Cordon, Pilgrim, Unmade
• Transformative, offer-side (3): Ferment, Almanac, Heirloom — a mechanism with no real-game instance at all
• Static (1): Manifest
• Unbounded (0), Branching (0)

12. Composition

• Synergistic (12): all
• Gated (1): Eventide
• Independent (0), Exclusive (0), Rivalrous (0), Systemic (0)

13. Arrangement

• Irrelevant (9)
• Ordered (2): Manifest, Almanac — timelines as builds
• Spatial (1): Cordon
• Structural (0)

14. Negatives

• Avoidable (8): Manifest, Summit, Eventide, B-Side, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Pilgrim
• None (4): Castoff, Tab, Unmade, Heirloom — though Castoff and Unmade route their "negatives" to the opposition, which the axis can't count
• Unavoidable (0)

15. Source Structure

• Unified (12): all — 0/23 in real games; the starkest divergence in the entire analysis
• Dual (0), Parallel (0), Interlocking (0)

16. Embodiment

• Avatar (12): all
• Gear (2): Summit, B-Side
• World (1 +1~): Cordon (~Ferment's pantry-world)
• Units (0 +1~): (~Unmade's anti-build)

17. Growth Shape

• Stepped (6 +1~): Manifest, Summit, Eventide, B-Side, Almanac, Pilgrim (~Ferment's harvests) — 2/23 real
• Climbing (5): Castoff, Ferment, Cordon, Unmade, Heirloom
• Player-authored (1): Tab — Climbing or Stepped by the player's banking hand
• Compounding (0), Oscillating (0), Flat (0), Declining (0), Metamorphic (0)

18. Identity Formation

• Emergent (10 +1~): everything except Manifest (~Pilgrim, per-leg Pre-committed)
• Pre-committed (1 +1~): Manifest (~Pilgrim)
• Early-locked (0), Fluid (0), Convergent (0)

19. Persistence

• Unlock-pool (12): all
• Legacy (1): Heirloom — joining Into the Breach's pilot as the cell's second occupant
• Permanent power (0), Banked (0), None (0), World-state (0)

20. Start Variance

• Chosen kit (9): Eventide, Castoff, Tab, Ferment, Cordon, Almanac, Pilgrim, Unmade, Heirloom
• Fixed (2): Summit, B-Side
• Assembled kit (1): Manifest
• Seeded, secondary (4): Manifest's dailies, Eventide's town, Castoff's parity, Almanac's calendar — 0/23 real as a default
• Inherited (1): Heirloom

21. Skill Weighting

• Balanced (10): all except Cordon, Unmade
• Knowledge-led (6): Castoff, Tab, Ferment, Almanac, Unmade, Heirloom
• Execution-led (1): Cordon
• Build-led (0)

Summary

Framework | Games | Frequency | Designs | Experimental | Summary

The genre's rut is a fused moment, and every surviving design de-fuses it. The real-game data says the modern roguelite runs on one welded joint: you decide, receive, and pay in the same two seconds, at a shop or a reward screen — Immediate distribution in 21 of 23 entries, Economic triggers in 17, Currency costs in 19. The experimental set's shared move, visible in the counts, is pulling those three timings apart: Economic triggers fall to zero and Currency to one, while Scheduled distribution goes from a footnote (one occurrence in 23 real games) to the set's second-most-common delivery mode, and the world's Clock plus the player's own hand (Player-summoned) replace the room-clear as the thing that summons power. This is the 2023 seed observation surviving contact with corrected data: the deepest lever available to a designer bored of "choose 1 of 3" isn't a weirder menu — it's separating when you choose from when you get from when you pay.

When the shop leaves, the clock arrives. With Currency near zero, the experimental economy prices acquisition in Risk, Time, and Opportunity — exposure held during a bell, floors foregone while a planting matures, the ambush a rush order brings with it. Growth flips with it: Stepped curves (rare in shipped games, where kill-loop economies smooth everything) become the experimental norm, because power that arrives on schedules arrives in stairs. The trend worth stealing even for a conventional game: let the world's schedule, not the player's wallet, be the thing a build negotiates with.

Unified source, 12 against 0. Not one of the 23 shipped entries runs on a single power system — even Vampire Survivors and SNKRX, the original post's "single source" examples, turned out to be dual on inspection. Every surviving experimental design is unified. Both readings deserve stating. First: one deep system whose grammar generates everything — enclosure geometry, vow lattices, a planting calendar — is a real and almost untouched elegance budget; these designs feel distinct precisely because nothing dilutes their one idea. Second, the production reading: shipped games sprout second systems under content pressure and live-balance duress, so a unified design should budget for that pressure — pick a system whose internal grammar can absorb an expansion's worth of content, or accept becoming dual gracefully. Noita is the proof that near-unified survives shipping; nothing proves fully-unified does.

Commitment gets heavier, and this finding replicated. The original analysis's experimental set skewed toward permanent, high-stakes choices under its framework; this set, generated independently against different data, did the same — Locked reversibility in eleven of twelve, zero Refundable, zero Fluid, three Critical weights. Real games cluster Light-to-Medium with generous refund wings. Either designers hunting novelty reflexively reach for weight because reversibility is the genre's comfort blanket, or weight is genuinely where the unexplored feeling lives. I'd bet on the second: selling, rerolling, and repositioning are solved problems; a decision the player must live with is the cheapest drama a roguelite can buy, and the market barely stocks it.

The genuinely new territory: power you don't own yet has no rights. Real games treat a declined offer as null — it vanishes, unmourned. The most distinctive mechanism class in this set says otherwise: offers ferment when skipped, travel forward on calendars, seed the next run's world, or get up and hunt you wearing what you refused. Three designs mutate unowned power (a phenomenon the Mutability axis had to be stretched to describe), two route costs to the opposition (which the Cost axis can't count), and all of them obey a conservation law shipped games lack: nothing offered is ever destroyed, only relocated. If one idea from this whole exercise deserves a prototype, it's this — the skip button as an act of authorship.

How the framework was actually used, which is the meta-lesson. The designs that survived curation were rarely built by picking rare values off the tables — rarity-bingo produced this exercise's corpses. The survivors came from operating on the axes themselves: Tab turns choice timing into a spendable resource, Pilgrim pays costs in the currency of constrained behavior, Ferment moves mutability from the owned to the offered, Summit sorts the pipeline's stages into pure sequential phases. A taxonomy's generative use isn't "find the empty cell and fill it" — it's "find the axis and bend it." Which is also why some cells should stay empty: Back-loaded choice remained unfilled through two independent passes, and the Summit analysis explains it — decisions need a consequences-phase, so lateness is bounded by the run's own need to still be a game. An empty cell can be load-bearing.

Honest blind spots, for the record: all twelve designs are Synergistic in composition, ten are Balanced in skill weighting, and none are Build-led — the same homogeneity the original's set showed. Two independent generators drifting to the same corner suggests the pull is designer-psychological, not accidental: novelty-seeking avoids "the build plays itself" because it feels like abdicating design. That corner — a genuinely new idle-adjacent roguelite where construction is everything and execution is nothing — remains the least explored cell in the whole matrix, twice over.