Reverse Minesweeper: port batch 2, the two-stage loop (power-down, human descent on the dug world, camp, death)

I should go through the earlier packets, reports, and lab files first, starting with the three prior packets and reports for efficiency.

Let me check the current state of the lab and look at the file sizes to get a sense of what's there.

I notice the clock only resets to zero when grounded, so it can drift negative while airborne — I need to clamp it at zero instead. Let me check rooms.lua and world.lua next.

I'm moving on to controller.lua, looking at how player_reset, camera targeting, camera_lab_update, do_land, player_update dispatch, and rope handling are structured.

I want to check the sketch index.html to look at the state management, setState calls, camp rules, banners, HUD, and T value handling, so I'll search for the relevant state code.

I should also check drawCamp and drawHuman to see how they're implemented.

I need to check view.lua to see how the game room is drawn, so I can figure out where to add the camp, human, marker, and banners.

Now I'm looking at the tuning.lua dig block and overall structure.

I'm now examining the structure of verify.lua — the header, helper functions, and the tail end of the batch-3 section — so I can figure out how to extend it.

I want to check a few more pieces before finalizing: how rope throwing references the player global, how landing transitions into `do_land`, and how `main.lua` ticks ropes and player updates across the different rooms, especially room 4's human state.

Now I understand that do_land is called from update_air/update_ground, and it sets last_land_dmg and last_land_t without touching stats.falls directly. Since I can't modify do_land itself, I need to hook into its result specifically within room 4's logic to detect a damaging landing and increment stats.falls there.

Checking room 4's rope drawing and update logic confirms they route through the human player and world correctly.

Now I'm sketching the run state machine in a new game.lua file, using states play, powerdown, human, camp, dead — but I realize this replaces the old 'over' state from batch 3, which breaks an existing verify assertion checking that the run ends in 'over' at zero. That's a real conflict: the brief says to stop if a fix would change behavior outside this packet's scope, so I need to flag this before proceeding.

I need to check where else `run.state` gets checked — world_update gates nugget collection on 'play', and draw_reach/draw_cursor/draw_robot all guard on that state too.

For game.lua, I'm planning `game_set_state(s)` to set both `run.state` and reset `run.t` to zero, mirroring the sketch's stateT pattern where run.t tracks seconds elapsed since entering the current state.

Actually I realize the sketch distinguishes between total run time and state time — I should add a separate `run.total_t` field to preserve the robot help logic (which only shows before 7 seconds of total play), while keeping `run.t` as the per-state timer for other purposes like the help overlay.

Then I'm working out `game_powerdown()`: when the clock hits zero with the robot on ground, it resets the dig state, triggers a shake, sets the pan target from the camp position, spawns the human actor there, and transitions to the powerdown state — matching how the sketch creates the human at the camp and pans the camera toward them.

I'm also noting the human shouldn't update during powerdown, only during the `human` state, and thinking through how the camp position itself is set — starting above the surface spawn point for the first powerdown.

For the initial spawn, the human free-falls a short distance onto the ground, but that's below any damage threshold so it's fine. For later camps, the camp position is recorded as the robot's own position at powerdown, which by definition is a legal grounded spot for a same-sized box, so the human spawns cleanly without needing extra overlap correction since rock is never added back after being cleared.

I'm now working out the camera pan logic during powerdown, using an eased interpolation between the pan start and target height over the configured pan duration.

The tricky part is making `active_actor()` return the human during powerdown so `camera_target()` resolves correctly, while still driving the y position manually via the ease rather than the normal tween. I'll need to sort out the x-axis handling too, since the robot's camera-x follow behaves differently.

Since I'm restricted to touching controller.lua only for the falls hook, I can't add that reset there. Instead I'll set `cam_x_fixed` inside `room_load` in rooms.lua right after `player_reset` — nil for rooms 1-3, world_w/2 for the game room, which is clean and in scope. I also confirm `camera_target()` behaves correctly since the human has peek and stays put during powerdown at camp.

I need to check the current value of `T.cam_lead` in tuning since the brief says it should now be 0 and I shouldn't change it — that affects the camera lead term in `camera_target`. Then I'm reviewing the human state's tick logic: rope updates, `player_update`, the falls hook, the reached-the-robot distance check, death check, and the camera tween. For the reached-the-robot test, I'm looking at how the squared distance between the human and robot centers is computed to trigger the collision.

The lab already tracks positions as centers, so the distance check simplifies compared to the sketch's version, and crouching shouldn't meaningfully throw off the centre-based comparison. I'm settling on storing `reach_robot = 1.0` in `T.dig` as the distance threshold, matching the sketch's squared-distance comparison of 1.0. Now I'm moving on to figure out the death condition logic.

For death, I want to check if the player's hp drops to zero or their state becomes 'dead' after the update step, triggering the death reason, state transition, and best-score update — building on the existing `player_hurt` and `do_land` handling. Then I'm working through the camp state transition: entering camp repositions it to the robot, heals the player, and refills ropes, followed by a 1.4 second banner hold before cycling back into play with a reset clock and incremented cycle count.

The human should remain visible whenever the game isn't in the play state, since it only gets cleared right at the transition back into play, and ropes persist across cycles since only loading a fresh game clears that table.

For the dead state, the sketch freezes everything by returning early from update before the chains/loot/fx loop runs, though time and stateT still tick first. I'll mirror this exactly: advance world.time and run.t, then return immediately without calling world_update, matching how the original halts all gameplay logic once dead.

Checking main.lua's restart handling, room_load already calls world_new with a fresh seed when T.seed is zero, so R already restarts correctly from any state including dead — nothing more needed there. I still want to verify the sketch's R key handler and confirm best_dig tracks the session's deepest run for the dead banner, then move on to reviewing draw_dig_hud's display logic across play/camp versus other states.

Now I'm looking at the robot off-screen marker: the sketch draws an arrow toward the robot's position at the screen edge with its distance in meters, shown only when the robot is below the visible view. I want to expose this as a testable flag, likely `run.marker_on` or a `robot_marker()` function returning visibility, x-position, and distance, so verification can assert on it directly.

I'm deciding to trigger the marker whenever the robot's box falls entirely outside the vertical view span (accounting for a small edge inset), handling both above and below cases even though the sketch only really needs below, since it's cheap to support both. I'll also plan out the other UI banners (powerdown, camp, dead) and the early control hint shown during the human's first seconds of control, matching the sketch's timing and key labels.

Now I'm adding tuning values under the dig config for pan timing, camp heal amount, robot reach distance, and camp hold duration, pulling the numbers straight from the sketch's constants, and wiring the HUD's cycle counter so it actually increments during play.

Converting the sketch's fall-damage feel into a shake value scaled in tiles (10px/32 ≈ 0.3125), applied through the same falls hook rather than adding a separate rule, since the lab's own landing readout already handles the display part. For the camp state, I'm noting that the camera should stay fixed on the human's last position since the sketch never updates it there, even though active_actor switches to the robot.

On resuming play after camp, the robot just picks up digging from its current spot without a reset, which is fine. I need to make sure robot movement, digging, and nugget collection are all gated to the play state only, matching the sketch's behavior where the robot stays frozen and non-interactive during the human phase.

I also want to confirm mines stay inert solid tiles regardless of who's interacting with them, and that the human's depth tracking is separate from the run's max_depth score shown in the HUD. For the room dispatch, I'm planning to consolidate camera handling into game_update rather than calling it separately, since the powerdown pan needs custom camera logic anyway.

Since game_update currently lives in robot.lua, I'm restructuring so a new game.lua owns the run's state machine and transitions, keeping robot.lua focused just on robot logic. That means splitting game_update into a dispatcher plus separate functions per state, like a dedicated play-state handler.

I need to remove game_update from robot.lua and instead extend the `run` table created in `world_new` with the loop fields: total_t, pan_from, camp coordinates, death_reason, marker state, and falls stats. The camp position should match the robot's spawn location, which requires figuring out how world_new's coordinate system relates to the room's spawn point.

I decide the simplest approach is adding one line in room_load's game branch right after robot_reset to set run.camp from robot's position, since run already exists by that point. Then for spawning the human, I plan to call player_reset at the camp coordinates and nudge upward in a loop if the standing hitbox overlaps solid ground, plus set start_y and cam_x_fixed to match the existing pattern used for rooms 1-3.

For the camera fix, I settle on pinning cam_x_fixed to world_w/2 in tile units for the human too, matching what the robot already does, so camera_target returns the same centered value for both. Then I sketch the falls-tracking hook inside game_human's update loop, comparing player.last_land_t before and after player_update to detect a new landing this tick and incrementing run.stats.falls when there's fall damage.

Next I trace active_actor() in rooms.lua, which picks robot vs player depending on run.state — human control during human/powerdown/dead states, robot otherwise for play and camp. I reason through why powerdown should target the human (camera pans to the landing point) and dead should stay on the human corpse, and note camp's tween toward the robot still works fine since active_actor returns robot there. Then I move to view.lua, planning to add camp and human drawing calls into game_draw().

Adding tent and dig drawing calls...

The reach cursor guard is already fine, and the robot's powered-down grey rendering matches the sketch by tying it to play state alone. I'm also confirming nugget pickup gating stays play-only, then fixing the clock logic so it clamps at zero with math.max instead of going negative, letting the robot keep falling and power down only once it lands.

Now checking the pan verification: the camera should settle at camp with the human spawned there, alive with HP 4 and 4 ropes, standing on solid ground. Since the first camp sits above the surface in the sky, the human actually spawns mid-air and would need a frame to fall — but powerdown skips human updates, so at the moment of transition it's still floating at the spawn point rather than grounded. That means testing this assertion properly requires picking a later camp that's actually placed on the ground.

I'll also verify HP, ropes, and camera all initialize correctly at camp, then step until the player is grounded and confirm it's still within the camp column. I should double-check the camera lead value since velocity is zero right at spawn. Then I need to cover the simpler cases—digging disabled, crouching works, mines are solid—before testing ropes on a dug-out shaft, which requires carving one first.

For the rope throw, I need to place the human at a lip and confirm the anchor logic: the tile ahead at the player's height and the tile below both need to be air for the rope to catch, which a proper lip satisfies. Then I'll unroll the rope, drop onto it holding the direction key to grab on, and climb up and down with the vertical inputs. After that I'll move to testing what happens when the human touches the robot to enter the camp.

I need to verify camp behavior: healing from low HP, ropes refilling, and the robot's internal clock and cycle state persisting correctly for digging afterward. I also need to check that scoring always tracks the robot's depth rather than the human's — asserting max_depth stays at the robot's value even as the human descends further. Then I'll test death conditions (falling far down a dug shaft triggers the death screen, and restarting resets cycle, HP, and world seed appropriately), verify fall damage stats only increment on damaging landings, and confirm the robot's screen marker only appears when it's off-screen.

For a second pass I want to confirm a full second cycle behaves correctly, and I'll extend the snapshot tool to capture key scenes — powerdown pan, camp with the robot marker, mid-descent on a rope, camp banner, and the death banner.

Before writing tests I should check a handful of implementation details: the camera lead constant, the sketch's view and tile dimensions, the restart key handler, whether a screen-coordinate conversion function exists, the fonts table, and the random integer helper — plus keep to the project's spacing and naming conventions.

I'm checking whether there's an R key handler in the sketch and confirming the tile coordinate calculations match between the sketch and the lab, since the sketch uses corner-based positioning while the lab uses center-based coordinates. I'm also noting the sketch's view dimensions are 512x640, which is 16x scale.

Confirming that reset(true) generates a new seed, matching the room load flow through world_new. I'm also verifying that camera_to_screen and the font/layer helpers referenced in verify.lua and view.lua exist as expected before moving on to check the rest of view.lua's rendering logic.

I want to start the lab instance first to confirm the baseline works before making any edits, then plan changes, implement them, and verify with anchor checks. I should also double check require order in main.lua since game.lua needs to be required properly for anchor check to validate it, and I need to look into layer_tri handling too.

With the baseline clean, I'm planning my implementation order: add loop constants to the dig tuning table, extend the run table in world_new with loop fields and fall stats, create a new game.lua for the state machine, camera, and marker, strip game_update out of robot.lua, and update the active_actor logic in rooms.lua.

Room loading needs to set run.camp and cam_x_fixed for the game state while clearing cam_x_fixed for rooms 1-3. Then I need to update view.lua for the human, camp, marker, banners, HUD, and ropes, wire game into main.lua's dispatch, add a BATCH 4 section to verify.lua while fixing the 'over' assertion, and add five new snapshot captures. I'll start with the tuning file.

That mojibake is just a console codepage display issue, not an actual file encoding problem since it's utf-8. I want to double-check the em dash bytes are unchanged with a quick grep.

I should also update the header comment in robot.lua that references the robot stage's tick, since it's part of batch 3.

I need to add `run.marker_dir` since it isn't declared in world_new, and ensure `camera_target()` uses `active_actor()` correctly during powerdown. I'm also noting that in the dead state, game_update returns early before world_update and game_camera run, freezing the camera just like the sketch does, though I need to check how robot_marker_update behaves there.

Since robot_marker_update isn't called in dead, marker_on would stay stuck from the last human tick, so I should just set `run.marker_on = false` in game_die instead. I also want to verify box_at's signature returns the four corner values as expected, and confirm EPS is available globally since it's used in robot.lua.

Now I'm moving to view.lua, adding new color constants for the human character, camp elements, and banners to prepare for the upcoming visual additions.

For the human sprite, I'm working out the pixel geometry: a body box sized in tile fractions with a skin-colored head region and a shirt-colored lower body, computing insets and offsets so it scales cleanly with tile size. I'm also positioning the box relative to the entity's world coordinates using its half-width and half-height.

For the camp, I'm sketching a triangular tent shape centered on the camp's feet position, with a dark doorway rectangle inset near the base, expressing dimensions as fractions of the tile size for consistency with the other sprites.

For the direction marker, I'm drawing a downward-pointing arrow triangle with a label above it showing distance in meters, mirroring the shape for upward orientation. Then I'm setting up the HUD logic — showing a clock and progress bar during play or camp states, otherwise switching to hearts and rope icons on the right side.

Now I'm working out banner text for different game states: the powerdown banner shows the robot's depth when it ran out of power, the camp banner shows depth and cycle number when recharged, and the death banner will show the full-screen death reason.

The dead-state screen will also include depth, a stats line with fall count, restart instructions, and the best score, plus I need a two-line human help overlay. Now I'll move on to editing the view code.

The rope drawing logic looks fine as-is since the ropes table staying populated after the human leaves is intentional. Now I want to add debug output for the dig room, showing the run's loop state — including state, tick, cycle, camp, falls, human HP/ropes, and marker — so I'm editing the dig debug drawing function.

I'm verifying that `draw_dig_debug` correctly references `run.state` and `run.t`, which it does. Now I want to check whether `run.state == 'over'` is referenced anywhere else in the code.

I realize `pose()` doesn't set `cam_x_fixed`, but that's fine since tests use `fresh(room)` which triggers room_load and clears it anyway. Now I should start the instance and run a smoke test before writing the batch-4 assertions.

I'm working out the timing: 127 frames equals 254 ticks, with the clock taking about 6 frames to zero out, then a 2-second pan adding 120 more frames, totaling around 126-127. I'm also checking the ground collision at the camp, verifying the human's feet position relative to the solid surface row.

Confirming the camera target math for the camp matches exactly with the human's anchor position. Now I'm planning the full verification section for batch 4, covering the human-robot-camp-play sequence and marker, plus edge cases like mines under the human, disabled digging, and rope behavior on dug terrain — I'll reuse the existing `game_fresh` helper since it's file-scoped, while being mindful of Lua's local variable limits.

I'm now sketching the first test scenario: dropping the robot into a shaft, letting the powerdown clock expire mid-air, and verifying the state transitions to powerdown only once it lands, while double-checking how `robot_reset` handles the fall state.

Rather than asserting on internal state alone, I should refactor so the banner text itself is testable — adding a `dig_banner_text()` function in view.lua that returns the title and subtitle strings for the current state, then have the test verify it produces the exact expected text like 'ROBOT OUT OF POWER at 12m'.

Now I'm designing a second test around the camera pan behavior: stepping the game through powerdown into the human state while tracking frame counts, then asserting the elapsed time matches pan_time plus pan_hold within one frame, and that the camera lands exactly on the camp target position.

I'm reasoning that the camp only relocates once the human reaches the robot, so during the very first powerdown-to-human transition, the player always spawns at the original surface camp, which is already confirmed to be on solid ground — meaning the on-ground assertion holds true even on the first cycle.

Now I'm sketching a third test for the human stage's digging mechanics: verifying that mouse clicks don't dig anything, pressing S triggers a crouch, and that solid tiles remain unminable, then checking the player state after holding the crouch key.

I want to confirm the human can stand and crouch on mine tiles that are naturally solid beneath them, so I'm setting up a scenario with a carved tile above a mine block, placing the human on it, and asserting both tile solidity and grounded state.

For testing ropes on dug terrain, I'm working out how to carve a shaft or pocket through the otherwise solid world so the human has a valid standing surface to test rope mechanics against.

Then I plan to have the rope unroll down eight segments, walk the human to catch it by holding up, and descend with the down key, checking that the state becomes 'rope' and y increases.

For a separate test, I'll set up a gallery with the robot placed on the ground, power it down, then teleport the human next to it by directly assigning position, and step the simulation to check the distance between them.

Once close enough it should trigger camp mode — I'll verify the camp position matches the robot's, hp and ropes update correctly, and the state cycles from camp to play properly. Then I'll dig a tile from the new position to confirm the robot can dig from there.

For depth testing, I'll move the human well below the robot's position and check that max_depth stays the same while the player's own depth becomes positive, since depth is just the difference between current y and starting y.

Next I'm setting up death scenarios: carving a deep shaft and dropping the human far enough to trigger death with the correct reason and banner text, then verifying that resetting cycles properly and that seed behavior works as expected — same seed when pinned, different seed when reset to zero. I also want to check the fall-damage stat threshold (safe vs damaging falls) and the marker visibility logic based on proximity between human and robot when it's deep underground.

Writing test helper function...

I still need to add `dig_banner_text()` to view.lua and place the batch-4 test section right before the seed restoration line, after the flags test.

Ah, the clock never hit zero because falling through depth lines at 10, 20, 30 triggers +5s refunds each time, adding up to 15 extra seconds. I need to disable those line bonuses in the test, or reset the clock right after landing, and for the airborne test I should use a shallower setup instead.

I'll carve a narrow shaft from row 0 to 8 at column 8 so no depth lines get crossed, start the robot at y=1, and set the clock to something tiny like 0.02 — it should fall to the floor at row 9, staying under depth 10 so no line bonus fires. Time to run this test.

The clock hit zero at frame 2 while airborne, stayed pinned there, and powered down at frame 40 upon landing at y=8.6. Now I want to write the batch-4 verification section, testing it in a temp file first before pasting into verify.lua, since running the whole file each iteration would be slow.

Actually, I'll just write it directly into verify.lua and re-run the whole thing each time despite the ~1000 lines of assertions — let me time a full run first to see how costly that is.

All 135 tests pass now that the 'over' to 'powerdown' assertion fix worked, though each run takes 22 seconds which is slow for iteration. I'll set up a scratch file with self-contained helper copies to develop the batch-4 block quickly, then paste the finished version into verify.lua once it's working.

Realizing that using dofile on a separate body file won't share locals, so I'll just write the test body directly inline in the script instead, covering scenarios like the clock running out and power-down behavior on the ground.

Now I'm double-checking the depth math with the robot's feet placed at exactly 9.0 — since depth uses a floor with an epsilon subtracted, feet at 9.0 actually resolve to depth 8, not 9, so I need to adjust the placement to get the expected depth of 9 in the powerdown banner test.

Now I'm setting up a test for the airborne scenario: pin the robot mid-fall with the clock at zero, verifying it stays in the air and the clock holds at zero, then step forward until it lands and confirm the state transitions to powerdown.

Next I'm testing the power-down pan sequence, checking that the camera transition timing matches pan_time plus pan_hold, and confirming the camera and player end up correctly positioned at the camp afterward.

I need to double check the timing: since there are two ticks per frame, the powerdown-to-human transition happens in tick A within the same frame, meaning game_human doesn't get a chance to run that frame, so the human's position stays exactly at the spawn point unmodified — confirming the state sampled by step_until is correct.

Since the first camp is on the surface while the robot powered down deep underground, the camera pans upward toward it, which matches the expected test setup with mines under the human being solid and simple input controls like crouching still working as expected.

Now I need a purpose-built scenario instead: I'm searching for a mine tile with empty space above it so I can carve out a small chamber and reset the robot standing on solid ground there.

Actually, since poses can be placed directly to put the character somewhere, it's simpler to just call `player_reset` at the target position rather than driving the state machine through the whole landing sequence, since game_fresh spawns the robot in the air and it needs time to fall and land first.

For testing that mines are solid, I'm placing the human's feet exactly on top of a mine tile, zeroing velocity, setting state to fall, then stepping the engine and checking the mine tile is solid, that the human stands on it, and that it doesn't sink through — while making sure the tile above the mine is carved to air so the human box isn't embedded in rock.

Now I want to verify the mouse can't dig anything during the human stage: I position the mouse over a solid tile, hold the dig button for many steps, and confirm the tile never becomes non-solid and dig progress stays at zero. I need to avoid testing this on an actual mine tile since digging one would trigger detonation, so I should pick a plain solid tile instead, maybe one beside the mine rather than below it.

I also realize the robot cursor tile only updates during the play stage, so during the human stage the cursor coordinates are stale anyway, confirming digging can't happen. Then I move on to testing that pressing S makes the player crouch, and releasing it should undo that state.

Next, I'm setting up a rope test on a dug-out world: carving out a gallery and a vertical shaft, then resetting the player position near the shaft, making sure facing is right for the down-throw test, though I need to double check headroom above the crouch area is clear.

The rope grows one segment at a time until it reaches length 8, spanning rows 10 through 17. For the human to catch it, I'll script walking right off the ledge while holding up, since the rope_snap tolerance of 0.25 means drifting toward column 8.5 while falling should trigger the grab.

Then I'm setting up a descent by holding S, asserting the state stays 'rope' as y increases and the rope count decrements, then reaching the bottom. Finally I'm writing a test scenario where I reset a fresh game, carve a path, place the robot, configure the human's hp and rope count, move them adjacent to the robot, and check that touching it triggers the camp state.

Adding more camp assertions...

I want to double-check the depth math: robot feet at 11.0 gives floor(11 - eps) = 10, confirming "CAMP at 10m". I also need to verify player.hp goes from 3 to 4 via heal without triggering the death check, and that setting player.x directly followed by engine_step still lets the human update and reach the camp correctly before checking max_depth.

Then I'm testing digging after returning to camp: positioning the mouse below the robot at a reachable tile, holding the mouse button, stepping until the tile becomes non-solid, then releasing and checking that the dig succeeded — noting that if the tile happens to be a mine it'll still end up as air either way.

For the score test, I'm setting up a fresh game, jumping to human mode, carving a deep shaft, positioning the human deep in it, then verifying that player.depth increases while run.max_depth stays unchanged since that's tracked from robot depth, not human depth.

For the death test, I'm resetting to a fresh game seed, switching to human mode, carving a shaft, and repositioning the player near the top of it to set up the scenario.

Then I'm stepping through frames until the state becomes 'dead' or 600 frames elapse, checking that the human dies from falling, the banner shows 'FELL TO DEATH', and hp drops to zero. I verify pressing R restarts the run correctly with cycle 1 and hp reset to 4, and that the world seed stays pinned when T.seed is fixed, then start setting up a test for a fresh seed scenario when T.seed is 0.

But I catch a subtle bug: room_load's game branch returns early and skips calling player_reset, so after restarting in the game room, the player stays dead with hp 0 until game_spawn_human eventually respawns them on the next powerdown. This means my assertion that R restarts with cycle 1 and hp 4 would actually fail in the game room case, so I need to either call game_spawn_human explicitly or adjust the reset logic to handle this branch properly.

Right, since camp moves each time, I should update run.camp coordinates to the robot's position before spawning the human in room_load. The human won't get drawn during play state since that draw call is gated on non-play states, and the HUD hearts logic already handles that correctly too.

For testing the fall mechanic, I'm setting up a fresh game seed, carving a vertical shaft, and placing the player above a solid floor to verify a controlled drop of several tiles.

A 5-tile fall should register as roughly zero damage since fall damage uses time-based height equivalence, while a 12-tile drop should trigger tier-8 damage of 1 point — I need to check these thresholds before and after landing. I also want to verify the reach check works properly: with the robot positioned far above at the surface and the human down in the shaft, their distance should exceed the interaction range, though I need to double check the exact x-coordinates don't cause an edge case.

Since the robot doesn't move during the human-controlled phase, carving out its column shouldn't cause it to fall — it just stays floating at its spawn position, which keeps things predictable. I'll place the human several tiles below the robot's starting row so they don't overlap as the human descends through the carved shaft.

For testing the ROBOT marker's off-state, I want the human and robot within one tile of each other on screen so the marker stays hidden, then move the human far away (say 30 tiles down) so the marker turns on and reports the correct direction and distance. I could reset the robot's position deep below while still in the human state, then bring the human closer to verify the marker switches off again — keeping in mind that the marker update runs at the end of each game update cycle.

For the second full cycle test, I'm setting up a scenario where I run the clock down to trigger the powerdown into human state, then teleport the player to the robot's location to force a camp and re-enter play for a second cycle, running the clock down again to confirm the human stage triggers a second time — checking that the new camp is created at the robot's position and that the cycle counter increments to 2.

So cycle 2's camp forms at that lower point, and reaching the robot again should trigger cycle 3. I'm sketching a helper that ticks the clock forward until the state flips to 'human', accounting for the robot possibly still falling during that wait. I'll write this logic directly into verify.lua near the seed reset, iterating on it in place rather than in scratch.

Actually, simplest to just run the full file each time to test (about 22 seconds per iteration), so I'll delete the scratch file since I don't need it anymore.

I'm realizing the ground check fails because the pocket carve at column 8 rows 0-8 overlaps exactly where the human's feet are at x=8.3, unlike my earlier default-world test that had no carve there.

So this isn't a bug — it's just that the camp is sitting above a hole I dug. I should redo the pan test by carving the pocket at column 5 instead and resetting the robot to x=5.5, leaving column 8 intact so the camp stays on solid ground while the powerdown/pocket-floor row logic stays unchanged.

Now I need to check why the marker isn't showing when the robot is at y=35 and the human is at y=2.

Working through the math, the marker should be well below the visible screen area, so it should register as on-screen. But since both marker_dist and marker_x came back as zero, it looks like the update function returned early without setting anything — probably because run.state isn't 'human' or 'powerdown' at that point, which is worth checking after the robot_reset and human_pose calls.

Actually I realize the carve operation that clears an 8x40 tunnel likely digs out the ground beneath the human's starting camp position, causing them to fall down the shaft before the robot state gets set up — that could explain why the state check fails and the marker function exits early.

So marker_x defaulting to 0 suggests the camera-to-screen conversion for the robot's position isn't returning a valid coordinate at all, meaning something upstream in the ordering — carve, robot_reset, human_pose, then the two engine steps — is causing the marker computation to skip its normal clamping logic entirely.

I'm tracing whether `active_actor()` is picking the robot instead of the player during the human state, since that would explain why the camera and marker math come out wrong despite the robot standing still.

Then with human at (8.5, 2) and robot at (8.5, 35), the distance is 33, so no camp trigger. Stepping the engine forward, I calculate cam_y after the snap comes to 3.5, which puts the marker's top position at 926.4 — well past the height threshold, meaning below should be true and the marker should be on. That contradicts what I'm seeing, so I'm checking whether `game_update` is bailing out early because the human's state is actually 'dead'.

Actually, reconsidering — the robot spawns at (8.3, -0.40), which is essentially the same location as the human's camp point (8.3, -0.41). They're colocated, so the very first human tick immediately triggers the camp state and then transitions to 'play' after the 1.4 second delay.

That confirms it for the marker test: since the robot never moved from spawn, camp coincided with the robot's position, giving an instant camp trigger. But I need to check whether this same colocation issue affects the score and falls tests too — in the falls test, human_pose moves the human away before any engine tick happens, so it avoids the problem, but I need to trace through exactly when run_out_clock returns relative to state transitions.

But wait, if state flipped to 'camp' within the same frame that game_human ran, falls wouldn't have incremented — yet the fall assertion passed, meaning state must actually still be 'human' at that point. So I need to pin down precisely which tick game_powerdown sets state to 'human', based on the pan_time and pan_hold thresholds.

The tiny movement flips state to 'camp', which makes the marker check return early for the wrong reason and everything downstream fails. The fix is to reorder the test: run out the clock first so state becomes human, then set up the carve and robot position and pose without stepping again, and only then step forward — avoiding moving the robot while still in 'play' since that would trigger a fall or drift.

Checking the distances confirms no false camp triggers: robot at y=5 vs human at 2 gives distance 3, and later robot at 35 vs human at 33 gives distance 2, both safely above the threshold with both on screen. I'm also verifying the score test keeps no steps between run_out_clock and human_pose, and that the human position stays far enough from the robot's starting coordinates to avoid triggering camp detection there too.

For the mining, ropes, camp reset, and later tests, I keep checking that human_pose coordinates stay far enough from the robot's position to avoid unintended camp triggers, while confirming that intentional camp setups (like robot_reset followed by run_out_clock) correctly place the human at the robot's location.

For test 30's pan case, I need the pocket moved to column 5 so the distance calculation still works out to a safe ~9 units. The powerdown state carrying over from test 29 into test 30 is intentional and fine. So the two fixes needed are: shifting the pocket to column 5 for tests 29/30, and reordering the marker test — the pan distance itself (8.68 to 1.09) stays the same since only the x-column changes, not the y-coordinate.

All 216 tests pass — 135 existing plus 81 new ones. Now I want to check the batch-4 section of the report to pull the measured values.

All 216 tests pass. I'm double-checking a couple of edge cases—the "mouse digs nothing" test correctly held the button for the full step cap, and the score staying at 0 makes sense since the robot never dug in that setup. I want to tighten the score assertion a bit to explicitly check the robot's depth value.

Now I want to move on to extending tools/snapshot.lua, so I'm going to read through it first.

I need to rework the game-over.png block since it currently shows the powerdown banner incorrectly. I'll swap it for a game-powerdown.png block covering the pan sequence, then add four more snapshots: the camp scene with the ROBOT marker, the rope descent into the dug shaft, the camp banner, and the death banner.

For each, I'm planning the setup: dig the shaft and drop the robot for the powerdown pan, teleport the human back to camp for the marker check, reuse the verify's rope-and-gallery rig for the descent shot, step the human to camp for the camp banner, and drop the human 30 tiles for the death banner. I'm leaving debug overlay off for these banner shots to keep them readable.

I need to fix the float formatting issue—marker_dist is a float so I should wrap it with math.floor before using %d, while the other values like max_depth, cycle, falls, hp, and ropes are already integers and safe to format directly.

I'm digging into why the camp teleport to the robot isn't triggering after the rope descent—the player's x,y gets set to the robot's position, but the state is still 'rope' with a leftover rope reference, which likely needs clearing for the camp check to fire correctly.

Update_rope likely clamps the player's y back within the rope's row range, so teleporting the player off the rope wouldn't actually move them there — I need to clear the rope state and set state to 'fall' before teleporting instead.

For the death check in section 5, the robot falls down column 8 first, then I reset the human at row 10.6 after carving the shaft to row 41, so the fall distance should be 30 tiles — I need to trace why the death state isn't triggering.

The robot actually sits at y≈26.6 in column 8, right where the human passes through, so instead of a real death it registers as a camp encounter. I need to carve a separate column (like 4) for the death shaft so the falling human doesn't intersect the robot's position, keeping their horizontal distance at least 4 tiles apart.

Checking the other state variables — powerdown timing, marker position, rope state — those all look consistent, so I just need to patch the column conflict.

I notice the help overlay is covering the ROBOT distance marker in the HUD, and the camp tent seems hidden behind the human's sprite since they're standing right at that position.

Since the marker draws on top of the help panel already, I should offset it upward while the help text is showing so it stays readable. The F1 debug panel overlapping isn't a concern since that's debug-only, but I want to check the camp banner and powerdown screenshots to verify the tent rendering issue.

The powerdown banner looks good, the pan is mid-shaft, and the ROBOT marker shows at the bottom correctly. The HUD showing hearts/ropes during powerdown also matches the sketch's expectation for non-play/camp states. Next I need to check the camp banner and death sequence.

The camp banner shows the clock at 0.0 since it only refills once play begins, matching the sketch's behavior of displaying "robot recharged" alongside the zeroed clock — a bit odd but faithful to the design.

Overlap of human and robot sprites is fine, and I should draw the camp tent behind them at the robot's position. Next I'll look at the death shot and the rope shot.

The death banner looks correct, showing best dig at 41m from an earlier session. The hearts HUD is all dark since HP is 0, and rope count shows 4 which matches — all looking fine. Now I'm checking the rope shot.

The rope descent shot is working now, but the F1 panel and help overlay are covering the marker. Rather than waiting out the long help overlay timer for the rope snapshot, I'd rather just fix the marker offset so it lifts above the overlay while keeping the help visible.

I'll keep F1 on for the camp-human shot since the marker, hearts, and readout are the point there, but turn it off for the rope shot so the rope itself reads clearly. For the marker offset, I'm refactoring the human help text into a module-level constant table and adding a helper function that returns the current overlay height, so both the HUD draw and marker draw functions can share the same calculation instead of duplicating line-count logic.

The marker still hasn't moved, which means my edit to view.lua wasn't actually picked up by the running instance — running the script doesn't reload the file, I need to call engine_reload() first. Let me do that and try again.

The marker now sits cleanly above the help panel reading "ROBOT 15m" with a down arrow, and I can see the human on the rope in the dug shaft with exposed numbers around the gallery and ropes at 3. Let me re-check the game-camp-human state with a reload.

The camp tent and human placement look right, with the "ROBOT 27m" marker reading clearly. Now I need to re-run the full verification on a fresh drive start/stop cycle as the brief requires.

Let me double-check a few remaining requirements: R restarts globally regardless of room state since main.lua reads it before room dispatch, human-state controls like crouch and rope work correctly with the mouse doing nothing, mines under the human are solid, and falls correctly counts damaging landings by hooking do_land's result in room 4 only without modifying do_land itself. Controller.lua wasn't touched for this, which is correct — now I'll write up the report.

I'm leaving controller.lua and boot.lua untouched in this batch, and now moving on to run the fresh start/stop verification.

Everything checks out clean on a fresh, stopped instance, so I'm ready to write the report. I'll pull the final numbers together and note the key details worth mentioning: the dig counter incrementing correctly, the human's ropes persisting, and best_dig showing in the death banner — plus the deviation that the human is the lab's controller rather than matching the original sketch, which was intentional per the brief.

Continuing the deviation list: fall damage uses the lab's tiers instead of the sketch's fallSafe/fallStep; the help line uses the lab's key bindings; the descent camera follows the lab's anchor/tween settings inherited from batch 3 rather than the sketch's; the human persists from the first camp frame instead of being created/nulled like the sketch does, though visually there's no difference since it's neither drawn nor updated during play — meaning R now leaves a whole human behind. I'm also noting the marker now handles the robot being above the view (not just below), rides above the help overlay, the clock still reads 0.0 during the camp banner, world_update halts entirely on death, the rope control verbs differ from the sketch's, and the banner strip is 70px instead of 80 with an added "best this session" line on the death screen.

I'm also tracking smaller ports: the epsilon used in robot_depth and the camp banner depth formula, the sketch's shake value converted to shake_fall in tile units, the dropped HP popup for human landings (replaced by the character's own landing readout), the unported quickRobotRound/?human features, and the updated verify assertion reflecting that zero HP powers down the robot rather than ending the run since the "over" state no longer exists. Separately I'm leaving alone a few known quirks — the camp clock at 0.0, overlapping tent/robot/human sprites when camping on the robot's square, and the human's brief free-fall snap when camp spawns mid-air, which isn't visible given zero cam lead.

I'm noting that descending through the robot's own shaft during a fall converts what should be a lethal drop into an automatic camp, since the reach check is a one-tile sphere hit every tick regardless of fall speed — this matches the sketch's original rule, and at the lab's terminal velocity the sphere is still triggered every tick, so the behavior carries over intact.

I'm also checking that the run-timer distinction (total_t vs t) still gates the robot help correctly to only the first dig, and confirming the anchor check's lint config still excludes the tools directory. Nothing needed to be stopped, but one existing assertion had to be adjusted, which I'll flag clearly along with why it doesn't affect behavior outside what was requested — bringing the total to 216 assertions, 135 existing plus 81 new. Now I'm listing out the key decisions to include in the report: the new game.lua file, the human existing from room load, the added run.total_t field, active_actor() returning the human during powerdown and death, and the camera-position handling.

The write attempt fails again, same as the earlier batches, so I'll just present the report directly as my final message instead.