THE LINE — a map that changes shape because players built it
A rail head, a telegraph, a land office, and a town that starves until the line reaches it. The engine is unchanged. The theme pack renames the nouns and adds the mechanic the theme was built for: the line is built tick by tick, in order, outward, and a town off the line has no market.
01The pitch
You are a section hand, a clerk, a water master, or a claimant. The map is not a fixed set of districts: the line is a chain of segments, each segment is a position, and a segment can only be built next to one that is already laid. Grain moves to the rail, the rail moves to the market, and the delay is visible in ticks.
The fantasy is a town that grows because a crew laid track — and a town that fails because the line went past it. The late game is an office: Section Chief, Signal Master, Water Master, Land Recorder. The endgame is owning the roundhouse at the rail head, and the siding that feeds it.
Why this theme is fourth: it is the theme where the engine's shared state is visibly made by players. A season that lays forty segments leaves a map no other season had, and that map is a row-per-row record in the log.
02The theme pack — the engine's nouns, in theme words
Four bars, four stats, six jobs, twelve acts, six offices, twelve commodities. The numbers are the prototype's starting values, sized so a season in any theme is comparable to a season in another. This is the theme file, printed.
The bars (renamed, same shape)
| Engine bar | Theme name | Spent on | Recovery rule the theme supplies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vigour | Backbone | laying track, blasting, hauling, the water tower | rest, and a camp: a facility raises the recovery |
| Nerve | Nerve | the blasting, the night freight, the survey line | rest, and the signal rota the Signal Master sets |
| Focus | Fitting | spike, joint, telegraph, survey, teaching | a roundhouse: a facility raises the Fitting cap |
| Standing | Name | contracts, office, teaching, command of a town lot | the town roll: an office restores a standing, the magistrate lowers it |
The jobs (6)
| Job | Wage / day | Stat gain | Requires | Daily points, spent on promotions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Section hand | 200 | Body +1 | none | Section points |
| Water master's crew | 240 | Body +1, Fitting +1 | a tower rota | Water points |
| Brakeman | 300 | Body +2, Nerve +1 | Backbone ≥ 40 | Freight points |
| Telegraph clerk | 340 | Fitting +2 | Fitting ≥ 15 | Signal points |
| Land clerk | 420 | Fitting +1, Insight +1 | Name ≥ 25 | Land points |
| Section Chief's crew | 480 | Body +1, Fitting +2 | Name ≥ 35 | Line points |
The acts (12) — a theme names the verbs, and only names them
| Theme name | Engine act | Cost | Ticks | Published risk | Published reward |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lay a segment | build | Backbone 16, Fitting 8, spike 2 | 4 | 6 % washout | the line +1 segment |
| blast a cut | risk | Backbone 14, Nerve 12 | 3 | 12 % accident | the grade is cleared |
| haul grain to the siding | freight | Backbone 10 | 2 | 4 % spoil | 110–260 |
| run the water tower | office | Body 8 | 1 / tick | 0 % | the line keeps working |
| signal a freight | office | Fitting 6 | 1 | 0 % | freight capacity + |
| file a land claim | claim | Name 6, Fitting 4 | 1 | 8 % dispute | a town lot, a share |
| survey the next segment | survey | Nerve 8, Fitting 6 | 3 | 10 % false line | the next segment's cost |
| freight to market | freight | Backbone 12, Name 3 | 3 | 5 % delay | 160–420 |
| trade at the town lot | trade | Name 6, Backbone 4 | 1 | 4 % dispute | 90–300 |
| teach an apprentice | teach | Fitting 6, Name 4 | 2 | 0 % | apprentice gain +1 |
| watch the siding | defence | Backbone 8, Name 5 | 1 / tick | 0 % | defence + garrison value |
| repair a segment | upkeep | Fitting 10, Backbone 10 | 2 | 5 % washout | segment integrity +4 |
The map — the prototype's six districts, tiered
| Tier | Position | Yield / day | Garrison required | Upkeep / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | town lots | 20 | 2 | 5 |
| 2 | the water tower | 60 | 6 | 14 |
| 3 | the siding | 110 | 10 | 25 |
| 4 | the grain elevator | 180 | 12 | 35 |
| 5 | the telegraph office | 320 | 18 | 60 |
| 6 | the roundhouse at the rail head | 600 | 26 | 120 |
Offices, commodities, currency
03The signature mechanic: The Line
One mechanic per theme, and one only — the rule that keeps five themes on one engine. The formula below is what the engine computes every tick, printed in the rules page in the game.
Why it is a mechanic, not a flavour
Players build the map
The map is a chain the players extend. The season ends with a map no season had before, and the log names every segment and every crew that laid it.
The delay is real
Grain does not become money at the field; it becomes money four ticks later, on the rail, at the market. A supply chain with a visible delay is the thing a market game is missing, and the only way to model it is positions.
A line can be starved, and that is an office
A line without water stops. The Water Master is a real lever: a player's decision about who gets the tower rota is a decision about whose town grows. The season's politics are the line.
Beat 1
the town lot survey (40 names)
Beat 2
segment 1 is laid — the first built ground
Beat 3
the water tower is built; the rota is set
Beat 4
a washout takes segment 2 down
Beat 5
the telegraph opens: the market window is printed
Beat 6
the grain elevator is contested (tier 4)
Beat 7
a land claim is disputed, and the Recorder's register is audited
Beat 8
the Section Chief election
Beat 9
a freight contract, executed by the engine
Beat 10
the rail head is reached (tier 6)
Beat 11
line reform: repair priority is set by the crew, not by default
Beat 12
the season ledger publishes every segment, every crew, every washout
04Art direction, and the feel
Text-first: no images, no animation, no sound. The theme supplies words, a palette, and a shape, and every object carries its numbers in text.
05What breaks this theme
The risks, named before anyone builds it. Each one has a test attached, so the honest list is a plan, not a mood.
A line is slow Undecided
The map changes one segment at a time. Four ticks per segment is a season's worth of building, which is honest, and boring to a player who wants a moment. The theme's drama is cumulative, and cumulative drama is the hardest kind to retain a player with.
Test: Measure how many players queue a build act in the first two weeks.
The line is a single spine Undecided
One guild that owns the water tower can starve every town upstream of it. A chokepoint is dramatic and it is a griefing surface: the engine must cap the rota, and publish it.
Test: Count grievances against the tower rota in season 1.
The supply chain costs code Undecided
A real delay means storage, tonnage, and a rail schedule. That is more code than the other themes, and it is the part of the theme that is not renameable.
Test: Estimate P2 scope for the chain before picking this theme.
A Western carries baggage Undecided
Land claims, a land office, a frontier: the theme's furniture is a history of disposals. Nothing in the engine evokes it, and a player will. The town roll should say who is admitted, and the season should not be a conquest.
Test: Ask the cohort which theme they would play, blind, from the pack table alone.
Building is not fighting Undecided
A crew that lays forty segments wins the season without a fight. If the players do not feel that as a win, this theme does not have a victory condition.
Test: Ask the cohort at week 6 what winning looked like.
It is the theme where the engine's shared state is visibly made by players, in order, with a delay they can see. If the design claim is that positions beat people, this theme is the strongest version of the claim: the map is the thing they built.