aetherbound-guild/docs/goals/PHASE9_0R9_FIRST_COMPANY_GOAL.md

Phase 9.0R9 First Company Goal

Owner Decision And Role

On 2026-08-13 the Owner authorized faster module-by-module development after accepting the R8 front door. This development task owns only the first New Game onboarding and first Company formation. It starts from clean/upstream R8 closure d4b56e69c1f311441d7d02e4ecdf5307a2e6f093.

Player Problem

The preserved Guild Yard exposes four Recruit buttons and Depart at once. It names front and rear slots but asks a new player to understand four roles, formation rules and the automatic-battle contract simultaneously. The first choice is therefore technically possible before it is understandable.

Player Contract

Starting a new game must teach one decision at a time:

1. Read the first mission and why a two-person line is required.
2. Choose one front Recruit from Hearthguard and Wayrunner.
3. Choose one rear Recruit from Farstring and Kindhand.
4. Review both members and the exact contribution expected in the first battle.
5. Revise either choice or commit the formation once.
6. Watch the preserved automatic first battle execute that committed plan.

The intended emotion is informed anticipation: the player knows what each choice is meant to do and wants to see whether that formation works.

Owned Scope

• Four explicit runtime pages: first mission, front selection, rear selection and formation review.
• Chinese-first and English copy for the four available Recruit roles.
• No preselection, legal slot filtering, reversible selection and review Back.
• One exactly-once formation commit into the existing first battle.
• Home and confirmed Restart cleanup from every onboarding page.
• Focused state, parsed-ScreenTouch and normal-render capture tests.
• A new fixed-source runtime-only Web preview and private Gallery item.

Frozen Scope

• R3 battle timing, damage, healing, animation, VFX and audio behavior.
• R4-R7 adaptation, Company growth, routes, training and reward values.
• Recruit generation, formal Market, equipment inventory, Party order, authoritative combat, save/Continue, chapters and content expansion.
• New or regenerated art/audio, paid providers, device packaging, TestFlight, stores, submission and publishing.

Acceptance

• New Game opens the mission briefing and mutates no formation.
• Front selection accepts only Hearthguard or Wayrunner.
• Rear selection accepts only Farstring or Kindhand.
• No selection is implicit; unavailable progression actions are disabled.
• Replacing either choice before commit is safe and visible.
• Review Back preserves both selections and lets the player revise them.
• All four legal front/rear combinations commit into battle exactly once.
• Home/Restart clear the incomplete transaction and return Main Menu.
• Real Input.parse_input_event touch covers the complete onboarding path with fallback/direct interaction counts at zero.
• Chinese and English/130% normal rendering at 844x390 has no clipping, overlap or control below 44px.
• R8 navigation and R3-R7 gameplay regressions remain green.
• Runtime-only export excludes tests, evidence and build source.

Legal Terminals

Aetherbound Guild P9.0R9 first-Company H5 preview ready

or

Aetherbound Guild P9.0R9 redesign required: <earliest failed onboarding boundary>

Completion Record

Fixed product source 079338612c0146ca19dc7bd2f18942807ec1cacf is pushed clean/upstream. Focused state and parsed-ScreenTouch validation prove all four legal formations, two invalid-slot boundaries, reversible choices, preserved review Back, exactly-once commit and cleanup. Touch reports touch=15 fallback=0 direct=0. R1-R8 gameplay, full three-battle touch, character-animation and audio-lifecycle regressions remain green.

Eight normal-render 844x390 captures cover Chinese and English/130% mission, selection, review and Restart states with 44px controls and zero strict runtime diagnostics. The ignored fixed-source Web delivery is runtime/build/web-preview/0793386-r9-fast/; its export.sha256 SHA-256 is 41145503d8e7b75cf0bc4e598fa7e446ca1deba4bcc97d2d66b39f66ba642308. The runtime-only PCK excludes tests/evidence/build and is byte-identical after remote Gallery delivery. Private Gallery item is KpgLxlVQlBp6; the signed share token is intentionally absent from Git.

Strongest proven level is runtime_verified plus agent_visual_reviewed. Owner first-play comprehension, choice quality, fun, visual acceptance, listening, physical device, persistence, packaging, stores and release remain open.