aetherbound-guild/docs/goals/PHASE9_GODOT_VERTICAL_SLICE_GOAL.md

Phase 9 Godot Vertical Slice Goal

Owner Decision

On 2026-08-12 the Owner accepted P8.5 and authorized the next Godot stage. The runtime must be delivered in separately playable increments; a later increment cannot silently repair or reinterpret an unaccepted earlier one.

Baseline

Phase 8 Owner-acceptance closure: 8583abb65e5ad59d684281e06f5052ebfc2740c6

Decision Enabled

Decide whether the accepted Aetherbound Guild opening and first Market remain clear, responsive and visually coherent when implemented as a real Godot landscape mobile runtime rather than an HTML design prototype.

Delivery Sequence

Increment	Runtime boundary	Gate before advancing
P9.1	Contract/difficulty, stable four Recruit offers, exactly-two Company commit, two Market hires, one equipment purchase/equip, one order swap and readiness receipt.	Owner can complete the real touch flow and explain the resulting Company, Coin and equipment state.
P9.2	Real horizontal automatic battle, pause/speed/inspect and deterministic first encounter.	Owner accepts movement, clarity, causality and feel.
P9.3	Result, permanent casualty, reward, recovery, save/version/migration and second-cycle continuation.	Owner accepts the full runtime loop and persistence.
P9.4	Physical-device project/build and bounded iPhone/Android evidence.	Separate device and packaging authorization.

P9.1 Owned Scope

• Create the Godot 4.6 landscape runtime under runtime/.
• Preserve accepted IDs and values from P8.1/P8.2.
• Present CTR-R1-01, three difficulties and four stable offers.
• Require explicit inspect and exactly two selected Recruits before review.
• Fix the accepted integrated path to OFF-03 Tomas and OFF-04 Sable for the one-tap guided path, while still allowing other legal two-of-four pairs.
• Commit the opening once at Company 2/4, Coin 52.
• Hire Mael and Ilya separately for 14 Coin each.
• Purchase EQ-012 Open-Line Cord for 12 Coin, then explicitly equip one current Company member; the accepted fixed evidence path equips Tomas.
• Require one tap-source/tap-destination order swap before the final receipt.
• Finish at Coin 12, Company 4/4, EQ-012 -> OFF-03 with a visible risk handoff that is locked to P9.2.
• Provide visual selection, transaction, error and receipt feedback, captioned prototype SFX, mute, reduced-motion and 100/130% text controls.

P9.1 Acceptance

1. Fresh launch starts before Contract selection and no offer is preselected.
2. Invalid next/confirm actions explain the missing condition and do not mutate state.
3. Four offer IDs remain stable through inspect, select, revise and commit.
4. A third Recruit selection is rejected until one selected Recruit is removed.
5. Opening commit occurs once and yields Company 2, Coin 52.
6. Mael and Ilya are separate one-shot 14-Coin hire transactions; Company moves 2 -> 3 -> 4 and Coin 52 -> 38 -> 24.
7. EQ-012 purchase and equip are separate; Coin moves 24 -> 12 and Tomas owns exactly one active item.
8. Order uses a visible tap-source/tap-destination swap, can be revised before commit, and produces one readiness receipt.
9. Real Input.parse_input_event ScreenTouch drives the automated mobile path; direct callbacks cannot support the touch claim.
10. Normal rendering covers opening, offer selection, Market, equipment, order and receipt at 1280x720, 844x390 and 390x844, EN and zh_CN, 130% text, reduced motion and mute without overlap or horizontal overflow.
11. Focused domain and runtime tests have exact terminal markers and clean logs; no script/parse/resource/import/ObjectDB failure or owned process remains.

Frozen

• P9.2 automatic battle and all enemy outcomes.
• P9.3 casualty, reward, recovery and authoritative persistence.
• Final/bulk character, environment, animation, VFX, music, SFX and voice.
• iOS/Android export, device install, TestFlight/Play, stores and publishing.
• Phase 8 accepted values, identities and transaction boundaries.

Evidence Boundary

Automated evidence may prove deterministic state, input routing, layout, rendering, logs and cleanup. Agent screenshots support visual review only. The Owner alone accepts comprehension, feel, visual quality, sound and willingness to continue.

P9.1 legal terminals are:

Aetherbound Guild P9.1 opening and Market runtime candidate ready

or

Aetherbound Guild P9.1 redesign required: <earliest failed runtime boundary>