src/scene_level.js

// The level. A walkable stretch of forest with a beginning, encounters and an
// end.
//
// THE ARGUMENT THIS LEVEL MAKES: looking is what starts every fight. A Drained
// that has never been lit never attacks. All of the combat here is caused by
// the player choosing to see. A player who never raises the torch walks the
// whole level, learns nothing, and finishes it — and that has to stay possible.
//
// L1 scope: he walks, he has a facing, the camera follows, and the torch locks
// him in place. Background is L2, combat is L4, watchers are L5.

import { createPlayer } from './anim.js';
import { createTorch } from './torch.js';
import { createCamera } from './camera.js';
import { createBackground, tintFrames } from './background.js';
import { createDrained, HOUSE_OF, WANDER, RUSH, DOWNED, RISING, HOMING, HOME } from './drained.js';
import { TUNING, BOWL, PALETTE, TORCH, AUDIO, startX, runSeed, mulberry32, FLASH, flashAt, atLuminance } from './tuning.js';

export const W = 1920;
export const H = 1080;
export const GROUND_Y = 880;

export async function createLevelScene(clips, { audio = null, seed = null, letters = null } = {}) {
  const SEED = seed ?? runSeed();
  const runClip = clips.prince_run;
  const idleClip = clips.prince_idle;

  // EVERY POSE FALLS BACK TO HER STANDING DRAWING.
  //
  // The generated stand-ins are gone — raising the torch, holding the sheaf,
  // standing ready, holding his side. Each was a different body next to hers,
  // and changing pose looked like changing character, which is a worse lie than
  // not changing pose at all.
  //
  // AND NOW SHE HAS DRAWN THE REST: the swing, the fall and the torch held up.
  // Nothing he does is generated any more.
  //
  // Put any of them back in the manifest and it is used again with no code
  // change. That is the whole point of this file reading the manifest instead
  // of naming frames.
  const pose = (clip) => clip ?? idleClip;
  const torchClip = pose(clips.prince_torch);
  const guardClip = pose(clips.prince_guard);
  // HOLDING THE SHEAF HOLDS THE TORCH UP, so with no drawing of his papers in
  // his hand, the pose is the torch held up -- her arm -- and the sheet is drawn
  // at its mapPivot. Falling back to the standing drawing put the jointed
  // placeholder arm back on him every time he read.
  const mapClip = clips.prince_map ?? torchClip;
  const hurtClip = clips.prince_hurt ?? null;
  const sheetClip = clips.map_sheet;

  // The hand the torch is held in, published by the manifest in sprite
  // coordinates. Move the pose in the art and the light follows it — and with
  // no raised-torch drawing, that is her far hand at hip height.
  const hand = torchClip.handPivot ?? [torchClip.pivotX, torchClip.pivotY - 230];
  const HAND_DX = hand[0] - torchClip.pivotX;
  const HAND_DY = hand[1] - torchClip.pivotY;
  // The jointed placeholder arm, if the manifest has one. Its down pose lands
  // on handPivot to the pixel, so with or without it the lowered hand is in
  // the same place and only the raise differs.
  // Where the fire stands in each frame of her raise, as offsets from the pose's
  // pivot. Null for a pose with one hand position, which uses HAND_DX/DY.
  const TORCH_HANDS = torchClip.handPivots
    ? torchClip.handPivots.map(([x, y]) => [x - torchClip.pivotX, y - torchClip.pivotY])
    : null;
  const TORCH_ARM = torchClip.torchArm
    ? { ...torchClip.torchArm,
        shoulder: [torchClip.torchArm.shoulder[0], torchClip.torchArm.shoulder[1]] }
    : null;

  const START_X = startX();
  const attackClip = pose(clips.prince_attack);
  const downClip = pose(clips.prince_down);
  const ATTACK_TOTAL = (TUNING.ATTACK_WINDUP_MS + TUNING.ATTACK_ACTIVE_MS + TUNING.ATTACK_RECOVERY_MS) / 1000;
  const CONTACT_REACH = 110;

  /** Deterministic 0..1 from an integer. Same walk, same encounters. */
  const hash01 = (i, salt) => {
    let h = Math.imul((i | 0) ^ salt, 2654435761) >>> 0;
    h ^= h >>> 15; h = Math.imul(h, 2246822507) >>> 0; h ^= h >>> 13;
    return (h >>> 0) / 4294967296;
  };

  const drained = [];
  // Bounded at both ends from the first frame: the start of the road, and the
  // shut gate. See the note at GATE_CAM_X for why the right-hand bound is not
  // simply the gate.
  const camera = createCamera(W, 0, 0);   // real bounds set once GATE_CAM_X exists
  const torch = createTorch();

  const prince = {
    x: START_X, prevX: START_X,
    facing: 1,
    moving: false,
    hasSword: true,
    clip: idleClip,
    frame: 0,
    run: createPlayer(runClip),
    idle: createPlayer(idleClip),
    torchPlayer: createPlayer(torchClip),
    guard: createPlayer(guardClip),
    mapPlayer: mapClip ? createPlayer(mapClip) : null,
    hurtPlayer: hurtClip ? createPlayer(hurtClip) : null,
    // Hits TAKEN, not left. There is no bar; it is read off his body.
    hits: 0,
    // HOW FAR THE LIGHT HAS GONE OUT OF HIM. 0 is a full white eye, 1 is dark.
    // This is the health readout, and it replaces nothing because there never
    // was one: no bar, no number. He limps, he holds his side, the swing slows,
    // and now the one thing you can always see on a black silhouette dims.
    eyeDim: 0,
    attacking: false,
    attackTime: 0,
    attackConnected: false,
    attack: createPlayer(attackClip),
    down: createPlayer(downClip),
    // What he is carrying. Each entry knows whether he ever actually LOOKED at
    // it: take one in the dark and you own the thing without ever learning
    // whose it was, which is the level's whole argument stated as an object.
    inventory: [],
    // KEYS ARE NOT IN THE SHEAF and this is why they are a number rather than
    // a page. They carry no deduction, they cannot be read, and they are the
    // same object five times over. A pile of loose paper is what he has worked
    // out; this is just what is in his pocket.
    keys: 0,
  };

  // Async because the sky texture and the tinted hills are built once, here,
  // rather than per frame.
  const background = await createBackground(clips, GROUND_Y, H);

  // THE BACK LANE'S VALUE, baked once. Everything a Drained can be showing
  // while it stands beside the road — the still pose, the three loops, the
  // walk a wanderer paces on and steps down with — and the page a carrier
  // holds, because the page is part of the figure's mass in the dark.
  //
  // A tint and not a translucent black. Black at 86% would be 14 against the
  // hills and 21 against the sky: a figure you can see the world through.
  // `back` sits beside `dark` and `lit` on every frame, and the renderer
  // blends it toward `dark` while one steps down.
  {
    const hex = atLuminance(PALETTE.WATCHERS, TUNING.BACK_LANE_VALUE);
    for (const name of ['drained_watcher', 'drained_walk', 'drained_step',
      'loop_swing', 'loop_haul', 'loop_bear', 'kept']) {
      const c = clips[name];
      if (!c || c.frames[0]?.back) continue;
      const tinted = await tintFrames(c, hex, 'dark');
      c.frames.forEach((f, i) => { f.back = tinted[i]; });
    }
  }

  // Three Drained along the road, deterministic, NONE of them hostile until the
  // player makes them hostile. A player who never raises the torch walks the
  // whole level, learns nothing, and finishes it. That has to remain possible —
  // it is the fed run in miniature.
  //
  // They stand. Nothing in this level wanders any more: an unlit Drained is a
  // person who stopped, and standing still is what that looks like. See the
  // note at stillClip in drained.js.
  //
  // Each one gets a window and stands at the spot inside it with the most open
  // sky behind the action. A silhouette only shows up against light, so this is
  // the one thing Blade Warrior does that costs nothing — the fight belongs
  // under the bright patch. See background.skyOpenAt for what "open" counts.
  // THE TREE GOES DOWN FIRST, the way the doors do, and the three road drained
  // go in what is left. See TREE_CLEAR.
  const TREE_X = Math.round(TUNING.LEVEL_LENGTH_PX * TUNING.TREE_AT);
  {
    const L = TUNING.LEVEL_LENGTH_PX;
    const n = TUNING.ROAD_ENCOUNTERS;
    for (let i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      // The jitter moves the WINDOW, not the answer. Applying it after the
      // choice simply undid the choice.
      const centre = (0.25 + i * (0.5 / Math.max(1, n - 1))) * L +
        (hash01(i, 0x51) - 0.5) * 500;
      const span = 0.08 * L;
      let bestX = Math.round(centre), best = -Infinity;
      for (let k = -12; k <= 12; k++) {
        const cand = centre + (k / 12) * span;
        if (cand < 900 || cand > BOWL.X0 - 900) continue;
        // Never within the torch's own WIDTH of one already placed. Chasing the
        // open sky pulled two of three encounters to 667px apart, and the torch
        // is 680 across — so one raise woke both, on the stretch that is
        // supposed to be teaching him what raising it costs.
        if (drained.some((o) => Math.abs(o.x - cand) < TORCH.RADIUS * 2)) continue;
        // And never within the torch's reach of the note on the tree.
        if (Math.abs(cand - TREE_X) < TUNING.TREE_CLEAR) continue;
        // Gentle pull to the middle of the window so ties do not drift to an end.
        const score = background.skyOpenAt(cand, W) - Math.abs(cand - centre) * 0.6;
        if (score > best) { best = score; bestX = Math.round(cand); }
      }
      // They carry NOTHING and they do no loop at all. They are from elsewhere:
      // travellers who stopped, not residents. One object per kind means a
      // second hammer out here would file against the forge and the map's only
      // error state is two objects landing on one house.
      //
      // So the loop skill correctly rules them out, once the player has it.
      drained.push(createDrained(clips, bestX, hash01(i, 0x77) < 0.5 ? -1 : 1, i,
        { kept: null, keptMaxX: BOWL.X0 }));
    }
  }

  // --- the village ------------------------------------------------------
  // What used to be here: thirty-four watchers stepping onto the path until he
  // could not get through. A placeholder from the first day, and deleted rather
  // than disabled. The background watcher layer already populates the bowl, and
  // a second non-interactive crowd system beside it was one system too many.
  //
  // The mouth is a one-way threshold. Cross it and the camera stops following
  // and starts being bounded; walking back inside is free, walking back out is
  // not. There is no art at the mouth and no fade. The houses are the only
  // thing that says the mode changed.
  const GATE_X = BOWL.X1;
  const GATE_STOP_X = GATE_X - 380;      // inside the gateway, clear of the post
  // AND THE FAR SIDE OF THE SAME GATEWAY, once the man who holds it has gone
  // home. 40px inside the right post, as GATE_STOP_X is inside the left, so he
  // never stands in front of pure black and disappears into it.
  const GATE_ROOM_X = GATE_X + 380;
  // Where the view stops, and it is not simply the gate. Bounding the camera at
  // GATE_X - W/2 put the wall across the middle of the frame and shoved him
  // into the left half to stand at it. Stopping three quarters of the way over
  // leaves the village behind him visible while he is working out that the gate
  // will not open, which is the exact moment he has to turn around.
  const GATE_CAM_X = GATE_X - W * 0.75;
  // AND A LITTLE FURTHER ONCE THE GATEWAY IS HIS. With its keeper home he can
  // walk to the far post, and at GATE_CAM_X that stood him 100px from the edge
  // of the frame with the post cut in half. This frames the whole gateway —
  // both posts, the leaf and all four sockets — with 100px of wall past it.
  // The keeper leaves while the prince is at the gatehouse, a screen away, so
  // the view is never at either bound when it changes and nothing jumps.
  const GATE_ROOM_CAM_X = GATE_X + 620 - W;

  // THERE IS NO ONE-WAY MOUTH, and the reason is worth keeping.
  //
  // The spec called the threshold at the village's edge "the whole transition":
  // cross it and the camera stops following and starts being bounded, and you
  // cannot walk back out. That was written when the road was twelve screens of
  // empty approach nobody would ever want to re-walk.
  //
  // The road is four screens now and has three Drained on it. Locking the
  // threshold behind him does not focus the level, it deletes three encounters
  // and everything they were carrying the moment he steps past a house. So the
  // camera is bounded at BOTH ends of the whole level from the first frame, and
  // the village is a place rather than a room with a door.
  //
  // What the threshold was FOR survives without it: the houses are still the
  // only signal the mode changed, and the shut gate is still the only way out.
  camera.setBounds(0, GATE_CAM_X);

  // --- the street --------------------------------------------------------
  // Five houses and eleven shapes, laid out as a RHYTHM rather than a scatter.
  //
  // The village is divided into five blocks. Each block is a house at its head
  // and open ground behind it, and the shapes live in the open ground. That
  // guarantees the clear pocket around every door by construction, instead of
  // scattering shapes and hoping none of them lands on a doorstep — which is
  // what the first pass did, and all five doors were unlookable.
  //
  // It also gives the place a shape you can read while walking: a building, a
  // stretch of people, a building. A village street, not a field of posts.
  const CLEAR = TUNING.BOWL_CLEAR;
  // THE GATEHOUSE COMES OUT OF THE ROW AND STANDS BESIDE THE GATE, which is
  // what its own art note has said since it was drawn: "palace-built, like the
  // gate it stands beside". It was 2400px away, which is off the right edge of
  // a pinned camera — so filing the gatekeeper's fragment, the first thing
  // anybody files and the tutorial for the entire ending, showed nothing at all
  // for the better part of a minute.
  //
  // At 1100px short of the gate his walk home is 870px: he is 210px off the
  // right edge when the button is pressed and in frame within a second. His
  // house is still not the gate and he still walks away from the post, which
  // is the whole of what section 8 is about. It just happens where you can see
  // it. The facade is 960 wide, so it ends at 27380 and the gate's posts begin
  // at 27580; the torch on its door reaches 27100, which is 670px short of him
  // and comfortably outside DOOR_CLEAR, so lighting it still wakes nothing.
  const GATEHOUSE_X = BOWL.X1 - 1100;
  const SPAN4 = (GATEHOUSE_X - 1600) - (BOWL.X0 + 500);
  const houseX = (i) => (i === 4 ? GATEHOUSE_X
    : Math.round(BOWL.X0 + 500 + SPAN4 * (i + 0.5) / 4));

  // Lighting a door tells you who lived there and nothing else — no shaped
  // gaps, no racks, no missing-tool puzzle.
  //
  // Four of the five have someone out in the forest carrying their answer. The fifth
  // is not anywhere, and the game never once says so.
  //
  // SIZED AGAINST A MAN, not picked. At 470 tall a house came out 1.8x a
  // standing figure, and a building a man nearly fills the door of reads as a
  // shed. These run 1.9x to 2.3x and are wider than they are tall.
  //
  // AND THEY ARE NOT PURE BLACK. Standing the prince in front of an 820px black
  // wall merged the two into one mass and he simply disappeared for two seconds
  // at a time — the same failure the watchers had, at ten times the area. So a
  // house takes the watcher treatment, which is already measured and already
  // tested: luminance 26 rather than 0. Everything ON the road stays pure black
  // and reads against them. Its foot still meets the ground — a building
  // floating above the ground line reads as a mistake, and the VALUE is what
  // says it is set back, not a gap under it.
  //
  // The gate is the exception and stays pure black, because he never reaches
  // it — he stops 380px short and the wall is the thing that stopped him.
  const houseClip = clips.houses;
  // Where his orders came from. Not one of the five, and deliberately not a
  // sixth variant of `houses` -- see the manifest's note on the palace clip.
  const palaceClip = clips.palace ?? null;
  // Index order is house order and the names come straight off HOUSE_OF, so a
  // fragment's house and a plot on the map are the same number and cannot
  // drift apart.
  const HOUSES = ['forge', 'bakehouse', 'wellhouse', 'home', 'gatehouse'].map((kind, i) => ({
    kind,
    index: i,
    answers: HOUSE_OF[i],
    variant: i,
    x: houseX(i),
    w: houseClip ? houseClip.width : 960,
    // HAS THE TORCH BEEN ON ITS DOOR OR ITS LETTER? Latches, like the objects
    // on the ground, and for the same reason. It is the whole of what the door
    // remembers about him: the band reads a lit door again for free, and the
    // slot takes a pin.
    //
    // THE LETTER NEVER COMES DOWN, so there is no second flag for it. Letters
    // stay where they were left and fragments come off bodies: he does not
    // pocket a stranger's mail, and the door is where he judges.
    seen: false,
    // WHAT HE HAS FILED UNDER THIS HOUSE, and nothing else in the build writes
    // it. The `kept` index of one fragment, or null. The map used to fill this
    // in by itself the moment he looked at something, which made it a receipt;
    // a claim only means anything if it can be wrong, so he makes it.
    filed: null,
    // SOMEBODY CAME HOME TO IT. Set when a body finishes its walk at this
    // door, and it is the only thing in the level that is ever a verdict —
    // except that it is not one, because the game does not say it. A person
    // is standing in the doorway who was not standing there before.
    open: false,
    // The key off its hook. One per house, and four of the five can be had.
    keyTaken: false,
    // THE FRAME IS FINISHED WITH. Set the instant a correct fragment goes in,
    // which is the instant its owner starts walking, not when it arrives.
    //
    // It is not a cost. Brute-forcing a door is still four presses and the
    // addendum allows it. What it stops is one thing: taking a name back off a
    // wall after the person it belonged to is already on their way, which
    // would either have to turn them round or quietly not.
    settled: false,
  }));

  // The door, as a world point, from the clip's own pixels. Move it in the art
  // and the reveal moves with it — the same deal keptAnchor and handPivot get.
  //
  // No fallback. A missing doorAt used to quietly default to 140px above the
  // ground, which happened to be the exact value the manifest asks for — so the
  // field was not being read at all and nothing showed it. Throwing is the same
  // guard tintFrames got after it silently painted the previous colour.
  if (houseClip && !houseClip.doorAt) {
    throw new Error('clip "houses" has no doorAt: nothing would say where the door is');
  }
  const doorOffset = houseClip
    ? [houseClip.doorAt[0] - houseClip.pivotX, houseClip.doorAt[1] - houseClip.pivotY]
    : [0, 0];
  const doorPoint = (h) => [h.x + doorOffset[0], GROUND_Y + doorOffset[1]];

  /**
   * The middle of the letter beside that door, as a world point. It never
   * comes down, so this is always where it hangs.
   *
   * Straight out of the clip's own pixels, the same deal `doorAt` gets: move it
   * in the art and the thing the torch has to cover moves with it.
   */
  const letterPoint = (h) => {
    const r = houseClip?.letterAt?.[h.variant];
    if (!r) return null;
    return [h.x - houseClip.pivotX + r[0] + r[2] / 2,
      GROUND_Y - houseClip.pivotY + r[1] + r[3] / 2];
  };

  /**
   * And the middle of the slot under it: the second nail, the lighter patch
   * where their own paper hung, and the page he pins back into it. Same column
   * as the letter, so the reach to either is the same reach.
   */
  const slotPoint = (h) => {
    const r = houseClip?.slotAt?.[h.variant];
    if (!r) return null;
    return [h.x - houseClip.pivotX + r[0] + r[2] / 2,
      GROUND_Y - houseClip.pivotY + r[1] + r[3] / 2];
  };

  /**
   * The middle of the key on its hook, as a world point. Same deal doorAt and
   * letterAt get: move it in the art and what the player has to walk to moves
   * with it.
   */
  const keyPoint = (h) => {
    const r = houseClip?.keyAt?.[h.variant];
    if (!r) return null;
    return [h.x - houseClip.pivotX + r[0] + r[2] / 2,
      GROUND_Y - houseClip.pivotY + r[1] + r[3] / 2];
  };

  // The dark pass wants them at the watcher value, not black — see the note
  // above. Tinted once here rather than per frame, like the watchers are.
  const houseArt = houseClip
    ? await tintFrames(houseClip, PALETTE.WATCHERS, 'dark')
    : null;

  // --- holes the shape of what goes in them --------------------------------
  //
  // The patch beside a door was a rectangle and the gate's sockets were
  // rectangles, and a rectangle says "a place" without saying what for. Cut
  // them to the shape of the thing instead and they say both at once, with no
  // words and no prompt: a torn page fits in a torn-page-shaped mark, a key
  // fits in a key-shaped hole. It is the oldest trick there is and this level
  // had been asking its question in the vaguest possible shape.
  //
  // TINTED ONCE AT LOAD, off the real art, so the hole and the thing can never
  // drift apart — the same treatment the houses and the watchers get. All five
  // torn pages share one contour by design and the silhouette pass throws the
  // scribble away, so frame 0 is every fragment's outline.
  const PATCH_HEX = '#6f6553';            // lum 101 — the cleaner wall. See render.js
  const patchArt = clips.kept
    ? (await tintFrames(clips.kept, PATCH_HEX, 'dark'))[0] : null;
  const socketArt = clips.key
    ? (await tintFrames(clips.key, PALETTE.WATCHERS, 'dark'))[0] : null;

  // --- the tree on the road ------------------------------------------------
  // A rebel nailed the rule to it: they cannot speak, what they carried is all
  // that is left of them, take it home. Never an answer — not which ones, not
  // which home. It reads like a house's letter in every way the code cares
  // about: light it and the band reads it, and after that standing by it
  // does. It stays on the tree, the same as every letter stays on its door,
  // and it is not a door — no slot, and nothing is ever pinned back to it.
  const treeClip = clips.road_tree ?? null;
  const TREE_NOTE = letters?.byHouse?.findIndex((h) => h.origin === 'tree') ?? -1;
  const TREE = treeClip && TREE_NOTE >= 0
    ? { kind: 'tree', x: TREE_X, index: TREE_NOTE, variant: 0, seen: false }
    : null;
  /** The middle of the note on the tree, as a world point. Off the clip's pixels. */
  const treePoint = () => {
    const r = treeClip?.letterAt?.[0];
    if (!TREE || !r) return null;
    return [TREE.x - treeClip.pivotX + r[0] + r[2] / 2,
      GROUND_Y - treeClip.pivotY + r[1] + r[3] / 2];
  };
  // PALE IN THE DARK. A house letter has a lit doorway beside it to draw the
  // eye; a note on a lone tree has nothing, and would be walked past. So the
  // scrap shows as paper catching what light there is — enough to say
  // "something is pinned here", never enough to read. Above the no-mud floor.
  const NOTE_IN_THE_DARK = '#9a9484';     // lum 148
  const treeNoteDark = TREE && clips.letter
    ? (await tintFrames(clips.letter, NOTE_IN_THE_DARK, 'dark'))[TREE_NOTE] ?? null : null;

  // --- the twelve --------------------------------------------------------
  // Twelve shapes you can swing at, against the background watchers you cannot.
  // Two populations doing different jobs: the watchers make it feel like a
  // village and cost nothing, and these are what you walk to.
  //
  // Eleven stand out in the village and the twelfth is the gatekeeper, at his
  // post sixty years after anyone relieved him.
  //
  // V1 CARRIES NOTHING. The four carriers, the loops and the one-in-three
  // ratio that makes the search a search are V4; what V1 is for is the size of
  // the room, and objects in it would only be something to look at instead.
  //
  // THE DOORS ARE PLACED FIRST AND THE SHAPES GO IN WHAT IS LEFT.
  //
  // Holding the torch freezes him and takes his sword away, so a shape inside
  // the light's reach of a door means looking at that door wakes something with
  // nowhere to back off to. The first village scattered shapes evenly and
  // checked afterwards: all five doors came out unlookable, one of them with a
  // Drained 59px away. So the clear pockets are cut out of the street FIRST,
  // and the eleven are spread evenly through the ground that remains.
  //
  // Even in FREE-SPACE coordinates, not world ones. Walking a straight line
  // through the gaps and dropping a shape every so often is what keeps them
  // from bunching up in whichever gap happened to be largest — which is exactly
  // how the per-block version put three of them 591px apart.
  const free = (() => {
    const out = [];
    let at = BOWL.X0 + 400;
    for (const h of HOUSES) {
      if (h.x - CLEAR > at) out.push([at, h.x - CLEAR]);
      at = Math.max(at, h.x + CLEAR);
    }
    // Short of the gate: the gatekeeper's ground is his, and a shape loitering
    // there would be in the fight that is supposed to be his alone.
    if (GATE_STOP_X - CLEAR > at) out.push([at, GATE_STOP_X - CLEAR]);
    return out;
  })();
  const FREE_LEN = free.reduce((n, [a, b]) => n + (b - a), 0);

  /** A distance along the free ground, as a world x. */
  const atFree = (u) => {
    let left = u;
    for (const [a, b] of free) {
      if (left <= b - a) return a + left;
      left -= b - a;
    }
    return free[free.length - 1][1];
  };

  // WHO IS DOING WHAT, and it is a fixed pattern rather than a roll.
  //
  // Three motions are out here — the gatekeeper is the fourth carrier and he is
  // at the gate. Each motion is done by three shapes: one carrying, two not. The
  // last two do nothing in particular, which is what gives the loop skill
  // something to correctly rule OUT. That is how a skill gets taught without
  // being taught.
  //
  //   hammer   1 carrier + 2 decoys        yoke      1 carrier + 2 decoys
  //   peel     1 carrier + 2 decoys        nothing   2 decoys
  //
  // Eleven. Four fights if reading outlines has landed, twelve if it has not,
  // and that spread IS what V4 measures.
  // WHO DOES WHAT, AND THE LOOP IS A LAST MOMENT.
  //
  // The drained are still doing whatever they were doing when she took them.
  // That is not a life: a blacksmith swings a hammer for thirty years, and on
  // the morning she came he was hauling water because his brother had a fever.
  // The house letter says who he was, the loop says what he was doing at the
  // end, and the gap between the two is the deduction.
  //
  //   swinging   3 shapes, and NONE of them carries. The swinger is bait, and
  //              the forge letter names this motion on purpose
  //   hauling    3 shapes, one carrying — the forge's own fragment
  //   bearing    3 shapes, two carrying — the bakehouse and the well house,
  //              who were both doing the same thing that morning
  //   wandering  2 shapes doing nothing anybody wrote down
  //
  // THE LAST TWO ARE THE NEGATIVE CONTROL. Without something the loop skill can
  // correctly rule OUT, every shape is worth a fight and watching is
  // decoration. They wander rather than stand, because standing reads as the
  // gatekeeper or as a watcher — their motion has to be legibly not a trade.
  const ROLES = [
    { loop: 'swing' }, { loop: 'swing' }, { loop: 'swing' },
    { loop: 'haul' }, { loop: 'haul' }, { loop: 'haul' },
    { loop: 'bear' }, { loop: 'bear' }, { loop: 'bear' },
    { roams: true }, { roams: true },
  ];

  const BOWL_N = ROLES.length;
  // The furthest a dropped object may land and still be pickable. Handed to
  // every Drained, because the one that got this wrong was unreachable by
  // 375px and the run simply could not be finished.
  const KEPT_MAX_X = GATE_STOP_X - TUNING.PICKUP_REACH * 0.6;

  const village = [];
  const SLOTS = [];

  /**
   * How far a wanderer at x may pace without ever entering a door's pocket.
   *
   * Bounded PER DIRECTION. Taking the nearest house in any direction and
   * applying it both ways leaves the far side under-constrained, and measuring
   * across a dozen seeds it came within 2px of the clearance — passing, but on
   * nothing. The house on the left decides how far left it goes.
   */
  const roamRoom = (x) => {
    const left = HOUSES.filter((h) => h.x < x).map((h) => x - h.x - CLEAR);
    const right = HOUSES.filter((h) => h.x >= x).map((h) => h.x - x - CLEAR);
    return Math.max(0, Math.min(
      (FREE_LEN / BOWL_N) * 0.4,
      ...(left.length ? [Math.min(...left)] : []),
      ...(right.length ? [Math.min(...right)] : []),
    ));
  };

  {
    const slot = FREE_LEN / BOWL_N;
    for (let i = 0; i < BOWL_N; i++) {
      // The slots themselves are WORLD-seeded and never move: their clear
      // pockets round each door and their spacing floor are what V1 bought.
      const u = slot * (i + 0.5) + (hash01(i, 0xb0a1) - 0.5) * slot * 0.2;
      SLOTS.push(Math.round(atFree(u)));
    }
    ROLES.forEach((role, i) => {
      village.push(createDrained(clips, SLOTS[i], hash01(i, 0xb0a2) < 0.5 ? -1 : 1, i,
        { standing: !role.roams, stayDown: true, loop: role.loop ?? null,
          kept: null, keptMaxX: KEPT_MAX_X,
          // A wanderer stays in the open ground it was placed in. Let one drift
          // and it walks into a door's clear pocket, and lighting that door
          // wakes it — which is the one thing V1's placement bought.
          //
          // BOUNDED BY THE DOOR, NOT ONLY BY THE SLOT. Half a slot is 370px,
          // and a slot only has to be BOWL_CLEAR from a door to be legal — so
          // a wanderer in the tightest slot could pace 370 toward the door and
          // end up well inside the pocket. Which slot a wanderer lands in
          // varies per run, so this only started happening when roles began
          // moving between slots.
          roam: role.roams ? roamRoom(SLOTS[i]) : 0 }));
    });
    // The gatekeeper. Inside the opening, against the shut leaf, and within the
    // prince's 175px reach of where the gate stops him. He never leaves.
    village.push(createDrained(clips, GATE_X - 230, -1, BOWL_N,
      { standing: true, stayDown: true, post: true, kept: HOUSE_OF.indexOf('the gatehouse'),
        keptMaxX: KEPT_MAX_X }));
  }
  // Whether his post is empty: walking home, or home. Nothing else takes him
  // off it — a fight leaves him on the ground where he stood.
  const GATEKEEPER = village[village.length - 1];
  const keeperGone = () => GATEKEEPER.state === HOMING || GATEKEEPER.state === HOME;

  /**
   * THE DEAL, AND IT IS A CONSTRAINED SHUFFLE.
   *
   * The rules are the authored part of the level. Which specific body satisfies
   * one is not, and it is re-rolled every run so that four friends comparing
   * notes cannot say "the blacksmith is third from the left".
   *
   * It buys that and not a second puzzle: a player who remembers that the forge
   * letter subverts has spent the deduction, and this makes them fight again
   * rather than think again.
   */
  function dealVillage(seed) {
    const rnd = mulberry32(seed >>> 0);
    const shuffled = (list) => list.map((v) => [v, rnd()])
      .sort((a, b) => a[1] - b[1]).map((v) => v[0]);

    // --- which body stands in which slot ---------------------------------
    // Dealt so NO TWO NEIGHBOURS SHARE A MOTION. A clump of three identical
    // loops hands the player a spatial tell, and the point is that narrowing by
    // motion leaves candidates spread out with nothing to choose between them.
    const pool = new Map();
    ROLES.forEach((r, i) => {
      const key = r.loop ?? '-';
      if (!pool.has(key)) pool.set(key, []);
      pool.get(key).push(i);
    });
    for (const [k, list] of pool) pool.set(k, shuffled(list));
    const order = [];
    let last = null;
    for (let n = 0; n < BOWL_N; n++) {
      // Largest group first so nothing is left stranded at the end, and TIES
      // BROKEN AT RANDOM. Without the tie-break the greedy rule is fully
      // determined by group sizes, so every run laid the village out in the
      // same order of motions — swing, haul, bear, swing, haul, bear — and
      // "the fifth shape is a hauler" survived the shuffle intact.
      let best = null;
      let bestN = -1;
      for (const k of shuffled([...pool.keys()])) {
        const arr = pool.get(k);
        if (!arr.length || (k === last && pool.size > 1)) continue;
        if (arr.length > bestN) { best = k; bestN = arr.length; }
      }
      if (!best) best = [...pool.keys()].find((k) => pool.get(k).length);
      order.push(pool.get(best).shift());
      if (!pool.get(best).length) pool.delete(best);
      last = best;
    }
    order.forEach((body, slotIndex) => {
      const x = SLOTS[slotIndex];
      village[body].placeAt(x, roamRoom(x));
    });

    // --- who is carrying what --------------------------------------------
    for (let i = 0; i < BOWL_N; i++) village[i].setKept(null);
    const byLoop = (l) => shuffled(ROLES.map((r, i) => (r.loop === l ? i : -1)).filter((i) => i >= 0));
    // The forge's fragment goes on a HAULER, never a swinger. The whole
    // subversion rests on it: read "I could hear you at the anvil", walk to the
    // swinging shape, and nothing falls out of it.
    village[byLoop('haul')[0]].setKept(HOUSE_OF.indexOf('the forge'));
    // The bakehouse and the well house were both walking somewhere with
    // something that morning, so both go on BEARERS. Two of the three.
    const bearers = byLoop('bear');
    const pair = shuffled([HOUSE_OF.indexOf('the bakehouse'), HOUSE_OF.indexOf('the well house')]);
    village[bearers[0]].setKept(pair[0]);
    village[bearers[1]].setKept(pair[1]);
    // Home gets nothing, anywhere. That is the residue.
    // The gatekeeper keeps his own and is never re-dealt.
  }
  dealVillage(SEED);

  // What the layout actually produced, which is what V1 is judging and is NOT
  // the bowl width over twelve — the clear pockets around the doors eat it.
  const VILLAGE_GAP = (() => {
    const xs = village.map((v) => v.x).sort((a, b) => a - b);
    let sum = 0;
    for (let i = 1; i < xs.length; i++) sum += xs[i] - xs[i - 1];
    return Math.round(sum / (xs.length - 1));
  })();

  // One list. The village shapes are Drained like any other: the same three
  // hits, the same stagger, the same rules about being looked at.
  drained.push(...village);

  // The loss beat. No text, no shake, no sting — the light going out is the
  // whole thing.
  // The DEATH beat now, not the loss beat. Being caught costs a hit; the sixth
  // one is this, and it restarts the level.
  const loss = { active: false, timer: 0, torchWasUp: false, x: 0, y: 0, vx: 0, r: 0, by: null };
  let grace = 0;

  /**
   * Caught. Knocked back, a moment to get clear, and one less.
   *
   * WANDER contact is still harmless — the whole level argues that nothing is
   * hostile until it is looked at, and a man standing in the dark doing nothing
   * has to stay a man standing in the dark doing nothing.
   */
  function takeHit(fromX, knock) {
    if (grace > 0 || loss.active) return;
    prince.hits++;
    run.hitsTaken++;
    prince.x += (Math.sign(prince.x - fromX) || -1) * knock;
    prince.prevX = prince.x;
    prince.attacking = false;
    grace = TUNING.HURT_GRACE_MS;
    audio?.hit();
    if (prince.hits < TUNING.PRINCE_HITS) return;
    // The sixth. The light goes out and the level starts again -- and nobody
    // goes on reading to a dead man.
    audio?.stopVoice?.();
    voice.started = false;
    loss.active = true;
    loss.timer = 0;
    prince.down.reset();
    loss.torchWasUp = torch.raise > 0.01;
    loss.x = torch.handX;
    loss.y = torch.handY;
    loss.vx = prince.facing * 120;
    loss.r = torch.radius;
    audio?.bodyFall();
  }

  // THE MAP. Not a screen — a sheet he holds up in his own torchlight. It
  // records and it never reasons: it knows what he has looked at and nothing
  // else, and the player never does a moment's bookkeeping.
  // THE GATE. Shut, with four empty marks on it, and it does not open until he
  // is carrying four objects he has LOOKED at. Not four objects — take them
  // blind and he is holding four question marks and the gate stays shut.
  //
  // He has to look. That is the level.
  const gate = { filled: 0, open: 0, through: false, placed: 0 };

  // THE SKY, when somebody gets their name back. `ms` counts up through the
  // strike and `thundered` makes sure the rumble fires once rather than every
  // frame the flash is still running. See FLASH in tuning.js for why it is a
  // flash and not a sound.
  const flash = { ms: 0, thundered: true };

  /**
   * THE SHEAF. Loose pages he carries, and the map is one of them.
   *
   * Built here at L2 and paged at L3. What arrives when:
   *   his orders     at the start, and permanently page one
   *   a fragment     when he takes it
   *   a key          when he takes it off its hook
   *
   * NO HOUSE LETTERS AND NO NOTE. Those stay where they were left — on the
   * door and on the tree — and the band reads them there.
   *
   * FOUND ORDER. Not grouped, not sorted, no index and no tabs — the order he
   * picked them up in is the only order there is.
   */
  // Last frame's take button, so an act fires on the edge. See where it is read.
  let prevPickup = false;
  // How long he has stood still, in ms. The band reads a door he has lit again
  // once this passes READ_STILL_MS. See the band.
  let still = 0;
  // Whether he wanted the light last frame, so the flame fires on the raise
  // and not on every frame of holding it.
  let litLast = false;

  const sheaf = {
    // NO MAP PAGE. It was page one from V3 until somebody played it and said
    // "I thought the first page was just the inventory index of stuff — I did
    // not realise it was a map." Which is the whole verdict on it: the sheet
    // that the V3 gate was built around never read as a map to anybody.
    //
    // So it is what it was being read as. A pile of what he is carrying, in the
    // order he found it, and nothing else. A real map that draws itself as he
    // solves things is a good idea and a separate one.
    pages: [],
    index: 0,
    // Whether he is holding it up. Lived on its own `map` object until the name
    // stopped being true.
    up: false,
    // Edge and repeat for the arrows. A turn is a FLIP WITH A BEAT, not a free
    // browse: it fires on the press, then not again until REPEAT_MS, so holding
    // an arrow walks the pile at reading speed rather than spinning it.
    heldDir: 0,
    repeat: 0,
    // Counts up on every turn. The band watches it rather than watching the
    // text, because paging from one page to another with the SAME words has to
    // still read as a turn.
    turns: 0,
  };
  const SHEAF_REPEAT_MS = 260;

  /**
   * THE OPENING. He is reading his orders when the game starts.
   *
   * Not a splash and not narration: the page is in his hand, held up in the
   * light, in the exact posture the player will use for the whole game -- shown
   * before they know there is a button for it.
   */
  // `heard`: his orders have started being read aloud. `clear`: every key has
  // been let go since. `askedAt`: when the first press asked for the reading,
  // in opening ms, or -1. See the opening in update().
  const opening = { ms: 0, done: false, heard: false, clear: false, askedAt: -1 };

  /**
   * What `update` is handed while the beat runs, INSTEAD of the real input.
   *
   * The death beat owns its frame with a bare `return` placed above every
   * input read. Copying that here would freeze the fire: it returns above
   * `state.clock += dt` and above the flame player, which cost nothing when
   * the torch was four SVG frames and costs everything now that it is a
   * 25-frame loop and the only colour on screen. Four seconds of a frozen
   * flame at the front of the game is worse than no opening.
   *
   * So nothing is skipped. The rest of update runs on these flags instead: the
   * sheaf goes up, the torch stays up, the band shows the order, the pose swaps
   * to the map pose, the clock advances and the fire burns -- and he does not
   * move, because left and right are false. "No input is accepted" ends up
   * literally true rather than approximately true.
   */
  // NOT FROZEN, AND THAT COST A CRASH. The scene clears `input.pickup = false`
  // further down, every frame -- the edge detector was deliberately moved in
  // here so it would not trust the input layer. Object.freeze turns that write
  // into a TypeError under a module's strict mode, so the whole update died
  // mid-frame on the first frame of the game. It is a plain object because
  // something legitimately writes to it.
  const OPENING_INPUT = {
    torch: true, sheaf: true, attack: false, pickup: false, left: false, right: false,
  };

  /**
   * Arm it. Sets the raise to 1 rather than letting it ramp: RAISE_MS is 250
   * and the band needs raise > 0.9, so coming up through the input path gives
   * a quarter of a second of a page rising into view with no legible word on
   * it. The spec says he is ALREADY holding it up, so he is.
   */
  const armOpening = () => {
    opening.ms = 0;
    opening.done = false;
    opening.heard = false;
    opening.clear = false;
    opening.askedAt = -1;
    torch.raise = 1;
    torch.prevRaise = 1;
  };

  const page = () => sheaf.pages[sheaf.index] ?? null;

  /**
   * Has he looked at this page's contents? The one letter he carries is his
   * orders, which he is reading when the game starts. A FRAGMENT CAN BE TAKEN
   * BLIND and arrives unknown, and the whole gate at the end of the level
   * turns on that difference.
   */
  const pageSeen = (pg) => {
    // A letter was read off a lit door and a key has nothing written on it, so
    // only a torn page can be a thing he owns without having looked at it.
    if (!pg || pg.kind !== 'fragment') return true;
    return !!prince.inventory.find((it) => it.kept === pg.kept)?.seen;
  };

  /** Where this page is filed, if it is a fragment and he has filed it. */
  const filedUnder = (pg) => {
    if (!pg || pg.kind !== 'fragment') return null;
    return HOUSES.find((h) => h.filed === pg.kept) ?? null;
  };

  const textFor = (pg) => {
    if (!letters || !pg) return null;
    const h = letters.byHouse?.[pg.house ?? pg.kept];
    if (!h) return null;
    // A KEY HAS NOTHING WRITTEN ON IT, so the band stays empty on one — which
    // is the difference between a key and a letter, shown rather than said.
    // (This used to say "a map", back when page zero was one.)
    return pg.kind === 'letter' ? h.letter : pg.kind === 'fragment' ? h.fragment : null;
  };

  /**
   * Put a page on the pile and open on it.
   *
   * FOUND ORDER means it goes on the end. Moving the index to it is what a
   * person does with a handful of papers — the new one is the one in your
   * hand — and it is what makes pinning one gesture instead of two: take a
   * fragment off a body, walk to a door, press E, and it is already the page
   * he is holding.
   */
  const filePage = (pg) => {
    sheaf.pages.push(pg);
    sheaf.index = sheaf.pages.length - 1;
    sheaf.turns++;
  };

  /**
   * HIS ORDERS. Page one, from before the first frame, and permanently.
   *
   * The pile used to start empty and a check asserted it, under a comment
   * explaining that he begins carrying nothing. That was true of a pile of
   * things he had FOUND. This is the one page he did not find: it is what he
   * was handed at the palace and what sent him down this road, and by the end
   * of the village it sits under four fragments that, with the letters on the
   * doors they answer, contradict every word of it. Nothing has to say so.
   *
   * IT IS AN ORDINARY LETTER PAGE. Not its own kind: it is a page of writing
   * with a building behind it, which is what every letter in this game is, and
   * making it a fourth kind meant a branch in textFor, a branch in the hand,
   * and a row in every check that counts kinds -- all to say "paper" twice.
   * Its byHouse entry carries `origin: 'palace'`, and the index is FOUND by
   * that rather than counted to, so nobody has to keep a 5 in their head.
   *
   * Through filePage rather than a bare push, so it bumps `turns` -- which is
   * what zeroes band.alpha and gives the opening its fade-in for free.
   *
   * CALLED TWICE, because reset() is not called at construction; the state
   * literals are the initial state and only camera.reset runs down there.
   */
  const ORDER_HOUSE = letters?.byHouse?.findIndex((h) => h.origin === 'palace') ?? -1;
  const seedOrder = () => { if (ORDER_HOUSE >= 0) filePage({ kind: 'letter', house: ORDER_HOUSE }); };

  /**
   * THE VOICES. Every paper is read aloud by whoever wrote it: Mira reads her
   * letter, the smith his own last words, the palace its order. The band still
   * shows the document; the voice is the same document, word for word, and
   * never a voice that describes one.
   *
   * Named by what they read -- `letter 0` is the forge's letter, `fragment 0`
   * the smith's scrap -- so a voice is found the same way the band's text is.
   */
  const voiceOf = (kind, i) => {
    const h = letters?.byHouse?.[i];
    return (kind === 'letter' ? h?.letterVoice : h?.fragmentVoice) ? `${kind} ${i}` : null;
  };
  letters?.byHouse?.forEach((h, i) => {
    if (h.letterVoice) audio?.useVoice?.(`letter ${i}`, { file: h.letterVoice });
    if (h.fragmentVoice) audio?.useVoice?.(`fragment ${i}`, { file: h.fragmentVoice });
  });
  const ORDERS_VOICE = voiceOf('letter', ORDER_HOUSE);
  // Which document the voice belongs to (the band's key), how long it has been
  // up, and whether its voice has started.
  const voice = { key: null, ms: 0, started: false };

  /**
   * What the band is showing, and it shows the document rather than describing
   * it: the page he is holding up, or the letter on the wall in front of him.
   *
   * `key` says WHICH document, so the band can blank between two of them —
   * a page turn, or looking from the door to his papers and back. See the band.
   */
  const band = { text: null, alpha: 0, key: null };

  /**
   * WHAT THIS BUILD IS FOR, counted.
   *
   * The question health is being added to answer is one thing: does he start
   * standing still and looking at something before walking up to it? So the
   * run keeps score of the only number that answers it — seconds spent with
   * the torch up, standing still, with nothing hostile near enough to reach
   * him. Watching from safety.
   *
   * Everything else here is context for that one figure.
   */
  const run = { seconds: 0, fights: 0, hitsTaken: 0, deaths: 0, watching: 0, taken: 0 };
  const WATCH_CLEAR_PX = 600;

  // Whether the sheaf is up. A dwell timer used to live here and resolved the
  // oldest unknown thing in his bag; pages replaced it, because what he
  // resolves is the one he turned to.
  const map = { up: false };
  let lastRunFrame = -1;     // so a step fires once per arrival, not once per tick

  const state = {
    prince, torch, camera, background, drained, loss,
    get grace() { return grace; },
    audio,
    ground: clips.ground,
    kept: clips.kept,
    letterArt: clips.letter,
    keyArt: clips.key,
    patchArt,
    socketArt,
    lightning: clips.lightning,
    pageBlank: clips.page_blank,
    sheetClip, mapClip, hurtClip, run, sheaf, band, textFor, letters, page, pageSeen, filedUnder,
    canMark: false,
    markHouse: null,
    canTakeKey: false,
    canPlaceKey: false,
    // Whether there is anything at his feet to pick up. Computed once here
    // rather than re-scanned by main.js to decide what the button says.
    canTake: false,
    seed: SEED,
    houses: HOUSES, houseTint: PALETTE.WATCHERS,
    houseClip, palaceClip, houseArt, doorPoint, keyPoint, letterPoint, slotPoint,
    tree: TREE, treeClip, treeNoteDark, treePoint,
    // What the band is reading off a wall right now, if anything: the house or
    // the tree. Published for the checks, which ask whether it is the same
    // door E would act on.
    readingAt: null,
    // The voice that should be reading right now, if any: `letter 0`,
    // `fragment 2`. Set whether or not sound can play, so the checks can see
    // the decision.
    voice: null,
    // The house E would act on, if any. Same door the band reads.
    nearDoor: null,
    village, gateX: GATE_X, gateStopX: GATE_STOP_X, gateRoomX: GATE_ROOM_X,
    villageGap: VILLAGE_GAP, bowlX0: BOWL.X0,
    flame: { clip: clips.fire, player: createPlayer(clips.fire), frame: 0 },
    torchArm: TORCH_ARM,
    clock: 0,
    gate,
    opening,
    fade: 0,
  };

  /**
   * @param seed  re-deals the village. Checks pass one so a run reproduces;
   *              a player's reset keeps the seed the run started with.
   */
  function reset(seed = null) {
    if (seed !== null) { state.seed = seed >>> 0; dealVillage(state.seed); }
    prince.x = prince.prevX = START_X;
    prince.facing = 1;
    prince.hasSword = true;
    prince.moving = false;
    prince.hits = 0;
    prince.keys = 0;
    prince.run.reset();
    prince.idle.reset();
    torch.reset();
    camera.reset(START_X);
    state.clock = 0;
    for (const h of HOUSES) {
      h.seen = false; h.filed = null;
      h.open = false; h.settled = false; h.keyTaken = false;
    }
    if (TREE) TREE.seen = false;
    still = 0;
    state.readingAt = null;
    state.nearDoor = null;
    audio?.stopVoice?.();
    voice.key = null; voice.ms = 0; voice.started = false;
    state.voice = null;
    prevPickup = false;
    prince.attacking = false;
    prince.attackTime = 0;
    prince.attackConnected = false;
    loss.active = false;
    loss.timer = 0;
    loss.by = null;
    grace = 0;
    sheaf.up = false;
    gate.filled = 0;
    gate.open = 0;
    gate.through = false;
    gate.placed = 0;
    flash.ms = FLASH.MS;
    flash.thundered = true;
    state.flash = 0;
    state.flashMs = -1;
    sheaf.pages.length = 0;
    sheaf.index = 0;
    sheaf.heldDir = 0;
    sheaf.repeat = 0;
    sheaf.turns = 0;
    band.text = null;
    band.alpha = 0;
    band.key = null;
    state.fade = 0;
    // Deaths survive a restart. Everything else about the run does not — that
    // is what "the findings are at stake" means.
    run.seconds = 0; run.fights = 0; run.hitsTaken = 0; run.watching = 0; run.taken = 0;
    lastRunFrame = -1;
    prince.inventory.length = 0;
    drained.forEach((d) => d.reset());
    // His orders go back on the pile, because they are the one thing he cannot
    // lose. After the clears above, so they are not what gets cleared.
    seedOrder();
    // AND THE OPENING DOES NOT PLAY AGAIN. reset() is what R calls and what
    // the death beat ends with, and four seconds of re-reading an order you
    // have read is a punishment for dying. Parked finished, which is the same
    // idiom the storm is parked with six lines up.
    opening.done = true;
  }
  seedOrder();
  armOpening();
  camera.reset(START_X);

  function update(dt, input) {
    prince.prevX = prince.x;
    // Where he started this frame, for "is he standing still". Not prevX: a
    // hit and a shove both reset that to stop the draw smearing, so a knock
    // would look like standing still.
    const xFrom = prince.x;
    torch.snapshot();
    camera.snapshot();
    state.clock += dt;

    // --- the opening ------------------------------------------------------
    // He reads his orders, and then the game begins. The real input is looked
    // at exactly once, to see whether to cut it short; after that the frame
    // runs on OPENING_INPUT and he is holding the page up whatever anybody
    // presses. See the note on OPENING_INPUT for why this is not a `return`.
    if (!opening.done) {
      // SKIPPABLE, BY ANY OF THE SIX. A player who has seen it does not have
      // to sit through it, and one who has not will not know to press anything.
      const pressed = input.torch || input.sheaf || input.attack ||
        input.pickup || input.left || input.right;
      let skipped = pressed;
      // BUT THE FIRST PRESS STARTS THE READING. A browser makes no sound before
      // a press, so if the first one also put the orders away nobody would
      // ever hear them read. So while his orders could be read aloud and are
      // not yet, a press asks for the voice and the page stays up; once it is
      // speaking, the NEXT press ends it -- a key still held from the first
      // does not. If the voice has not come VOICE_WAIT_MS after it was asked
      // for, a press ends it as before. With sound off, nothing has changed.
      if (ORDERS_VOICE && audio?.canSpeak?.(ORDERS_VOICE)) {
        if (!opening.heard) {
          if (pressed && opening.askedAt < 0) opening.askedAt = opening.ms;
          skipped = pressed && opening.askedAt >= 0 &&
            opening.ms - opening.askedAt >= TUNING.VOICE_WAIT_MS;
        } else {
          if (!pressed) opening.clear = true;
          skipped = pressed && opening.clear;
        }
      }
      opening.ms += dt * 1000;
      // IT WAITS FOR HIM. The spec asked for a four-second hold that any input
      // could cut short; holding until a key is pressed is the same thing with
      // the impatient case removed, and it lets somebody read at their own
      // speed instead of at mine. ORDER_HOLD_MS is an upper bound for anyone
      // who wants one -- 0, the default, means no bound at all.
      const rangOut = TUNING.ORDER_HOLD_MS > 0 && opening.ms >= TUNING.ORDER_HOLD_MS;
      if (skipped || rangOut) {
        opening.done = true;
        // AND THE PRESS THAT SKIPPED DOES NOT ALSO SWING. attack and pickup
        // are one-shots the SCENE clears, further down; the frames above ran
        // on a different object, so the real one has never been cleared and
        // the key that ended the opening would land as a sword swing on the
        // frame control comes back. The loss beat has the same hole and never
        // has to care, because it ends in reset().
        input.attack = false;
        input.pickup = false;
      } else {
        // A press the opening spent is spent: a swing or a take still set on
        // the real input would count as held for ever, and the next press
        // could never arrive.
        input.attack = false;
        input.pickup = false;
        input = OPENING_INPUT;
      }
    }

    // --- the loss beat ----------------------------------------------------
    // Everything stops. If the torch was up it leaves his hand, falls, rolls
    // forward and goes out; the circle shrinks as it rolls.
    if (loss.active) {
      loss.timer += dt * 1000;
      // He goes down. The clip plays once and holds on the last frame, which is
      // what the light goes out over.
      prince.down.advance(dt);
      prince.clip = downClip;
      prince.frame = prince.down.index;
      // All the way out, over the clip. The last thing on screen before the
      // level starts again is the light leaving him.
      prince.eyeDim = Math.min(1, 0.6 + loss.timer / 900);
      if (loss.torchWasUp) {
        loss.vx += 260 * dt;
        loss.x += loss.vx * dt;
        loss.y = Math.min(GROUND_Y - 20, loss.y + 900 * dt * Math.min(1, loss.timer / 260));
        loss.r = Math.max(0, loss.r - 300 * dt);
        torch.cx = loss.x;
        torch.cy = loss.y;
        torch.radius = loss.r;
      }
      // THE LEVEL RESTARTS. He does not get up where he fell any more.
      //
      // The spec's checkpoint at the mouth keeps the map, and a checkpoint that
      // keeps the findings is too forgiving to change how anybody plays. The
      // findings have to be at stake or the fights are not a cost.
      state.fade = Math.min(1, (loss.timer - TUNING.LOSS_HOLD_MS) / TUNING.DEATH_FADE_MS);
      if (loss.timer >= TUNING.LOSS_HOLD_MS + TUNING.DEATH_FADE_MS) { run.deaths++; reset(); }
      return;
    }

    // --- Torch ------------------------------------------------------------
    // The whole swing is a commitment. No cancelling into the torch, and no
    // cancelling into another swing.
    const committed = prince.attacking;
    // Holding the map raises the torch. One button, and the cost is the torch's
    // cost exactly: he stops, the sword goes away, and he is lit up in the dark.
    sheaf.up = !!input.sheaf && !committed && !!mapClip;
    // FLAME AND AIR, ON THE WAY UP ONLY. Lowering it is him giving up the
    // light, which is a thing that should happen quietly.
    const wantsLight = (!!input.torch || sheaf.up) && !committed;
    litLast = wantsLight;
    torch.update(dt, wantsLight, state.clock,
      prince.x, GROUND_Y, prince.facing, HAND_DX, HAND_DY, TORCH_ARM, torchClip.fireCentre, TORCH_HANDS);
    prince.hasSword = torch.raise <= 0.001;
    // The crackle rides the raise, so it arrives with the light and leaves
    // with it. A loop rather than a one-shot on the press: a torch is not an
    // event, it is a thing that is burning.
    audio?.torchFire?.(torch.raise);

    // THE LIGHT IN HIM, every frame he is still up. Capped short of black so a
    // man on his last hit still has something in his face — going fully out is
    // what dying looks like, and it must not be what nearly-dying looks like.
    // SPREAD ACROSS THE HITS, not clamped at the end. Clamping made four hits
    // and five hits the same picture, which loses the one step that matters
    // most — the last one before the restart.
    prince.eyeDim = TUNING.EYE_DIM_MAX
      * Math.min(1, prince.hits / Math.max(1, TUNING.PRINCE_HITS - 1));

    // --- Movement ---------------------------------------------------------
    // Torch up means he cannot move. To look, he stops. To move on, he stops
    // looking. Every second spent understanding something is a second not spent
    // leaving.
    if (grace > 0) grace -= dt * 1000;

    const wantDir = (input.right ? 1 : 0) - (input.left ? 1 : 0);
    const canMove = prince.hasSword && !committed;
    prince.moving = canMove && wantDir !== 0;

    if (prince.moving) {
      prince.facing = wantDir;
      prince.x += wantDir * TUNING.WALK_SPEED * dt;
      if (prince.x < 0) prince.x = 0;
      // He does not hit a boundary, he hits a shut gate. Once it is up, the
      // only thing left in his way is the man standing in it.
      //
      // AND THE GATEWAY IS HIS ONCE ITS KEEPER HAS GONE HOME. While the keeper
      // holds the post, the shut leaf stops him just inside the left post.
      // With the post empty he can walk the whole width of the leaf, under all
      // four sockets, to just inside the right one. Found in play: he stood
      // at the left edge and could not get close enough to see how many
      // sockets the gate wanted.
      const shut = keeperGone() ? GATE_ROOM_X : GATE_STOP_X;
      const stop = gate.open >= 1 ? Math.max(GATE_X + 260, shut) : shut;
      if (prince.x > stop) prince.x = stop;
    }
    camera.setBounds(0, keeperGone() ? GATE_ROOM_CAM_X : GATE_CAM_X);
    camera.follow(prince.x);

    // --- The sword --------------------------------------------------------
    if (input.attack) {
      input.attack = false;
      if (prince.hasSword && !prince.attacking) {
        prince.attacking = true;
        prince.attackTime = 0;
        prince.attackConnected = false;
        audio?.swing();
      }
    }
    if (prince.attacking) {
      // THE SWING SLOWS. A cost he feels in the one thing he was using to make
      // the cost not matter.
      const slow = TUNING.SWING_SLOW[Math.min(prince.hits, TUNING.SWING_SLOW.length - 1)];
      prince.attackTime += dt / slow;
      const ms = prince.attackTime * 1000;
      const active = ms >= TUNING.ATTACK_WINDUP_MS &&
                     ms < TUNING.ATTACK_WINDUP_MS + TUNING.ATTACK_ACTIVE_MS;
      // One hitbox, one target, no multi-hit.
      if (active && !prince.attackConnected) {
        for (const d of drained) {
          // THE SWORD SWINGS ALONG THE ROAD. A figure in the back lane is
          // beside it, not on it, so the blade passes in front of it the way it
          // would in any beat 'em up — and one halfway through stepping down is
          // not there yet. Without this the lane is a picture: swing at a man
          // standing beside the road and he wakes, which is the exact fight
          // the lane exists to stop anyone starting.
          if (d.lane > 0) continue;
          const gap = (d.x - prince.x) * prince.facing;
          if (gap > -40 && gap <= attackClip.reach) {
            prince.attackConnected = true;
            d.takeHit(prince.x);
            audio?.hit();
            break;
          }
        }
      }
      if (prince.attackTime >= ATTACK_TOTAL) prince.attacking = false;
    }

    // --- the Drained ------------------------------------------------------
    const ctx = { princeX: prince.x, torch, groundY: GROUND_Y, inFrame: false };
    for (const d of drained) {
      // Only what is near enough to matter. Downed bodies persist in world
      // space, so one can rise and come at him from behind.
      //
      // EXCEPT ONE ON ITS WAY HOME. This cull is what makes a village of twelve
      // cost nothing, and it is exactly wrong for the one body that has
      // somewhere to be: skipped here, it never takes a step, so the door it
      // was walking to never opens and the key behind it is lost.
      //
      // ON THE FLAG, NOT THE STATE. Gating on HOMING alone left it culled
      // during the 900ms of GETTING UP, which is a state it then never leaves
      // — filing correctly from the far side of the village put a body on its
      // knees for ever. The flag covers the whole journey; it is cleared when
      // the door opens, and the cull takes over again.
      //
      // AND ONE WOKEN BY A WRONG PIN, for the same reason: it is on its way to
      // him, and a body skipped here would sit in the street half risen.
      if (!d.homing && !d.woken && Math.abs(d.x - prince.x) > W * 1.4) continue;
      // On screen together? The camera follows the prince, so this is the same
      // question as "can it see him".
      const sx = d.x - camera.x;
      ctx.inFrame = sx > -260 && sx < W + 260;
      const wasState = d.state;
      const wasFrame = d.frame;
      const wasRevealed = d.revealed;
      const wasLit = d.dwell > 0;
      d.update(dt, ctx);
      // THE LIGHT LANDS AND IT BREATHES IN. Once per look, and not again for a
      // second and a half, or sweeping the torch across it would pant.
      // (A clock earlier than the last breath is a restart, not a short gap.)
      const sinceBreath = state.clock - (d.stirredAt ?? -9);
      if (!wasLit && d.dwell > 0 && !d.revealed && (sinceBreath > 1.5 || sinceBreath < 0)) {
        d.stirredAt = state.clock;
        audio?.drainedStir?.(Math.max(-0.85, Math.min(0.85, (d.x - prince.x) / 1400)));
      }
      if (d.state === DOWNED && wasState !== DOWNED) audio?.bodyFall();
      // ARRIVED. The door is not open because the torch is on it — that is
      // LIT, and it has been true since L2. It is open because the person who
      // lived here opened it, and it is the first thing in this level that
      // somebody other than the prince does.
      if (d.state === HOME && wasState !== HOME) {
        const home = HOUSES.find((h) => h.x === d.homeX);
        if (home) home.open = true;
      }
      // One dragged foot when the foot arrives, off the clip's own footFrames,
      // exactly as his boots work. Only drained_walk carries any, so a rush is
      // silent and a body standing in the street is silent.
      //
      // ON SCREEN, OR ON ITS WAY HOME. This used to be on screen only — a drag
      // out of an empty frame is a thing that is not there. Except that the
      // one walking home IS there, a few screens off, and played through a
      // whole level nobody could tell it was happening. So that one is heard
      // wherever it is, quieter the further off (AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_FAR), and
      // every drag is placed on the side it is on.
      if (d.frame !== wasFrame && d.clip?.footFrames?.includes(d.frame) &&
          (ctx.inFrame || d.state === HOMING)) {
        const off = d.x - prince.x;
        const beyond = Math.max(0, Math.abs(off) - W / 2);
        const near = Math.max(0, 1 - beyond / Math.max(1, AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_REACH));
        const level = ctx.inFrame ? 1 : AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_FAR + (1 - AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_FAR) * near;
        audio?.drainedStep(level, Math.max(-0.85, Math.min(0.85, off / 1400)));
      }
      // AND ONE VOICE PER KIND. The clip's own name says which — a swing, a
      // haul, a bearing, one coming for him, the gatekeeper winding up — and
      // the clip's own soundFrames say when. Nothing here knows what any of
      // them sounds like, which is the same deal footFrames already has.
      //
      // They are BODY sounds and never tool sounds, and audio.js says at
      // length why: a hammer-on-anvil clang would send every player to the
      // swinging shape, and the forge's fragment is deliberately on a hauler.
      //
      // AND ONE COMING FOR HIM IS HEARD COMING. Woken by a wrong pin it rushes
      // from wherever it fell, so its breathing plays off screen too: faint far
      // off, louder as it closes, on the side it is on. The walk home's drag
      // does the same, off the same numbers.
      if (d.frame !== wasFrame && d.clip?.soundFrames?.includes(d.frame) &&
          (ctx.inFrame || (d.woken && d.state === RUSH))) {
        const off = d.x - prince.x;
        const near = Math.max(0, 1 - Math.max(0, Math.abs(off) - W / 2) / Math.max(1, AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_REACH));
        audio?.drainedVoice?.(d.clip.name,
          ctx.inFrame ? 1 : AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_FAR + (1 - AUDIO.HOME_FOOT_FAR) * near,
          Math.max(-0.85, Math.min(0.85, off / 1400)));
      }
      // THE INSTANT IT NOTICES HIM. `revealed` latches and never unlatches, so
      // this fires once per shape per run — about twelve times, and every one
      // of them is a fight he chose by deciding to see.
      if (d.revealed && !wasRevealed) audio?.drainedWake?.();
      const kind = grace > 0 ? null : d.contactKind(prince.x, CONTACT_REACH);
      // Contact with a WANDER one is not a loss. He walks into someone standing
      // in the dark and nothing happens at all, which is worse.
      if (kind === 'shove' && grace <= 0) {
        // He loses ground AND one of his six. He was the only thing in the
        // village that could not hurt you, which made the hard fight free.
        loss.by = d;
        const back = d.x + Math.sign(prince.x - d.x || -1) * (TUNING.POST_REACH + TUNING.POST_SHOVE_PX);
        takeHit(d.x, 0);
        if (!loss.active) { prince.x = back; prince.prevX = back; }
      }
      if (kind === 'fatal' && !loss.active) {
        loss.by = d;
        takeHit(d.x, TUNING.HURT_KNOCK_PX);
      }
    }

    // --- reading it ---------------------------------------------------------
    // HE CAN LIGHT WHAT HE IS CARRYING, and this closes a hole rather than
    // adding a convenience. The gate wants four objects he has LOOKED at; take
    // four blind and the spec sent him back "to light four things on the
    // ground", except he took them, so there is nothing on the ground and the
    // gate could never open.
    //
    // At L3 that is no longer a special case at all — a fragment he took is a
    // page in the sheaf like any other, and paging to it is the looking.
    // --- the sheaf ----------------------------------------------------------
    //
    // PAGING. Left and right while the sheaf is up. He cannot walk with it
    // raised, so those keys are free — and on touch the walk arrows do the same
    // job, which is what a person does with a handful of letters: the pile
    // under one thumb and the turning under the other.
    //
    // A FLIP WITH A BEAT. The turn fires on the press and does not fire again
    // until SHEAF_REPEAT_MS, so holding an arrow walks the pile at reading
    // speed. Free-spinning it would make the sheaf a menu.
    //
    // IT DOES NOT WRAP. Running off the end of a pile of paper does nothing,
    // and wrapping would put the map next to the last fragment for no reason a
    // player could see.
    if (sheaf.up) {
      const dir = (input.right ? 1 : 0) - (input.left ? 1 : 0);
      if (dir === 0) { sheaf.heldDir = 0; sheaf.repeat = 0; }
      else {
        const fresh = dir !== sheaf.heldDir;
        if (fresh) { sheaf.heldDir = dir; sheaf.repeat = 0; }
        else sheaf.repeat -= dt * 1000;
        if (fresh || sheaf.repeat <= 0) {
          sheaf.repeat = SHEAF_REPEAT_MS;
          const next = Math.min(sheaf.pages.length - 1, Math.max(0, sheaf.index + dir));
          if (next !== sheaf.index) {
            sheaf.index = next;
            sheaf.turns++;
            audio?.pageTurn?.();
          }
        }
      }
    } else {
      // THE INDEX SURVIVES RELEASE. He reopens where he left off; resetting to
      // the map would make every glance start from page one, and browsing a
      // pile you have to walk back through is a chore rather than a document.
      sheaf.heldDir = 0;
      sheaf.repeat = 0;
    }

    // A `?` RESOLVES THE MOMENT HE PAGES TO IT, and there is no timer on it.
    //
    // Holding the sheaf raises the torch, so a page he is on is already being
    // held in his own light — the looking has happened, and charging him
    // another four hundred milliseconds for it would only mean that skimming
    // does not read, which is a rule nobody would ever discover.
    //
    // THE COST IS STILL REAL AND IT IS STILL THE SAME. The beat on a page turn
    // is 260ms, so walking four unknown pages is about a second stood still in
    // the open with the torch up — within a whisker of what the old timer
    // charged. What changed is that he resolves the one he turned to rather
    // than the oldest thing in his bag.
    //
    // This is why there is no visible unknown state on the sheet for a page he
    // has opened. The unknown drawing is for the pages BEHIND the one he is on:
    // take three blind and only the last is in his hand.
    if (sheaf.up && torch.raise > 0.99) {
      const pg = page();
      if (!pageSeen(pg)) {
        const it = prince.inventory.find((o) => o.kept === pg.kept);
        if (it) { it.seen = true; sheaf.turns++; }
      }
    }

    // --- the doors ----------------------------------------------------------
    // Lighting one is the only thing that says who lived here. It latches, the
    // same way seeing an object on the ground latches, and for the same reason:
    // he looked, and looking is not something he can un-do.
    //
    // THE DOOR OR ITS LETTER, EITHER ONE. The letter hangs left of the arch,
    // nearer him than the door, so there is a stretch of wall where the light
    // is on the letter and not yet on the door. If only the door counted he
    // could read a letter in the band and then find the door had never been
    // lit: the next read would not come free, and E would not pin.
    for (const h of HOUSES) {
      const [dx, dy] = doorPoint(h);
      const lp = letterPoint(h);
      if (torch.covers(dx, dy) || (lp && torch.covers(lp[0], lp[1]))) h.seen = true;
    }
    // THE NOTE ON THE TREE. No door to light first: the paper is all there is.
    if (TREE) {
      const p = treePoint();
      if (p && torch.covers(p[0], p[1])) TREE.seen = true;
    }

    // THE DOOR HE IS AT, AND IT IS LATCHED RATHER THAN LIT.
    //
    // There used to be a `lit` house here, meaning "the torch is on this door
    // right now", and it was what marking tested — which only worked because
    // holding the sheaf forced the torch up. Seeing latches instead, and acting
    // on it only needs him to still be standing there.
    //
    // ONE DOOR, AND THE BAND AND E BOTH USE IT. The band never reads him one
    // door while E acts on another. The doors are about 4200px apart and the
    // reach is 440, so there is never more than one to choose from anyway.
    let nearDoor = null;
    for (const h of HOUSES) {
      if (!h.seen) continue;
      const p = slotPoint(h);
      if (p && Math.abs(prince.x - p[0]) <= TUNING.DOOR_REACH) { nearDoor = h; break; }
    }
    // And the tree, on the same terms. It reads like a door and it never joins
    // nearDoor: there is nothing on it to pin to.
    let nearTree = null;
    if (TREE?.seen) {
      const p = treePoint();
      if (p && Math.abs(prince.x - p[0]) <= TUNING.DOOR_REACH) nearTree = TREE;
    }

    // AND THE KEY, WHICH NEEDS THE DOOR OPEN AND NOT THE TORCH UP.
    //
    // Two door states and this is the line between them. `seen` is what the
    // torch buys: you can look into the room and the key is hanging there in
    // the light. `open` is what the person buys by walking home: you can reach
    // in. It is visible from the first time the door is lit and it is not his
    // until somebody comes back and opens their own door, and nothing has to
    // say so — the halo is the game's word for "you can take this" and it
    // simply is not on yet.
    let litKey = null;
    for (const h of HOUSES) {
      if (!h.open || h.keyTaken) continue;
      const p = keyPoint(h);
      if (p && Math.abs(prince.x - p[0]) <= TUNING.DOOR_REACH) { litKey = h; break; }
    }

    // --- the band -----------------------------------------------------------
    //
    // IT SHOWS A DOCUMENT, VERBATIM, and a document is in one of two places: in
    // his hand, or nailed to the wall in front of him. Nothing else in this
    // game gets text: not doors, not the gate, not objects and not the prince.
    //
    //   Q held                                   the page in his hand. Wins
    //   the torch on a letter, in reach          that letter. The first read
    //   standing still, in reach of a lit door   that door's letter
    //   otherwise                                closed
    //
    // COMPARING IS LOOKING AT THE DOOR, THEN AT HIS PAPERS, THEN AT THE DOOR.
    // Hold Q and the band reads the fragment in his hand; let go and it reads
    // the door again. That is the whole deduction, stood in one place.
    //
    // THE FIRST READ NEEDS LIGHT, AND ONLY THE FIRST. The first draft had every
    // read need the torch, so comparing was SPACE held with Q tapped in
    // between. On a phone TORCH and PAGES are both on the left wheel and one
    // thumb cannot hold one while pressing the other — the trap taking a letter
    // fell into once already. So a door he has lit reads again for nothing,
    // and comparing is one button: PAGES down, PAGES up.
    //
    // STANDING STILL is what stops it opening at every door he walks past. Not
    // walking, not swinging and not knocked back, for READ_STILL_MS. Holding Q
    // counts — he cannot walk with it up — so letting go of Q goes straight
    // back to the door.
    const stood = !prince.moving && !prince.attacking && prince.x === xFrom;
    still = stood ? still + dt * 1000 : 0;
    const readAt = nearDoor ?? nearTree;
    const readPoint = readAt === TREE ? treePoint() : readAt ? letterPoint(readAt) : null;
    const reading = !!readAt &&
      ((!!readPoint && torch.covers(readPoint[0], readPoint[1])) ||
        still >= TUNING.READ_STILL_MS);
    state.readingAt = sheaf.up || !reading ? null : readAt;
    // Gated on the raise so the band and the page arrive together — the sheet
    // itself is not drawn until the arm is up, and a band that beat it there
    // would read as a subtitle rather than as the paper in his hand.
    //
    // THE SHEAF WINS FROM THE MOMENT Q GOES DOWN, not from when the page is
    // up. For the quarter-second of the raise the band is blank: he has looked
    // away from the wall and not yet down at his hand.
    const pg = sheaf.up && torch.raise > 0.9 ? page() : null;
    // AN UNKNOWN PAGE HAS NOTHING ON IT YET. He took it blind and he has not
    // looked; the band would be reading him words he cannot have.
    const want = sheaf.up ? (pg && pageSeen(pg) ? textFor(pg) : null)
      : state.readingAt ? textFor({ kind: 'letter', house: state.readingAt.index })
        : null;

    // CLEARED AND REFILLED EVERY TIME IT CHANGES DOCUMENT, never swapped in
    // place. The blank between two pages is a fraction of a second and it is
    // the entire reason a turn reads as a turn — swap the text and two letters
    // in a row look like one letter changing its mind. Looking from the door to
    // the page in his hand is the same thing: two pieces of paper, not one
    // label flipping.
    //
    // A page is keyed by the turn count rather than by its words, because
    // paging from one page to another with the SAME words has to still read as
    // a turn.
    const key = !want ? null : pg ? `page ${sheaf.turns}` : `wall ${state.readingAt.index}`;
    if (key !== band.key) { band.key = key; if (key) band.alpha = 0; }
    band.text = want;
    band.alpha = Math.min(1, Math.max(0, band.alpha + (want ? dt * 5 : -dt * 9)));

    // --- the voice ----------------------------------------------------------
    //
    // THE PAPER, READ ALOUD, while the band shows it. It follows the band's key
    // exactly: a new document stops the old voice, and looking back at one
    // reads it again from the top, the way reading it again does.
    //
    // NOT UNTIL IT HAS BEEN UP VOICE_DELAY_MS, which is longer than a page
    // turn's beat -- so paging through the pile with an arrow held flips past
    // every page in silence, and only the one he stops on speaks. A page he has
    // not looked at has nothing written on it, so it has nothing to say either.
    const said = !want ? null
      : pg ? (pg.kind === 'fragment' ? voiceOf('fragment', pg.kept)
        : pg.kind === 'letter' ? voiceOf('letter', pg.house) : null)
        : voiceOf('letter', state.readingAt.index);
    if (key !== voice.key) {
      if (voice.started) audio?.stopVoice?.();
      voice.key = key;
      voice.ms = 0;
      voice.started = false;
    } else {
      voice.ms += dt * 1000;
    }
    // AND NOT WHILE HE DIES. The hit that kills him lands earlier in this same
    // frame and stops the voice; without this, the band -- still showing the
    // same page -- read it again from the top over his death.
    state.voice = said && voice.ms >= TUNING.VOICE_DELAY_MS && !loss.active ? said : null;
    // Asked every frame until it answers: before the first press, or before
    // the file has decoded, it cannot.
    if (state.voice && !voice.started) voice.started = !!audio?.voice?.(state.voice);
    if (voice.started && !opening.done && state.voice === ORDERS_VOICE) opening.heard = true;

    // --- marking the map ----------------------------------------------------
    //
    // HE WRITES IT. THE GAME DOES NOT. Nothing on the map fills itself any
    // more: what goes under a plot is a claim he makes, and a claim only means
    // something if it can be wrong.
    //
    // THE ACT IS THE SAME POSTURE AS EVERYTHING ELSE. He stands at a door with
    // a piece of paper in his hand and presses take. No menu, no drag, no
    // assignment screen — and no new button, because TAKE is already the
    // contextual one and pinning is "put this where it goes".
    //
    // The door has to have been LIT ONCE — the same latch that reads it again
    // for free — and he has to be standing at it. Not lit now and not with Q
    // held: asking for both hands is the problem the hand addendum fixed.
    // ONE ACT PER PRESS, DECIDED HERE AND NOT UPSTREAM.
    //
    // input.js already makes `pickup` a one-shot, and that was enough while
    // taking was idempotent — pressing take at a door you had already filed
    // simply filed it again. Now that the same button also takes a page back
    // OUT of a frame, a flag that stays true is a toggle running at 60Hz, and
    // whether it lands filed or empty depends on whether the number of frames
    // was odd.
    //
    // The checks are what make that real rather than theoretical: they drive
    // these flags directly and hold as many as they like for as long as they
    // like, which is the same blind spot that let two impossible phone
    // controls pass every test in the suite. So the edge is found here, where
    // the act is, and the scene stops depending on how the flag was made.
    const pickupHeld = !!input.pickup;
    const wantsPickup = pickupHeld && !prevPickup;
    prevPickup = pickupHeld;
    input.pickup = false;
    // --- what is in his hand ------------------------------------------------
    //
    // THE TOP PAGE OF THE PILE IS WHAT HE IS HOLDING, and the pile does not
    // have to be up for him to be holding it.
    //
    // It used to. Pinning a fragment meant holding Q, paging to it, and
    // pressing E at a door — three conditions and a mode, and it was played and
    // nobody did it. Nobody does that with paper either: you take the page you
    // want, put the rest away, walk over, and pin it.
    //
    // So the sheaf is for CHOOSING and E is for DOING, and E never asks about
    // the sheaf. Q still raises the torch, still stops him, still shows the
    // band and pages with the arrows. It has just stopped being a prerequisite.
    const handPage = page();
    state.handPage = handPage;

    // THE SLOT TAKES A PIN FROM THE FIRST LIGHT. It used to wait for the letter
    // to come off: the patch was earned, and taking the letter was what showed
    // him where a fragment goes. The letter never comes off now, and the slot
    // is beside it from the start — a bare nail under a letter says something
    // goes here.
    //
    // AND NOT AT A DOOR THAT IS FINISHED WITH. Someone walked home to it; the
    // slot has the only thing it was ever going to hold.
    const patchTakes = !!nearDoor && !gate.through && !nearDoor.settled;
    const holding = handPage?.kind === 'fragment' ? handPage.kept : null;

    // PIN, or TAKE BACK, and which one is decided by what is already there.
    //
    // THE SAME PAGE THAT IS ALREADY PINNED TAKES IT BACK. The table this comes
    // from does not have a row for it — it has "a different fragment evicts and
    // pins" and "not a fragment takes it back" — and holding the page that is
    // already on the wall is neither. Evicting it and pinning it again is a
    // press that does nothing, so it is the other one: he is holding the thing
    // in front of him, and E takes it down.
    const canRetrieve = patchTakes && nearDoor.filed != null &&
      (holding === null || holding === nearDoor.filed);
    const canPin = patchTakes && holding !== null && holding !== nearDoor.filed;
    const canMark = canPin || canRetrieve;

    // THE SLOT, THEN THE KEY. A claim about a door comes before the thing that
    // opens the gate: evidence before conclusions before rewards, which is the
    // order this whole game is arguing for.
    //
    // READING IS NOT ON THIS LIST. What the band shows decides nothing about E.
    // It used to — a letter in reach switched off pinning until it was taken —
    // and with letters never taken that would have switched pinning off at
    // exactly the moment he reads the letter he is trying to answer.
    state.canMark = canMark;
    state.canPin = canPin;
    state.nearDoor = nearDoor;
    // WHICH house it would go under. The sheet draws that house's plot beside
    // the page when this is set, so the paper itself says "this one, here".
    state.markHouse = state.canPin ? nearDoor.index : null;
    state.canTakeKey = !canMark && !!litKey;
    // AND PUTTING ONE IN. He stops 380px short of the leaf and can never get
    // closer, so the reach is the door's, not the ground's.
    state.canPlaceKey = !canMark && prince.keys > 0 && !gate.through &&
      gate.placed < TUNING.GATE_WANTS &&
      Math.abs(prince.x - GATE_X) <= TUNING.DOOR_REACH;
    if (wantsPickup && state.canMark && !prince.attacking) {
      if (canRetrieve) {
        // TAKE IT BACK DOWN. Either he is holding the page that is already
        // pinned here, or he is holding nothing that could go in — and in both
        // cases the only thing on that wall he can act on is what is on it.
        //
        // It never left the sheaf. The patch holds a CLAIM, not the paper, so
        // there is nothing to hand back.
        nearDoor.filed = null;
        audio?.mark?.();
      } else {
        // MOVE, THEN REPLACE. Pinning a fragment somewhere else takes it off
        // wherever it was, and pinning a different one here pushes the old one
        // out. Two fragments can never sit in one patch and one fragment can
        // never sit in two, and neither rule needs a message: it is what
        // putting a piece of paper down on a table already does.
        for (const h of HOUSES) if (h.filed === holding) h.filed = null;
        nearDoor.filed = holding;
        audio?.mark?.();

        // AND IF IT WAS THEIRS, THEY GO HOME.
        //
        // `h.index` and `HOUSE_OF[i]` have been the same number since the
        // fragments were written, so this is the whole correctness test and
        // there is nowhere for it to drift to.
        //
        // NOTHING IS SAID. No tick, no sound of being right, no change to the
        // patch. Somewhere out in the village a body gets up, and the only way
        // to find out is that it walks up the street.
        if (nearDoor.index === holding) {
          const owner = drained.find((d) => d.kept === holding && d.keptTaken);
          if (owner) {
            nearDoor.settled = true;
            owner.sendHome(nearDoor.x);
            // AND THE SKY GOES OFF. It replaces a silence: the payoff for the
            // one right act in this level happens somewhere else and up to a
            // minute later, so doing it correctly looked exactly like doing
            // nothing. A ten-year-old played it and stopped here.
            flash.ms = 0;
            flash.thundered = false;
          }
        } else {
          // AND IF IT WAS NOT, THEY OBJECT. Played through, the level was
          // finished without reading a word: pin, see who walks, try the next
          // door. The walk home confirmed every guess instantly and for free,
          // which made it an answer key. Now a stranger's house wakes the
          // owner, and it comes for him. Guessing is still allowed; it costs.
          //
          // The page stays on the wrong wall. Putting it down does not take it
          // back — he does that, with E, as always.
          const owner = drained.find((d) => d.kept === holding && d.keptTaken);
          if (owner && owner.wake()) {
            // HEARD AT FULL STRENGTH, WHEREVER IT IS. On the side it is on, but
            // never quieter for being far: a faint gasp from across the village
            // and a rush thirty seconds later are two things nobody connects.
            // The breathing as it comes can fall away with distance. The
            // moment it wakes cannot.
            audio?.drainedWake?.(1, Math.max(-0.85, Math.min(0.85, (owner.x - prince.x) / 1400)));
          }
        }
      }
    }

    // --- the objects on the ground -----------------------------------------
    // Seeing one is latched separately from picking it up, because they are
    // different acts with different costs. The glow tells you something is
    // there without the torch; only the torch tells you what.
    let nearest = null;
    let nearestGap = TUNING.PICKUP_REACH;
    for (const d of drained) {
      if (!d.keptDropped || d.keptTaken) continue;
      if (torch.covers(d.keptX, GROUND_Y + d.keptY)) d.keptSeen = true;
      const gap = Math.abs(d.keptX - prince.x);
      if (gap <= nearestGap) { nearest = d; nearestGap = gap; }
    }
    // Published rather than re-derived. main.js used to run this same scan a
    // second time to decide whether to light the button, which is two places
    // that have to agree about what is in reach.
    state.canTake = !!nearest;
    if (wantsPickup && state.canPlaceKey && !prince.attacking) {
      // THE SAME POSTURE AS EVERYTHING ELSE. He stands at the thing and
      // presses take. Four times, one socket each, and the leaf lifts on the
      // fourth — no ceremony, no confirmation, and nothing said about the
      // fifth house whose key is still hanging behind a door that never opened.
      prince.keys--;
      gate.placed++;
      // Out of the inventory too, or he is holding a key that is in the gate.
      // The last one found, so the pile behaves like a pile.
      for (let i = sheaf.pages.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
        if (sheaf.pages[i].kind === 'key') { sheaf.pages.splice(i, 1); break; }
      }
      sheaf.index = Math.max(0, Math.min(sheaf.index, sheaf.pages.length - 1));
      audio?.mark?.();
    } else if (wantsPickup && state.canTakeKey && !prince.attacking) {
      // Off the hook and into his pocket. No page, no band, no entry in the
      // sheaf: there is nothing to read on a key and nothing to work out.
      litKey.keyTaken = true;
      prince.keys++;
      // AND IT GOES IN WITH EVERYTHING ELSE HE IS CARRYING.
      //
      // Keys were a number and nothing else — deliberately, because "a key is
      // not evidence, it does not go in the sheaf, there is nothing to work out
      // about one". All true, and it made them invisible: somebody collected
      // four and did not know until they put one in the gate by accident. A
      // thing you carry that you cannot look at is a thing you do not have.
      //
      // Nothing to read on it, so the band stays empty on a key page. That is
      // the difference between a key and a letter, said by showing you both.
      filePage({ kind: 'key' });
      audio?.keyTake?.();
    } else if (wantsPickup && !state.canMark && nearest && !prince.attacking) {
      nearest.keptTaken = true;
      run.taken++;
      prince.inventory.push({
        kept: nearest.kept, answers: nearest.answers, seen: nearest.keptSeen,
      });
      // Into the sheaf where he found it, looked at or not. A blind take gets a
      // page with nothing written on it yet, and paging to it is what writes it.
      filePage({ kind: 'fragment', kept: nearest.kept });
    }

    // --- the score ----------------------------------------------------------
    run.seconds += dt;
    run.fights = drained.filter((d) => d.revealed).length;
    if (torch.raise > 0.9 && !prince.moving) {
      const near = drained.some((d) => d.state !== DOWNED &&
        Math.abs(d.x - prince.x) < WATCH_CLEAR_PX);
      if (!near) run.watching += dt;
    }

    // --- the storm ----------------------------------------------------------
    // Light first, sound after, because that is the order they arrive in.
    if (!flash.thundered || flash.ms < FLASH.MS) {
      const was = flash.ms;
      flash.ms += dt * 1000;
      if (!flash.thundered && was < FLASH.THUNDER_MS && flash.ms >= FLASH.THUNDER_MS) {
        flash.thundered = true;
        audio?.thunder?.();
      }
    }
    // THE VILLAGE, UNDER EVERYTHING. Up over the first stretch of the bowl and
    // down again at the gate, so walking in is walking into it and walking out
    // is not — the same shape the canopy already has, for the same reason.
    //
    // Forty-five people are standing in this place sixty years after she came
    // and until now the only sound in it was his own boots.
    {
      const u = (prince.x - BOWL.X0) / 1800;
      const out = (GATE_X - prince.x) / 1400;
      audio?.villageBed?.(Math.max(0, Math.min(1, u, out)));
    }
    state.flash = flashAt(flash.ms);
    // The bolt runs off the same clock. -1 while nothing is happening, so the
    // renderer does not have to know what "no strike" looks like.
    state.flashMs = flash.thundered && flash.ms >= FLASH.MS ? -1 : flash.ms;

    // --- the gate -----------------------------------------------------------
    //
    // FOUR KEYS IN FOUR SOCKETS. The sockets were built at L1 and have had
    // nothing to go in them since.
    //
    // WHAT THIS REPLACES, and it is deleted rather than turned off: the gate
    // used to want four fragments he had LOOKED at. That was a magic lock —
    // the only person who could have known what the marks meant is lying in
    // front of it — and it was also the whole reason the level could be beaten
    // without reading a word, because looking at four pieces of paper is not
    // the same act as understanding one.
    //
    // A key is not a grade either. The gate still never sees the map, still
    // never checks an answer, and a player can put four keys in it holding a
    // completely wrong sheaf. What changed is where a key comes from: a door
    // somebody opened from the inside, because you gave them their name back.
    gate.filled = Math.min(TUNING.GATE_WANTS, gate.placed);
    if (gate.filled >= TUNING.GATE_WANTS && gate.open < 1) {
      gate.open = Math.min(1, gate.open + (dt * 1000) / TUNING.GATE_OPEN_MS);
    }
    // THROUGH IS A STEP, not a place. He can be standing inside the gateway
    // when the leaf lifts — it is his to walk once the keeper is home — and
    // the level must not end on him for standing still under it.
    if (gate.open >= 1 && prince.x >= GATE_X - 40 && prince.moving && prince.facing > 0) {
      // Through it, and the playthrough is over. No prompt, no score screen,
      // and no mention of the empty slot. The gate wanted four. It got four.
      gate.through = true;
    }
    if (gate.through) state.fade = Math.min(1, state.fade + dt / 1.6);

    // --- Prince animation --------------------------------------------------
    if (prince.attacking) {
      prince.clip = attackClip;
      prince.frame = Math.min(Math.floor(prince.attackTime * attackClip.fps), attackClip.count - 1);
    } else if (!prince.hasSword) {
      const eased = torch.raise * torch.raise * (3 - 2 * torch.raise);
      // Same raise curve either way; only which pose it drives changes.
      const clip = sheaf.up && mapClip ? mapClip : torchClip;
      const player = sheaf.up && mapClip ? prince.mapPlayer : prince.torchPlayer;
      player.time = (eased * (clip.count - 1)) / clip.fps;
      prince.clip = clip;
      prince.frame = player.index;
      state.flame.player.advance(dt);
      state.flame.frame = state.flame.player.index;
    } else if (prince.moving) {
      const rate = runClip.groundSpeed ? TUNING.WALK_SPEED / runClip.groundSpeed : 1;
      // THE LIMP, AND IT IS HER OWN RUN FRAMES.
      //
      // A limp is an asymmetric rhythm, not a different drawing: the good foot
      // carries longer and the bad one is hurried off. So the cycle is slowed
      // through its second half and rushed through the first, by an amount that
      // grows with the hits he has taken. Nothing was redrawn for it, and it
      // reads because it is what a limp actually is.
      const hurt = Math.max(0, prince.hits - TUNING.LIMP_FROM);
      if (hurt > 0) {
        const half = prince.run.index >= runClip.count / 2;
        const hitch = 1 - Math.min(0.8, TUNING.LIMP_HITCH * (hurt / 3)) * (half ? 1 : -0.5);
        prince.run.advance(dt * rate / hitch);
      } else {
        prince.run.advance(dt * rate);
      }
      prince.clip = runClip;
      prince.frame = prince.run.index;
      // A footstep when the boot ARRIVES, not on a timer. runClip.footFrames is
      // measured off the drawings, so if the art changes the steps follow it.
      if (prince.frame !== lastRunFrame) {
        if (runClip.footFrames?.includes(prince.frame)) audio?.footstep();
        lastRunFrame = prince.frame;
      }
    } else if (prince.hits >= TUNING.LIMP_FROM && hurtClip) {
      // Standing still with something left in him, he holds his side.
      //
      // NOT PART OF THE READOUT ANY MORE, and not currently drawn. The eye
      // dimming says how hurt he is now; this said it with his body, which is
      // better, but only with a real drawing behind it.
      //
      // Two stages. Which pair of frames he is in is how close he is — the
      // first is hurt, the second is spent, and the switch is at the halfway
      // point of what he can take.
      prince.hurtPlayer.advance(dt);
      const spent = prince.hits >= Math.ceil(TUNING.PRINCE_HITS / 2) + 1;
      prince.clip = hurtClip;
      prince.frame = (spent ? 2 : 0) + (prince.hurtPlayer.index % 2);
    } else if (drained.some((d) => d.revealed && d.state !== DOWNED && Math.abs(d.x - prince.x) < W)) {
      // Once one has been seen and is coming, he stands ready.
      prince.guard.advance(dt);
      prince.clip = guardClip;
      prince.frame = prince.guard.index;
    } else {
      prince.idle.advance(dt);
      prince.clip = idleClip;
      prince.frame = prince.idle.index;
    }
  }

  // openAgain is for the checks, and for nothing else in the game: reset()
  // deliberately does NOT re-arm the opening, so something has to be able to.
  // An explicit call beats a check reaching in and setting two fields.
  return { state, update, reset, camera, openAgain: armOpening };
}