Map direction — A chosen, streets decided

Designer decisions, 2026-10-14, on the A/B/C samples: keep A · Zone Tiles as the base (ZeroSievert-literal autotiles) — A's woods biome and A's rivers stay; merge B's area discs (the filled rust circles) in place of dotted rings; C · Value Read is eliminated; streets are open — none of the sampled street treatments was liked, so a five-way study follows below. Binding rules from look-and-feel.md still hold: digital pixel art, no paper, no vector cartography, no glow; all colour comes from theme tokens.

The page renders the real game data (inlined snapshot of the composed data/game/ tree, so it opens from file:// or over HTTP). The fog toggle still demos the M2 void: applied intel only.

Fog: applied intel only (M2 reveal) Base map street: reveals Old Depot + North Swamp + Market only — pumps, glow field, pump house stay void

Rendering…

A · Zone Tiles — chosen base

The readable game map (ZeroSievert-literal). 8-unit autotiles per ground kind, hard seams, full terrain palette, chunky sprite pins. Kept as sampled: the woods biome and the dithered rivers. Merged from B: area indicators are now filled rust discs, not dotted rings. Streets, decided 2026-10-15: concrete slabs on main roads (towns, industrial areas), dirt track on branches and rural roads.

phone crop · Old Town / Market

Build: tiles → seams → rivers → area discs → pins.
Kept: woods biome + rivers; rings replaced by B's filled discs.
Risk: neat but gamey — "level select screen" if the tile art stays placeholder-grade.

Decisions so far

Element	Decision (designer, 2026-10-14)
Base direction	A · Zone Tiles — autotile zone map, ZeroSievert-literal, hard seams
Woods biome	as sampled in A — canopy blobs with shadow pixels
Rivers	as sampled in A — dithered bands, muddy banks
Area indicators	B's filled rust discs (replaces A's dotted rings)
Streets	two classes (2026-10-15): concrete slabs on main roads, dirt track on branches and rural roads
C · Value Read	eliminated

Streets — the study (decided: slabs on main roads, dirt elsewhere)

The same curvy stretch of the road network — the market junction and the bends into town — rendered in all six treatments, one identical window for every strip (marked on the locator), so the only variable is the street (the ground is dimmed to keep the road the subject). The two sampled treatments that were rejected, three new candidates, and the split — which is what this window actually contains: town at the top, country road below.

Locator — the crop window every strip below shows (base map, direction A)

1 · dithered asphalt, potholes (as sampled in A — rejected)

2 · desaturated surface, wheel tracks (as sampled in B — rejected)

3 · dirt track — twin ruts, grass verge

4 · concrete slabs — seams, patches, kerbs

5 · cobble — sett stones, worn tops

6 · split — concrete slabs inside town, dirt track outside