settled-reach/docs/workshops/art-direction-mood-board/round1-tracking.md

Art Direction & Mood Board Workshop — Round 1 Tracking Document

Compiled by: Qatux (Documenter) Date: 2026-02-12 Sources: round1-araminta.md, round1-ozzie.md, round1-miri.md, round1-gore.md Workshop brief: docs/workshops/art-direction-mood-board/workshop-brief.md

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1. Complete Reference List

Games

Reference	Araminta	Ozzie	Miri	Gore	Primary Aspect Referenced
Rimworld (Ludeon Studios)	X	X	X	X	Readability at scale, visual hierarchy, cognitive load reduction, entity-as-icon
XCOM 2 (Firaxis)	X	X	X	X	Fog of war as emotional mechanic, information under pressure, concealment break
The Sims 3/4 (Maxis/EA)	X	X	X	X	Daily life readability from overhead, routine as visual engagement, activity states
Hotline Miami (Dennaton)	X	X			Locked camera as tension engine, color palette as emotional register
Heat Signature (Suspicious Developments)	X	X			Top-down spatial clarity, entity-to-space ratio, walls as information barriers
Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments)		X	X	X	Silhouette discipline, readability + personality, clarity as design origin
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)		X	X	X	Internal voice recontextualizing visuals, mood as art, dignity of the mundane
Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)	X	X			"Quiet life with undertow" mood, muted palette with strategic warmth
Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)			X	X	Visual restriction creating investigative focus, observation as core mechanic
Invisible Inc. (Klei)	X				Information-as-resource visual language, layered UI, stealth + info management
Teleglitch (Test3 Projects)	X				Terrifying restricted LOS in top-down, sound-at-fog-edge
Door Kickers (KillHouse Games)	X				Entity detail target level, silhouette readability at correct scale
Darkwood (Acid Wizard Studio)		X			Vision cone as emotional gradient, lighting that conceals as much as it reveals
Cogmind (Grid Sage Games)			X		Atmosphere through minimalism, negative space as readability tool
Papers, Please (Lucas Pope)				X	Visual restraint amplifying thematic weight, mundanity as moral language

Films & TV

Reference	Araminta	Ozzie	Miri	Gore	Primary Aspect Referenced
Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017)	X	X			Color temperature as storytelling, Roger Deakins lighting language
The Expanse (TV, 2015-2022)	X		X		Lived-in station aesthetic, zone differentiation, "workplaces first"
Alien (Scott, 1979)			X		"Truckers in space," used future, industrial mundane
Alien: Isolation (Creative Assembly, 2014)		X	X		Sevastopol Station — designed for function, aged by habitation
Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)	X				Warm/cool spatial contrast, "comfortable but something's off"
Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)				X	Perceptual shift — same space, different truth via attention
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck, 2006)				X	Visual cost of surveillance, observed life richer than observer's

Artists, Photographers & Designers

Reference	Araminta	Ozzie	Miri	Gore	Primary Aspect Referenced
Syd Mead	X		X		Technology as infrastructure, clean functional futures, "plausible future"
Ron Cobb (Nostromo interiors)	X				"Can you imagine working here?" test, environmental signage, wear-as-character
Simon Stalenhag	X				Mundane life alongside extraordinary tech, muted-with-warmth palette
Edward Hopper (Nighthawks)				X	Warm interior light surrounded by unknowable dark, together-but-isolated
Gregory Crewdson (Twilight, Beneath the Roses)				X	Ordinary scenes made uncanny through attention, "there but not there"
Roger Deakins (cinematographer)	X	X			Color temperature as emotional language, motivated lighting
Guillaume Singelin (Citizen Sleeper / Lancer art)	X				Bold shapes, limited palettes, strong silhouettes
Lucas Pope (designer)			X	X	Visual restriction as design tool, observation-as-mechanic
Tom Francis (designer)	X	X	X	X	Spatial clarity, readability-first philosophy, Heat Signature to TBW evolution
Tynan Sylwester (Rimworld designer)				X	Abstraction enabling player projection, "solution to a problem"
Tony Noble (Moon production design)	X				Functional surfaces with just enough warmth
John Roberts (TBW art direction)			X		"Tactical + wizard + personality" design triad

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2. Consensus Points

Where multiple agents independently converge on the same conclusion. Ordered by strength of consensus.

Universal consensus (all four agents)

C-01: Readability is the non-negotiable top priority. All four agents state this explicitly. Araminta: "Readability over beauty." Ozzie: "readability wins every fight." Miri: "Readability over expressionism." Gore: "keep entities simple, let color and shape carry meaning." When readability and atmosphere conflict, readability wins. The game is ABOUT information — the player must parse the game state at a glance.

C-02: Stylized 2D with bold silhouettes, NOT pixel art, NOT painted, NOT 3D. Araminta, Ozzie, and Gore converge independently on "clean 2D with strong silhouettes and limited palette." Miri defers to Araminta on technique but endorses bold silhouettes and muted environments. Pixel art rejected as "retro-coded." Painted style (Disco Elysium) rejected as too expensive and inconsistent for AI pipeline. Photorealistic 3D rejected as uncanny valley at this scale.

C-03: Lighting is the primary atmosphere engine. Araminta: "Sprites provide SHAPE. Light provides MOOD." Ozzie: "Lighting does the emotional work." Miri: "Lighting is not polish. It is infrastructure." Gore: "Warm practical lighting... functional light." All four agree lighting carries emotion while entities carry information.

C-04: Rimworld = readability benchmark; its emotional flatness is what we must surpass. All four cite Rimworld as closest mechanical cousin and readability gold standard. All four identify its uniform, flat, atmosphereless visuals as the specific gap we fill with lighting, zone differentiation, and environmental texture.

C-05: The environment must NEVER visually telegraph suspicion. Miri (strongest): "The visual environment should never tip its hand." Gore: "Nothing changes" when conspiracy activates. Araminta: "Lighting DOESN'T change. The WORLD hasn't shifted." Ozzie: "We don't paint the paranoia on the screen. We plant it in the player's head." No ominous shadows. No red filter. No horror lighting on smuggling routes. Environmental visual neutrality is load-bearing.

C-06: Weather is a gameplay system, not cosmetic. All four treat weather as perception modifier, NPC routine disruptor, and storyteller instrument. Weather modifies sightlines, sound ranges, and entity behavior. The storyteller can time weather for dramatic effect.

C-07: Godot 4's 2D pipeline is the right technical match. All four validate Light2D + LightOccluder2D + CanvasLayer + shaders + GPUParticles2D as sufficient for the proposed art direction. No custom engine work required.

C-08: Production constraints and design goals converge. All four note independently that Nano Banana's strengths (bold silhouettes, distinctive palettes, stylized assets) align with what the design requires (readability-first, color-coded entities, lighting-driven atmosphere). The art direction isn't a compromise — it's the style where all constraints point to the same solution.

Strong consensus (three or more agents)

C-09: Smuggler = warmer visual temperature, Detective = cooler. Araminta, Ozzie, and Gore describe this explicitly. Miri frames it as same lighting + different information overlay density. The 10% color temperature shift applied consistently across every element compounds over 30 minutes. Same station, opposite emotional arcs.

C-10: Three construction eras = three visual textures. Araminta (detailed hex values per era), Miri (three-era setting brief), and Gore ("layers of modification") all ground the station's visual history in temporal accumulation. Not decay — renovation. Different materials, different maintenance levels, visible seams.

C-11: Sova is "functional prosperity" — maintained, not decaying. Araminta: "Think of a 40-year-old university campus." Miri: "Renovation, not decay." Gore: "Settled." Ozzie: "variation in maintenance quality." The station works. It's been improved by living in it, not degraded.

C-12: Solar light color per star type as location identity. Araminta (specific hex values), Miri (full stellar spectrum table), and Gore (weather as world identity) all endorse this. Krenn System G3V = warm white baseline. Wormhole transit shifts global color temperature before anything else. One material vocabulary, many lighting profiles.

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3. Points of Divergence

Where agents disagree or emphasize fundamentally different things. These are Round 2 discussion candidates.

D-01: Neural insert overlay — Technical precision vs. Organic cognition

This is the sharpest divergence in Round 1.

Agent	Position	Key phrase
Araminta	Technical, geometric, precise. "1-pixel lines at partial opacity." Clean digital aesthetic contrasting with organic station.	"The insert renders CLEAN because it's digital."
Gore	Organic, soft-edged, thought-like. Blooms into visibility. "The amber of D-033 should feel like a gut feeling made visible."	"Should look like thought, not technology."
Ozzie	Middle ground. "Contact lens, not HUD." Subtle shimmer. Passive state almost invisible.	"Something your character is wearing. Always slightly there."
Miri	Setting-grounded. "Native to cognition." Thin, precise, translucent. Not dramatic.	"Information appears where you need it and fades when you don't."

Tension: Araminta's geometric precision vs. Gore's organic softness. Both have strong rationale. Araminta's approach provides clear visual separation between insert layer and game world. Gore's approach serves the thematic argument that the insert is consciousness, not equipment. This needs explicit resolution.

D-02: Entity detail level — Exact target

Agent	Position
Araminta	"Between Rimworld and Door Kickers." 24-32px footprint on 64px tile. Specific sprite spec.
Ozzie	"More than Rimworld. Less than Hotline Miami." Closer to Heat Signature entity clarity.
Gore	"Rimworld-level entity detail is approximately right" — but environment needs more texture than Rimworld.
Miri	Defers to Araminta. Emphasizes silhouette readability and muted environment as canvas.

Tension: Minor. Araminta and Ozzie agree on the range. Gore suggests entities could be simpler if the environment compensates. The specific pixel footprint needs Araminta's final call.

D-03: How much the visual environment shifts when conspiracy activates

Agent	Position
Araminta	Subtle but present shifts: "5% color temperature" possible, deeper shadows, minor contrast changes.
Gore	ZERO visual shift. "The absence of change as horror." The station looks identical; only the player's knowledge changes.
Ozzie	"Slightly" cooler color temperature, sharper shadows. But the key shift is internal: "the PLAYER goes cold."
Miri	"It doesn't look like anything." Environmental neutrality is mandatory for the investigation mechanic.

Tension: Araminta allows subtle environmental shifts (CanvasModulate lerps, contrast changes). Gore and Miri argue for strict environmental neutrality — the investigation mechanic breaks if the environment hints at answers. Ozzie is in between. This has mechanical implications: does the rendering change or not?

D-04: Art style framing / philosophy

All four agree on the output (clean 2D, bold silhouettes, lighting-driven) but frame it through different lenses:

Agent	Framing
Araminta	Functional design. "Sprites are shape templates that the lighting system completes." Production pipeline logic.
Ozzie	Player experience. "Darkwood's lighting + Rimworld's readability." Atmosphere-first, emotion-driven.
Miri	Setting coherence. "Muted canvas for entities." The world's material culture dictates the palette.
Gore	Thematic. "Should feel like a document." Analytical, architectural, almost investigative.

Note: These framings are complementary, not contradictory. But "document" vs. "warm home" is a real tension in Gore vs. Ozzie's emotional register.

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4. Key Insights

The most important new ideas that emerged in Round 1, with attribution.

I-01: "Silhouette IS identity because color is spoken for." (Ozzie, Q3) Since D-033 colors entities by relationship-to-player, physical silhouette must carry ALL identity differentiation. Two green NPCs with the same silhouette are indistinguishable. Different body shapes, postures, work animations, and one identifying feature per named NPC (Kael's vest, Lera's apron) are non-negotiable production requirements.

I-02: "Shadows as information tier." (Miri, Q2) Dynamic shadows create a medium-range information channel between direct LOS (close) and sound (medium-far). A shadow moving at the vision cone's edge = an NPC in an adjacent corridor that you can't directly see but can partially infer. This is a novel mechanical integration: Close = see directly. Medium = see shadows, hear sounds. Long = lattice data only.

I-03: "Production constraints converge with design goals." (All four) Bold silhouettes + color coding + minimal detail + lighting-driven atmosphere is simultaneously: (a) best for readability, (b) best for D-033 color system, (c) best for Godot 4 Light2D pipeline, (d) best for Nano Banana consistency. When four independent constraints all point to the same solution, that's a strong signal the solution is correct.

I-04: "The absence of change as horror." (Gore, Q2) The most unsettling moment in the game is when the station looks EXACTLY the same after discovering the conspiracy. The lighting is warm. The NPCs are friendly. Nothing has changed except what the player knows. The visual environment's refusal to acknowledge the horror IS the horror.

I-05: "Visual restraint is thematic confidence." (Gore, Q1 via Papers, Please) A game asking "is this life enough?" should be visually quiet enough that the player can hear the question. Papers, Please looks like a spreadsheet and delivers devastating moral weight. Our visual restraint isn't a budget compromise — it's a thematic statement.

I-06: "One material vocabulary, many lighting profiles." (Miri, Solar Light Color section) Muted environment tiles (greys, metals, worn surfaces) can be globally tinted by solar color per star system. Grey metal turns golden under a K-type star, ruddy under an M-dwarf. One asset set works across all systems because the light does the differentiation, not the material. Pipeline win from a setting-driven insight.

I-07: "Weather creates shared vulnerability." (Gore, Weather section) Weather degrades everyone's perception equally. The detective and smuggler are equally blind in a dust storm. For once, the information asymmetry isn't about who knows what — it's about nobody knowing anything. Weather introduces chaos into the information game.

I-08: "The observed life is richer than the observer's life." (Gore, Q1 via The Lives of Others) The detective's cooler, more analytical visual world should feel impoverished compared to the smuggler's warmer social world. This has design implications: the detective playthrough is intentionally less warm, less "home." The visual temperature gap IS the cost of surveillance.

I-09: "The gap between entity simplicity and environment detail IS the game." (Gore, Q3) Simple entities in a richly textured station environment. You read the environment through the people, and the people through the environment. Neither is fully legible alone. This is a distinct design position from Rimworld (both simple) or Disco Elysium (both detailed).

I-10: "Fog is uncertainty made visible." (Gore, Weather section) Fog is the most thematically loaded weather state because it does mechanically what the entire game does narratively — hides things in plain sight. Fog doesn't create darkness; it creates ambiguity. Vision cone in fog degrades gracefully: full clarity close, increasingly indistinct at range, entities becoming silhouettes becoming suggestions.

I-11: "Legible but ambiguous animation." (Gore, Q3) Animation should be clear enough that you can see a figure stopped, but not so detailed that you can tell from animation alone whether they stopped to look at something, talk to someone, or check if they're being followed. You need other information channels to interpret movement. This preserves the information game.

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5. Endorsed References — Strongest Support

Ranked by number of endorsers and strength of endorsement.

Tier 1: Universal reference (all four cite, all endorse specific aspects)

Reference	Endorsed aspect	Notes
Rimworld	Readability principles, visual hierarchy, cognitive load reduction	Universally cited as readability benchmark. Universally cited as emotionally insufficient.
XCOM 2	Fog of war as emotional weight, unseen space as tension	Universally cited. All note binary fog limitation vs. our graduated model.
The Sims	Daily routine legibility, activity-state readability from overhead	Universally cited for life-sim substrate problem. All note omniscient perspective as wrong for us.

Tier 2: Strong reference (3 agents, strong endorsement)

Reference	Endorsed aspect	Strongest advocate
Tactical Breach Wizards	Silhouette discipline, clarity-as-design-origin, readability + personality	Ozzie (evolution of Heat Signature), Miri (clarity as origin not compromise), Gore (legibility-first + personality)
Disco Elysium	Internal voice recontextualizing visual information, mood-as-art	Ozzie (character voice as visual design), Miri (emotional palette principle), Gore (dignity of the mundane)

Tier 3: Targeted reference (2 agents, specific aspect endorsed)

Reference	Endorsed aspect	Advocates
Heat Signature	Spatial clarity, entity-to-space ratio, top-down station readability	Araminta, Ozzie
Citizen Sleeper	"Quiet life with undertow" mood, muted palette with strategic warmth	Araminta, Ozzie
Blade Runner 2049	Color temperature as emotional storytelling	Araminta, Ozzie
The Expanse	Lived-in station material vocabulary, zone differentiation	Araminta, Miri
Alien / Alien: Isolation	"Used future," designed-for-function-aged-by-habitation	Ozzie, Miri
Return of the Obra Dinn	Visual restriction creating investigative focus	Miri, Gore
Syd Mead	Technology as infrastructure, plausible functional future	Araminta, Miri

Tier 4: Unique reference (1 agent, strong advocacy)

Reference	Endorsed aspect	Advocate
Darkwood	Vision cone as emotional gradient, light pooling and fading	Ozzie (calls it "THE gold standard for top-down atmosphere")
Edward Hopper (Nighthawks)	Warm interior light surrounded by unknowable dark	Gore (calls it "our game's central image")
Gregory Crewdson	Ordinary made uncanny through quality of attention	Gore
Stalker (Tarkovsky)	Perceptual shift — same space, different truth	Gore
The Lives of Others	Visual cost of surveillance, observed > observer	Gore
Papers, Please	Visual restraint as thematic confidence	Gore
Cogmind	Atmosphere through minimalism, negative space as readability	Miri
Simon Stalenhag	Mundane-extraordinary juxtaposition, muted-with-warmth palette	Araminta
Ron Cobb	"Can you imagine working here?" environmental test	Araminta

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6. Avoid List

References explicitly flagged as the wrong visual direction.

Reference / Style	Flagged by	Reason
Cyberpunk neon / Blade Runner rain-noir	Miri (explicit avoid table), Gore, Araminta	Coded "dystopia." Sova is not dystopic. Players will expect cyberpunk stories. Wrong genre signal.
Star Trek antiseptic corridors	Miri	Utopian institutional uniformity. Our institutions are bureaucracies, not ideals.
Star Wars romantic visual language	Miri	Operatic scale, good/evil coding. Our investigation requires visual ambiguity. Watch span gate visuals.
Mass Effect Citadel	Miri	Gleaming future-city. Sova is a freight district, not a tourist destination.
Dead Space grimy horror	Miri	Body-horror visual territory. Wrong emotional register entirely.
Pixel art style	Araminta, Ozzie	Communicates "retro" and "indie." The Settled Reach is advanced. Fights information overlay readability.
Painted / Disco Elysium production style	Araminta	Too expensive per frame, too hard for AI pipeline consistency. (Note: DE's principles endorsed; its production method rejected.)
Photorealistic 3D rendered to 2D	Araminta	Too expensive, too slow, uncanny valley risk at top-down scale.
Iron Man helmet display	Araminta, Gore	Too dramatic, too military for neural insert overlay.
Hotline Miami neon maximalism	Araminta, Ozzie	Adrenaline-and-horror register. The Settled Reach is sleek, subtle. Wrong emotional register entirely.
Teleglitch lo-fi aesthetic	Araminta	Deliberately ugly, relentlessly oppressive. We need comfort AND unease, not just unease.
Military tactical palette	Araminta (re: XCOM, Door Kickers)	Combat-centric visual language. Our game has combat as punctuation, not the sentence.

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7. Open Questions for Round 2

OQ-01: Neural insert overlay aesthetic — geometric or organic?

Araminta proposes clean digital lines ("the insert renders CLEAN because it's digital"). Gore proposes soft-edged organic awareness ("should look like thought, not technology"). Both positions are well-argued. This directly affects art production — the insert is on screen at all times.

Possible resolution path: Could the insert be technically clean/geometric but rendered with soft edges via a shader bloom pass? Precision underneath, perceived as organic. Needs Araminta + Gore discussion.

OQ-02: Does the visual environment shift at ALL when conspiracy activates?

Araminta allows subtle CanvasModulate shifts (5% cooler, deeper shadows). Gore and Miri argue strict zero-shift. This has mechanical implications for the rendering pipeline and for whether the environment ever "helps" the player detect wrongness.

Possible resolution path: Could the shift be character-driven (insert overlay density increases, not environment changes)? All agents agree the insert overlay changes — the question is whether the base world layer also shifts.

OQ-03: Exact entity detail level and sprite dimensions

Araminta proposes 24-32px on 64px tiles. Ozzie suggests Heat Signature's entity-to-space ratio. Gore suggests Rimworld-level simplicity for entities with richer environments. This needs a concrete pixel spec for Nano Banana style guide development.

OQ-04: Animation ambiguity vs. readability

Gore proposes "legible but ambiguous" animation — you can see a figure stopped but can't tell WHY from animation alone. Araminta proposes clearer activity states (2-3 frames per interaction type). The Sims reference implies clear activity readability. This tension directly affects the investigation mechanic.

Possible resolution path: Could animation be clear for EXPECTED activities (working, walking, drinking) but ambiguous for INVESTIGATIVELY RELEVANT behaviors (pausing, looking around, meeting someone)?

OQ-05: Gore's "document" framing vs. the warmth consensus

Gore proposes the art style should feel "like a document — something being recorded, analyzed, compiled." This sits in tension with the broader consensus that the game must feel warm enough that "quiet life is good" is genuinely appealing. How does a document feel like home?

Possible resolution path: The document quality could be the detective's experience specifically, while the smuggler's experience is warmer. The art style itself is clean/technical but the lighting and color temperature carry the warmth.

OQ-06: Darkwood as primary lighting reference

Ozzie advocates strongly for Darkwood's lighting system as THE model for our vision cone emotional gradient. No other agent cites Darkwood. Does the team endorse this as a primary lighting reference alongside the BR2049 color temperature work?

OQ-07: Krenn System planet name and climate profile

Miri flags that Sova's planet is unnamed (worldbuilding gap). She proposes temperate-maritime climate with regular rain and morning/evening fog. This needs confirmation as it affects weather system design.

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8. Emerging Art Direction Consensus

The direction the team is converging on

Visual identity statement (draft, synthesized from all four responses):

The Settled Reach looks like a well-maintained 40-year-old space station seen through the eyes of someone who lives there — or someone who is studying it. Clean 2D art with bold entity silhouettes and muted environmental tones. Lighting is the dominant atmospheric voice: warm amber in social spaces, cool white in institutional zones, dim and uneven in corridors. Entity color (D-033) is the primary information signal; silhouette is the primary identity signal. The fog of perception renders the unknown as genuine absence, not grey overlay. The neural insert adds a subtle technological lens that the player learns to forget is there. The same station reads warm for the smuggler and cool for the detective through overlay density and color temperature, not through environmental changes.

Confirmed principles (unanimous or near-unanimous)

1. Readability over beauty. Always.
2. Lighting over detail. Sprites provide shape; light provides mood.
3. Restraint IS the aesthetic. Not flashy, not grim, not neon, not grimy.
4. Environment never tips its hand. Investigation signals are behavioral and informational, never environmental.
5. One asset vocabulary, many lighting profiles. Muted tiles + solar color tinting = every system looks different with the same art.
6. Weather is gameplay. Perception modifier, NPC routine disruptor, storyteller tool.
7. Silhouette carries identity. Color is spoken for (D-033). Shape must differentiate.
8. Production constraints = design strengths. Bold silhouettes + limited palette + lighting-driven atmosphere serves readability, D-033, Godot 4, AND Nano Banana simultaneously.

Needs Round 2 resolution

1. Neural insert: geometric precision (Araminta) vs. organic cognition (Gore)
2. Environmental visual shift: subtle allowed (Araminta) vs. strict zero (Gore/Miri)
3. Entity detail: specific pixel spec and sprite dimension target
4. Animation: activity-readable (Araminta/Sims model) vs. legibly ambiguous (Gore)
5. Darkwood as primary lighting reference (Ozzie's strong advocacy, needs team response)

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For the record: Round 1 produced remarkable convergence on the fundamentals. Four agents working independently arrived at the same art style (clean 2D, bold silhouettes, lighting-driven), the same priority (readability first), and the same technical validation (Godot 4 + Nano Banana alignment). The divergences are real but bounded — they concern the nuance of execution, not the direction. The strongest signal is I-03: when readability, design, engine, and pipeline all point to the same style, that style is correct.

Compiled by Qatux. Every claim above is cited to its source document. Cross-reference against the round1-{agent}.md files for full context.