jpmschweitzer
cbeadc3184
Substantial quality pass on gemma_naming.py driven by user review of
the first real-mode smoke test output. The earlier run produced names
that read too sci-fi / epic-fantasy / same-y: Aureus, Aetheria,
Stellaris, Nexus, Elysium. Root cause analysis + fixes:
1. Runtime timestamps. The log prefix is now
`[HH:MM:SS +00h03m]` — clock time plus elapsed-since-start. Gives
the user an at-a-glance sense of how long the run has been going
without scrolling back to the banner.
2. System / body headers. When the loop enters a new system it prints
`── SYSTEM K/N GJ 71 — Tau Ceti (hop 0)`. Each body line now
shows `GJ71c (Threshold)` if the body has a proper_name in
systems.db, so the log reads like a tour of the reach rather than
a wall of body_id slugs. Preserved (already-named) bodies now log
a compact "(skip — N names already set)" line so progress is
visible even when no inference happened.
3. Prompt grounding overhaul. The old few-shot examples were all
classical/epic (Wolcott Beck, Nakamura Stream, Ribeiro do Sal,
Drayton Spine) which biased Gemma 2 2B toward Latin/Greek
coinages. New preambles use the shape:
"Settlers named X after themselves, after what they saw, or
after places back home. Most names are mundane, short, and
direct — a surname, a compass direction, a feature, a
practical description. Classical or epic names are rare."
Combined with grounded example pools, Gemma now produces names
like "Cooper's Creek", "Western Ridge", "The Highroad",
"Blackwood Creek", "Dustbowl".
4. Core corridor relabel. The "core" palette inflection was
"institutional Latin / pan-Anglo / Gateway-era", which pattern-
matched in Gemma's training data to "make up Latin-sounding
words" (→ Ardenia, Aurelia, Stellaris). Now it's
"administrative English / Gateway-era" and the outputs are
prosaic — Port Dundas, East Ridge, Meridian, Landing.
5. Rotating few-shot example pools. Each feature type now has 5-7
pools of 5-6 examples each. `_build_prompt()` picks a pool
deterministically per (body_id, local_id, attempt) so:
- Same feature always gets the same prompt (determinism preserved).
- Neighbouring features on the same body get different prompts
(output variance — the sampler doesn't collapse to a single
mode when you ask for 16 mountain names in a row).
- Retries rotate to a new pool, not just a bumped seed, giving
dedup failures a clean second attempt.
6. Cosmopolitan cultural variety in the examples. Earlier pools only
showed British/Australian, Korean/Japanese, Portuguese/Swahili,
German/Dutch/Nordic axes — the four reach corridors. Gemma learned
"names come in four flavours". New pools span Dutch, Nordic,
Italian, French, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Spanish, Russian,
Finnish, Greek, Irish, Japanese, and British — teaching the model
that names can be any real Earth cultural register, not just the
corridor label. The result: actual Dutch names (Egelantier,
Hochland, Van Damhoeve), actual Nordic (Lundstad, Brygga),
actual Italian (Borgo Marconi, Piazza Nuova), etc.
7. First-name possessive pools. Per user feedback, settler naming
includes both surnames ("Cooper's Creek") and first names
("Clifford's Bay", "Maura's Run", "Yuki's Pool"). Each feature
type now has a dedicated first-name-possessive pool in addition
to the existing surname pool — the two rotate alongside so both
patterns show up without either dominating.
8. One "classical/Latinate" pool per feature type (≈17% of calls
given 5-7 pools per type). Keeps occasional Latin flavour without
making it dominant — the user explicitly noted that replacing
one pattern with another "is never a clean fix for a randomizer."
9. Earth-name blocklist expansion. The Gemma 2 model reached for
real European names ("Weser", "Rhine", "Reykjavik") in the first
real run. Added 21 European rivers (Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder,
Vistula, Loire, Rhône, Douro, Tagus, Ebro, Po, Arno, Tiber, …)
and 25 Nordic/Eastern European cities (Reykjavik, Oslo, Gdansk,
Krakow, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Belgrade, …). Case-insensitive
"The <name>" stripping still applies so "The Great Divide" also
matches "Great Divide".
Combined smoke test after these changes (10 real-mode prompts across
core + west_reach):
- core: Port Dundas, The Backbone, Dustbowl, Blackwood Creek
- west_reach: Egelantier, Hochland, Der Rücken, Lundstad, Klipfjord
- no placeholder residue, no markdown, no 5+ word outputs.
--shard is gone (dead code since GPU contention killed parallelism).
Resume semantics are still free: re-run the same command and
already-named bodies skip via the preserved path.
The Settled Reach
A top-down immersive sim where you only know what you can see, hear, and prove.
You're not the hero. You're a witness with a gun.
Pick a character. Step into their life. Figure out what's happening before it's too late.
The Settled Reach is a single-character detective game where information is the real weapon. You play from one perspective in a simulated world full of people who lie, withhold, and reveal on their own schedules. What you know depends on where you are, who you trust, and whether you're asking the right questions.
What You Do
Investigate. Follow leads through a city you can't see all at once. Line-of-sight isn't a gameplay abstraction - it's the core mechanic. You see what your character sees. Walls block vision. Corners hide threats. Fog returns when you leave. Information decays.
Navigate. Your neural lattice gives you directions, but only to places you've learned about. Contacts send locations. Research reveals addresses. Physical exploration fills the gaps. The map is sparse and frightening at first. By the end, you realize how much you missed.
Decide. Every conversation is a negotiation over what gets shared. NPCs have their own goals, their own information, and their own reasons to lie. You choose who to trust based on incomplete data. Sometimes you're wrong.
Act. When investigation fails, violence is an option. Fights are tactical, asymmetric, and often a terrible idea. Power mismatches run in both directions. Death costs you everything since your last backup - lost knowledge, lost relationships, lost deals. The world knows what you forgot.
Survive. An AI storyteller paces events for dramatic tension. The conspiracy's structure is set at game start. When things happen is driven by how you're doing. Comfortable? Something breaks. Desperate? A break appears. The game wants a story, not a grind.
Core Features
Information Asymmetry as Master Mechanic
You only know what your character knows. The same world looks completely different from different perspectives. A Senator sees political venues on their map. A Guardian sees safehouses. Same conspiracy, different game.
Occlusion-Based Detection
Vision is line-of-sight with a directional cone. You see what's in front of you. Peripheral vision is reduced. Behind you is fog. Sound gives partial information outside your view - footsteps, voices, gunfire. You make decisions based on what you can piece together.
Internal Monologue
Your character interprets what they sense in their own voice. Footsteps behind you. Thermal signatures through walls. A contact's nervous tells. The monologue bridges what the camera can't show and creates atmosphere. It can also be wrong.
Perception Modes
Different characters access different sensors. Natural vision shows detail but is blocked by walls. Thermal imaging shows heat signatures with no identity. Camera feeds give remote vision but can be spoofed. Unisphere tracking pings known contacts but can be masked. Each mode reveals different information with different trust tradeoffs.
Diegetic Interface
The map is your character's neural lattice - Settled Reach technology, not a game UI. Points of interest appear when you learn them through gameplay. Tips can be traps. Navigation is pulled by player intent, not pushed by map design.
Multiple Playable Characters
Every character starts in a different position with different knowledge and different tools. A cop has case files and legal authority. An investigator has contacts and freedom to operate. A politician has institutional access and public constraints. Replayability comes from perspective, not randomness.
Rimworld-Style Storyteller
Events emerge from simulation, paced by an AI director. No timers. No scripts. Consequences of what's already in motion. The storyteller knows what you've lost and can exploit it.
Wildly Asymmetric Combat
Balanced fights are the exception. You're outgunned or overpowered, rarely evenly matched. Tactical clarity from the top-down view. Z-levels create verticality - fights across floors of a building. Perception boundaries mean you can be ambushed. Victory often means not fighting at all.
The Setting
Humanity spread across hundreds of star systems by learning to activate alien gates it didn't build. The result is the Settled Reach - a civilization stitched together by infrastructure it doesn't fully understand.
You live in a society where death is temporary (if you can afford the backup), enhancement is political (who gets augmented and why), and the gates that connect everything were made by someone who hasn't introduced themselves.
Wormholes aren't fast travel markers. They're physical locations you traverse. Social chokepoints. Surveillance points. The infrastructure you depend on to move between worlds.
Something is breaking. Or something is waking up. You're in the wrong place at the right time to figure out which.
Built For Replayability
Structural randomness set at game start: who's compromised, where evidence is hidden, which contacts can be trusted. Play the same scenario as different characters and encounter a different game. The conspiracy's skeleton is fixed. The flesh changes every time.
Development Philosophy
Single-character perspective. Asymmetric information as core mechanic. Top-down camera locked to character position. Godot 4 client + Rust simulation server. Client-server architecture from day one, designed for multiplayer even though single-player ships first.
No fog-of-war as an afterthought. No tutorial popups. No omniscient map reveals. The game is built around what you don't know.
[LOREM IPSUM PLACEHOLDER]
Screenshots
[Gameplay screenshot: character navigating fog-of-war through urban environment] [Gameplay screenshot: thermal vision showing heat signatures through building] [Gameplay screenshot: conversation interface with internal monologue overlay] [Gameplay screenshot: tactical combat with vision cone and z-level interaction]
Media
[Trailer: Character selection → Investigation → Revelation → Crisis] [Dev diary: Information asymmetry as game mechanic]
Awards & Recognition
[To be populated as development progresses]
Community & Updates
[Discord link] [Development blog] [Steam community hub]
System Requirements
Minimum
OS: [TBD] Processor: [TBD] Memory: [TBD] Graphics: [TBD] Storage: [TBD]
Recommended
OS: [TBD] Processor: [TBD] Memory: [TBD] Graphics: [TBD] Storage: [TBD]
About This Project
Official Title: The Settled Reach (D-021) Repository: commonwealth (historical code name) Engine: Godot 4 + Rust/bevy_ecs simulation server via subprocess/IPC Setting: Original science fiction IP, inspired by space opera traditions Status: Pre-alpha development
For development documentation, see the decisions/ directory and TEAM.md.
The Settled Reach is in active development. All features, systems, and content are subject to change.