Living Comic Engine v0.1

This repository now contains two deliberately separated executable design lineages:

1. Living Comic Engine v0.1 — the active product implementation under src/living-comic/ and content/.
2. One-Room Behavior Lab v0.3.1 — the preserved earlier reference/regression oracle under the existing src/v3, legacy app, tests, reports, and tags.

Living Comic is additive. It does not mutate the Mara/Drew/Envelope assumptions of One-Room into a generic system. The older prototype remains useful evidence for deterministic collision, attention, communication, provenance, and regression behavior.

Living Comic v0.1

Living Comic is a deterministic, inspectable social simulation presented as a comic. Narrative LEGO composes a valid starting problem from reusable structured content, then simulation takes over. Player and NPCs share one semantic action grammar; actors reason from beliefs rather than privileged world truth; communication occurrence, content access, perception, interpretation, and belief update remain separate records.

The fixed v0.1 slice is intentionally small:

PLAYER + NPC A + NPC B
ONE MODULAR ROOM
1–3 ACTIVE OBJECTS
ONE PRINCIPAL ACTION / ACTOR / BEAT
10-BEAT HARD CAP
ASK / PRESSURE / DEAL / DEAL RESPONSE / DIRECT / WAIT
ESCAPE / ATTENTION / ACCESS / SENSORY
8 BASED VIBES
NO RUNTIME AI

The browser implementation lives at src/living-comic/. Reusable definitions live at repository-root content/. The semantic core does not import React or DOM APIs.

Run and validate

Node >=22.13.0 is required.

npm install
npm run dev

Validation commands:

npx tsc --noEmit
npm run lint
npm test
npm run build
npm run test:rendered

The dedicated Phase 9 canonical acceptance fixture can also be loaded from the Living Comic setup screen and played manually. Its automated counterpart is src/living-comic/fixtures/phase9Acceptance.test.ts.

Semantic authority

Hard distinctions include:

Goal ≠ Reason
World Truth ≠ Belief
Action ≠ Result
Event ≠ Perception
Perception ≠ Interpretation
Tactic ≠ Message
Social Pressure ≠ Scene Pressure
True Function ≠ Inferred Function
True Goal ≠ Believed Goal
HELD_BY ≠ OWNED_BY

End Beat & Observe is the only Play control that advances simulation. Draft editing, comic inspection, panel navigation, setup controls, Play/Debug switching, local snapshot save/restore, and fixture loading do not resolve a Beat.

Documentation

Start with docs/README.md for the documentation authority map.

• docs/current/ARCHITECTURE.md — package boundaries and causal flow.
• docs/current/CONTENT_AUTHORING.md — portable definitions and validation rules.
• docs/current/SEMANTIC_INVARIANTS.md — non-negotiable meaning boundaries.
• docs/current/ENGINE_CONTRACTS.md — deterministic runtime/replay contracts.
• docs/current/UNITY_ADVENTURE_CREATOR_HANDOFF.md — future Unity/Adventure Creator ownership boundary.
• content/manifest.json — machine-readable portable content manifest.
• src/living-comic/README.md — implementation checkpoint orientation.

Preserved One-Room reference

One-Room Behavior Lab v0.3.1 remains intact as the earlier bounded executable reference. Its original root orientation is preserved verbatim at docs/reference/ONE_ROOM_BEHAVIOR_LAB_V0_3_1_REFERENCE.md, along with its existing reports, tests, branches, and v0.3.1 tag.

The earlier ADVENTURE_CREATOR_DESIGN_PATH.md is preserved as a historical precursor. The current portability/handoff contract is docs/current/UNITY_ADVENTURE_CREATOR_HANDOFF.md.

The repository and npm package names intentionally remain unchanged during the v0.1 reconciliation pass so repository history, hosting, and deployment identity are not rewritten as an unrelated migration.