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Design Branch - Lost Hours

Scope​

This is the canonical gameplay-design owner for the Lost Hours branch attached to ../quest-threads/gd-quest-thread-act-0-survive.md. It records branch entry shape, consequence space, and open gameplay questions without turning the branch into story-layer truth.

Identity​

Entry Contract​

  • Preferred entry pattern: the player is searching for water or food when an unsafe choice, exhaustion, or pressure near the damaged anchor chain causes a missing-time event.
  • The branch should be semi-avoidable if the player inspects or tests carefully.
  • If pacing forces the branch, it must be foreshadowed through taste, dizziness, wrong silence, a pressure shift, or another grounded warning.

Committed Consequence Set​

  • lost daylight
  • a dead fire
  • sickness or shaking
  • tracks near camp
  • ash closer than expected
  • old stones more visible
  • a dream fragment
  • one displaced item
  • a Journal gap

The branch returns Act 0 to survival and investigation pressure in a rougher state rather than dead-ending the act.

Unresolved By Design​

  • the exact blackout cause
  • the exact blackout length
  • the exact world changes while the MC is unconscious

Story Boundary​