← Dev Log
May 14, 2026 Post 17

Triple Locked

A solo run that made it deep into the Blue rank before the house won. What the Fixed Stars booklet fixed, what the Commissary didn't, and two overlapping locks that ended everything.

The day after Mike's run I sat down alone and played it myself. No observer, no notes taken mid-game — just a full solo run to see where I actually ended up.

I didn't win.

Session summary Player: Chad (solo) · Date: May 14, 2026 · Duration: ~45 min · Outcome: Run ended — triple locked at Cloister · Path: Entrance Hall → Music Room → Hallway → Storeroom → Spare Room → Pantry → Observatory → Dining Room → Commissary → Archives → Walk-In Closet → Secret Garden → Billiard Room → Cloister

The Fixed Stars worked

The first real test of the constellation booklet in a solo context. It worked. Having a physical reference at the table — something to flip open rather than a tab to switch to — made the Observatory feel like a room worth visiting rather than a rules interruption.

The Fixed Stars booklet standing upright on the navy mat, white blank dice and black lock tokens visible in the foreground alongside gold coins
"The Fixed Stars — The Stargazer's Companion to Constellations." The Observatory's table reference, now physical.

The booklet's design also holds up as an artifact. It belongs in the world of the game. That matters more than it sounds — components that feel like they were made for something else break immersion in a way that's hard to ignore once you notice it.

The keys

The Secret Garden key, used with the physical token, felt meaningful in a way it hadn't before. Holding something to place on the board — rather than flipping a card state — makes the moment register differently.

Collection of decorative physical special keys spread across the navy mat — ornate silver keys, a green flower key, a compass key, a rainbow crystal key, and others, with Manor cards and lock tokens in background
The special key collection. Each one a different reward, each one physically distinct.

The keys are sourced from iam8bit — a shop that sells collectible gaming merchandise, and as it turns out, an unexpectedly good source for decorative physical keys that actually look like they belong in a manor house mystery. The key collection as a physical set is one of the stronger design decisions in the prototype. Every key looks different. You know at a glance which one you're holding. That kind of immediate legibility is hard to achieve with cards alone.

The Commissary didn't matter

I landed in the Commissary and couldn't afford anything. The Magnifying Glass was for sale. I looked at it and moved on — I didn't need more steps. There wasn't enough pressure on the step economy to make a step-granting item feel worth buying.

This is a balance note I'm sitting with rather than acting on. One run doesn't tell you much about economy. But it's worth watching across future sessions — if the Commissary consistently fails to create a decision point, that's a real problem. The shop should feel like a tradeoff, not a display case.

The Billiard Room, first encounter

I'd never actually played through the Billiard Room before this run. Two things came up immediately. First: there's no rules entry covering what happens if you enter the Billiard Room after the Secret Garden Key has already been spent. That's an edge case that needs a written resolution. Second: I think there should be a lock pick option somewhere in the game — verifying against the video game before designing anything, but the instinct is there.

I also noticed a trunk option in the Cloister that I couldn't explain. That one's going on the punch list to verify.

The end: two locks, one corner

Close-up of two black lock tokens stacked and overlapping on the Cloister tile corner, Secret Garden tile below, Billiard Room to the right, blue L die visible above
The usability problem, in the flesh. Two locks, one corner, no clean way to read them.

The run ended at the Cloister. Two overlapping lock tokens jammed into the same corner of the tile, plus a locked path above. Triple locked. The Antechamber was visible at the top of the board — one rank away — and there was nothing to do about it.

Full board state at end of run — path built from Entrance Hall through Blue rank to Cloister, two overlapping locks visible, Antechamber tile placed at top, Study and Freezer tiles below the board as rejects, one coin and one gem remaining
End state. The house won this one.

The overlapping locks are a physical component problem. When two adjacent rooms both carry locks, the tokens clash and it becomes hard to read the board state clearly. It needs a solution — whether that's a placement convention, smaller tokens, or something else. A photograph of a confusing situation is worth more than a paragraph describing it, so I took one.

Two questions I'm leaving open

Two design questions surfaced during this run that I'm not answering yet. First: should item cards without physical tokens be consumed immediately when drawn, to create consistency with token-based items? Second: is there a version of this game that works without the Alzara Prophecy Cards entirely? Both are filed in the design ideas log. Neither gets touched until there's more playtest data behind them.

The run didn't feel like a failure. It felt like the game working — a path built, decisions made, resources spent, and a house that pushed back. The house winning occasionally is part of the point. What matters is whether the moments between setup and end state felt like they meant something.

Most of them did.