76 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
76 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
# Experiment 004 Hypothesis — Private Until After Play
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## Why this follows Experiment 003
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Experiment 003 removed indirect automation but still reduced to obvious counter-loadouts. Its lattice rarely changed outcomes. The player nevertheless invented a two-tractor workaround while misunderstanding the heat system and still found the experience boring. This is important: deviation and problem solving are not equivalent to curiosity or fun.
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Experiment 004 removes construction, upgrades, combat pressure, continuous steering, and numerical optimization. It isolates whether an unfamiliar but stable law can produce a valued cycle of observation, inference, prediction, and transfer.
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## Mechanic
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One command affects two bodies:
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- Self moves in the requested cardinal direction.
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- Echo moves in the exact opposite direction.
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- A wall blocks each body independently.
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- Therefore ordinary moves preserve their midpoint, while an asymmetric collision changes it. Walls can absorb one half of a command and let the player ratchet the pair into configurations impossible in open space.
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The interface does not state this law. It makes it legible through simultaneous tweened motion, trails, collision flashes, a connecting line, a midpoint marker, and a terse record of the last displacement. The player can undo or reset instantly.
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## Room Sequence
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1. **First Pair:** an open horizontal arrangement. Two left commands solve it and expose opposed motion.
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2. **One Holds:** one body begins against a wall while the other must move three cells. This isolates independent blocking.
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3. **Transfer:** asymmetric internal walls require combining ordinary opposed moves with two different wall absorptions. The shortest unordered solution is `UUUUURRDR` (9 commands), verified by breadth-first search.
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4. **Open Chamber:** no sockets and no completion condition. It exists only to observe whether the player has a question or prediction they want to test after the authored sequence.
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## Competing Interpretations
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1. Inferring a stable unfamiliar law is intrinsically rewarding and produces a second question.
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2. The reveal is momentarily interesting but becomes a short authored puzzle with no continuing possibility space.
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3. The player enjoys spatial puzzle solving but not open experimentation.
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4. The law is learned but applying it feels like laborious state bookkeeping.
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5. The visualization is insufficient, so success comes from input search rather than a usable mental model.
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6. The tasks are too easy or too short to expose the difference between satisfaction and compliance.
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## Evidence Priorities
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Strong evidence for the target loop:
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- a prediction stated or behaviorally tested before a required move;
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- deliberate use of a wall after first observing asymmetric blocking;
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- low-search transfer in the final room after exploratory earlier rooms;
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- movement in the open chamber aimed at a self-chosen configuration;
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- a concrete question about a consequence not required by sockets;
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- wanting another situation because of the law rather than merely another puzzle.
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Ambiguous evidence:
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- completion;
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- resets or many moves;
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- finding an unintended route;
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- spending time in a room;
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- any claim that the mechanic would or would not be fun with more content.
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Negative evidence:
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- immediate mechanical input search without model formation;
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- stopping as soon as sockets are filled with no desire to predict anything else;
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- describing the law as understood but exhausted;
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- finding state planning tedious even after the behavior is clear.
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## Instrumentation
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Log every command with before/after coordinates, requested direction, each body's displacement and blocked state, midpoint before/after, move count, undo depth, and completion state. Also log resets, undos, room entry/completion, time and move totals, open-chamber moves, visibility changes, and saves.
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Telemetry cannot distinguish thoughtful prediction from trial-and-error by itself. Pair it with the player's report and inspect pauses, undo patterns, and whether wall interactions become more intentional over time.
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## Questions After Play
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Ask only after receiving the JSONL:
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1. At what point, if any, did you feel you understood what the paired movement and walls would do before pressing a key?
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2. In the last required room, were you executing a plan, testing local guesses, or searching inputs until something worked?
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3. Once the required sequence ended, did you have any result you wanted to produce or any question you wanted answered?
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Do not ask whether “discovering rules” is fun; that wording would encourage agreement with the hypothesis.
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