docs(game): migrate game-design canon notes from Joplin into docs/game/

Eight canon notes (Game Concept Overview, Mechanics Source Mapping,
Combat System & Stat Scaling Design, Skill & Magic System, Medals &
Honours System, Lore & World Building, Idle Fantasy Inspirations,
Tech Stack & Architecture) as markdown, note title as H1, with source
line citing the Joplin note ID. Joplin keeps status notes.
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# Skara Brae — Idle Fantasy Inspirations
Source: Joplin note 48b3a3c76f734c8dafbbf9e8b3b5f80a, migrated 2026-10-03
Source: [Idle Fantasy](https://github.com/tristinbaker/IdleFantasy) — an open-source offline idle RPG for Android (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, GPL-3.0).
> **Status update (2026-07):** Repo re-reviewed at **v1.12.11, 366 stars, 810 commits** (was ~206 stars when this note was first written). Several new systems shipped after the original capture — they are documented in **[New Mechanics (post-2025 evolution)](#new-mechanics-post-2025-evolution)** below. The original sections (offline sessions, workers, pets, guild ranks, blessings, slayer, daily/long-term quests, mercantile) remain valid and are not repeated in the new section.
*"Set your hero to work. Close the app. Come back to loot."*
Key mechanics from Idle Fantasy to adapt for Skara Brae:
---
## Offline / Idle Sessions
**Idle Fantasy**: Pick a skill or dungeon, start a session, close the app. Hero trains for up to 1 hour while closed. Come back to collect XP and loot. No stamina bar, no energy system.
**Skara Brae adaptation**: Skara Brae keeps Torn-style energy (differentiates our game), but adds offline adventure progression:
- Adventures continue for up to **1 hour** while logged out (or up to your energy cap)
- On return, collect accumulated gold, XP, and loot
- **Server-side tick** calculates elapsed time rewards on login
- Training skills offline at **50% rate** (active play is always better)
- This keeps casual players engaged without requiring constant attention
---
## 23 Skills Across 4 Categories
**Idle Fantasy** has 23 skills organized into:
| Category | Skills |
|---|---|
| **Gathering (7)** | Mining, Fishing, Woodcutting, Farming, Firemaking, Agility, Thieving |
| **Crafting (7)** | Smithing, Cooking, Fletching, Crafting, Runecrafting, Herblore, Construction |
| **Combat (7)** | Attack, Strength, Defense, Ranged, Magic, Hitpoints, Prayer |
| **Support (2)** | Mercantile, Slayer |
**Skara Brae mapping** (merging with existing design):
| Idle Fantasy | Skara Brae Equivalent |
|---|---|
| Mining, Woodcutting | Mining, Woodcutting (gathering) |
| Fishing, Farming | Fishing, Herbalism (gathering) |
| Firemaking | — (drop, not fantasy-appropriate) |
| Agility | Agility (thievery skill tree) |
| Thieving | Thievery (existing) |
| Smithing | Blacksmithing |
| Cooking | Cooking (alchemy sub-skill) |
| Fletching | Fletching (ranged weapon crafting) |
| Crafting | Tailoring, Jewelcrafting |
| Runecrafting | Enchanting |
| Herblore | Alchemy |
| Construction | — (~~defer to property system~~ → **RE-EVALUATED, see below**: make it a real skill) |
| Attack, Strength, Defense | Melee combat skills |
| Ranged | Ranged combat skill |
| Magic | Magic skills (fire, ice, illusion, necromancy) |
| Hitpoints | Constitution |
| Prayer | Wisdom / Cleric skills |
| Mercantile | Bartering / Trading skill |
| Slayer | Slayer / Bounty Hunting |
---
## Pets — Permanent Passive Buffs
**Idle Fantasy**: Rare enemies drop **collectible pets** that grant permanent passive XP bonuses.
**Skara Brae adaptation**:
- Pets drop from rare enemies in dungeons and adventures
- Each pet provides a **permanent passive bonus** (e.g., +2% mining XP, +5% gold from adventures)
- Pets have **rarity tiers**: Common → Uncommon → Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythic
- **Pet stable**: Multiple pets owned, one active at a time (or multiple for patrons)
- **Pet aging**: Pets grow over time, increasing their bonus at milestones (1 week, 1 month, 6 months)
- **Pet death**: Can be killed in PvP ambush — resurrected at Temple Row for gold (creates stakes)
- **Pet breeding**: Combine two pets for a chance at rare offspring with combined bonuses
- Pet types: wolf (tracking bonus), raven (scouting), cat (stealth), owl (magic XP), hound (combat XP), etc.
---
## Inn Workers — Hire NPCs to Automate Tasks
**Idle Fantasy**: The Inn lets you **hire workers** who queue up sessions on your behalf, and buy food in bulk.
**Skara Brae adaptation**:
- **The Singing Tavern** offers hireable NPCs:
- **Mercenary**: Runs adventures while you're offline (reduced rewards: 60% of normal)
- **Apprentice**: Trains a skill while you're offline (50% rate)
- **Gatherer**: Collects basic materials while you're offline (low-tier only)
- Workers cost **gold per hour** — creates a gold sink for veteran players
- Worker quality tiers: Novice → Journeyman → Expert (better rates, higher cost)
- Buy **provisions** in bulk (food for dungeon expeditions, potions, torches)
- This is Idle Fantasy's most distinctive mechanic — automating the grind for gold
---
## Guild Rank Progression
**Idle Fantasy**: 17 guilds with **10 rank levels** each. Advance by completing progression quests and earning reputation through daily requests. Higher ranks unlock harder dailies and better cross-skill rewards.
**Skara Brae adaptation** (merging with existing guild design):
- Guilds have **rank tiers** within the guild (Initiate → Apprentice → Journeyman → Expert → Master → Grandmaster)
- **Daily guild tasks**: Complete for reputation points
- **Rank-up quests**: Progression quests to advance in guild rank
- **Cross-skill rewards**: Higher ranks unlock access to resources from skills you don't personally train
- Existing guild hall upgrades (training grounds, library, vault, war room, brewery) remain
---
## Church / Blessings
**Idle Fantasy**: The Church offers **timed blessings** powered by Prayer levels and bones. Three types: XP boosts (up to 1.5×), Defense bonuses, Coin multipliers. One active at a time.
**Skara Brae adaptation**:
- **Temple Row** offers blessings from the Old Gods
- Blessing types: XP boost (up to 1.5×), Damage reduction, Gold multiplier, Crit chance increase
- Duration based on Wisdom stat and offering quality
- One blessing active at a time
- Offerings: Gold, rare items, bones from undead enemies
- Higher Wisdom = longer duration, stronger effect
- This adds a "buff management" layer without being tedious
---
## Slayer Tasks
**Idle Fantasy**: Visit the Slayer Master for kill-specific-enemy assignments. Each kill earns bonus XP. Complete tasks to level Slayer skill and unlock tougher assignments.
**Skara Brae adaptation**:
- **Captain Rennick** at City Watch HQ (or **The Beggar King** for underground targets) gives slayer tasks
- "Kill 15 skeletal warriors in the Undercity" → bonus Slayer XP + gold reward
- Slayer level unlocks tougher targets with better rewards
- Ties into the bounty system naturally
---
## Quest Diversity
**Idle Fantasy**: 170+ quests — **daily quests** (reset every morning) + **long-term cumulative quests** (track progress over many sessions).
**Skara Brae adaptation**:
- **Daily quests**: 3-5 per day from NPCs (Madame Sylara, Captain Rennick, Guildmasters)
- "Complete 3 adventures" / "Craft 2 potions" / "Win 1 arena duel"
- Rewards: gold, XP, skill XP, occasional items
- **Weekly quests**: Larger goals, better rewards
- **Storyline quests**: Multi-step, unlock new areas/NPCs/mechanics
- **Cumulative achievements**: "Mine 10,000 ore total" → permanent bonus
- Quest board in the Inn + NPC-specific quest givers
---
## New Mechanics (post-2025 evolution)
These systems appeared in Idle Fantasy **after** this note was first captured (now v1.12.11) and are strong candidates to integrate into Skara Brae.
### Infinite Tower ⭐
Endless floor-by-floor combat gauntlet; enemies scale forever; **every 10 floors = a milestone** rewarding unique gear + permanent XP/coin bonuses.
**Why it fits:** Gives the BIGINT exponential stat system a natural home — infinite content matches infinite stats. We currently have dungeons + arena but **no repeatable-scaling endgame PvE**.
**Adaptation:** Reskin as **Mangar's Tower** / the Infinite Labyrinth beneath the city. Floor milestones grant small, bounded permanent bonuses (consistent with "stats only go up"). Per-floor leaderboard. → **Phase 3**.
### Expeditions ⭐⭐ (highest-value pickup)
Non-combat *skilling* dungeons tied to a gathering skill (Agility, Fishing, Mining, Thieving, Woodcutting). Completing sessions gradually uncovers **5 hidden lore notes**; collecting all 5 **unlocks a secret combat dungeon**. Advanced expeditions are gated by having unlocked an earlier dungeon — a discovery tree.
**Why it fits:** Bridges gathering skills to content gating *and* delivers lore organically — exactly the "mystery beneath Skara Brae" theme. Our notes currently silo gathering from dungeons; Expeditions unify them into one progression tree.
**Adaptation:** Each gathering skill gets 2 expedition tiers (lvl 1, lvl 40) → reveals a themed dungeon (e.g., Mining "Copper Caverns" → "Collapsed Mine"; Fishing "Sunken Grotto" → "Drowned Temple"; Thieving "Thieves' Den" → "Rogue Sanctum"). Lore notes double as world-building collectibles. → **Phase 2–3**.
### Buildings / Builder's Workshop ⭐
Upgrade town buildings (Inn, Guild Hall, Church, Fairgrounds, Garden, Queue Master, Cape Rack) with coins + **Construction** materials. Each building has tiers (0 → 3), gating a passive bonus; higher tiers require a higher Construction level.
**Why it fits:** Reframes our scattered "guild hall upgrades" into a unified **town-meta progression** the player personally drives, and gives the crafting economy a permanent gold/material sink.
**Adaptation:** Make **Construction a real skill** (see re-evaluation below). Upgradable buildings: The Singing Tavern (+worker XP), Temple Row (+blessing duration), Adventurers' Guild (−quest requirements), Market Square / Fairgrounds (carnival), Harbor, plus queue-slot and cape-rack buildings. → **Phase 2**.
### Carnival
Traveling minigame hub. **Idle minigames** convert a skill level → tickets over time (15% → 35% chance per minute, scaling to lvl 99; Archery Range=Ranged, Strongman=Strength, Wizard's Duel=Magic, Fishing Derby=Fishing). **Active minigames** (Ring Toss, Hammer Strike, Potion Sequence, Item Appraisal, Pick-a-Cup, Higher/Lower) reward more tickets on Hard, each on a 10-minute cooldown. Ticket shop sells XP lamps, gear, pets, capes.
**Why it fits:** Richer than our "inn gambling (dice/cards)"; the skill → ticket idle conversion is a clever loop. Drops onto our existing **seasonal/festival calendar** as a traveling faire.
**Adaptation:** A traveling Carnival/Faire that appears during festivals; tickets redeemed at its shop. Active minigames map onto our inn minigame table. → **Phase 3–4**.
### Pity System ("Fortune's Favor")
Escalating bad-luck protection on the rarest gear drops (IF's v1.12.10 "Divine gear pity system").
**Adaptation:** Given our 0.5% Legendary crafting + rare drops, add an escalating counter that guarantees a high-rarity result after N dry attempts. Reskin as **Fortune's Favor**. → **Phase 2**.
### Gear Scoring
Pre-dungeon, IF tells you how your current gear stacks up against the dungeon's rating (v1.12.10 gear scoring).
**Adaptation:** A recommended-power / gear-score indicator on our risk/reward adventure tiers so players self-select difficulty. → **Phase 1–2**.
### Titles (UX reinforcement)
Permanent cosmetic titles displayed as "*Name* the *Title*"; crucially, **locked titles are visible with their unlock condition** (skill-mastery = complete all quests in a skill chain; guild-max = reach lvl 10 in a guild; boss clears; seasonal events).
**Adaptation:** Our Medals & Honours note already mentions titles — **adopt IF's locked-title-with-requirement UX** as a motivator (e.g., "Master Smith," "Archmage," "Godslayer," seasonal titles kept permanently). → **Phase 2**.
### XP Lamps
Consumable that grants XP to a chosen skill (10k / 50k variants); obtained from quests, events, the Carnival shop.
**Adaptation:** Flexible catch-up / reward currency we currently lack. → **Phase 2**.
### Queue Slots (parallel sessions)
The "Queue Master" building grants additional concurrent session/queue slots.
**Adaptation:** An idle-progression lever — patrons / upgrades can run multiple offline workers/sessions in parallel. → **Phase 3**.
### Raid Bosses (confirmed)
IF's "Godslayer" title = defeat every raid boss at least once, confirming a raid-boss roster exists.
**Adaptation:** Validates designing a raid-boss roster for our guild raids (6–12 players). → **Phase 5**.
---
## Re-evaluation: Construction Skill
Original mapping (above) said Construction → "defer to property system." **Reversed.** IF now uses Construction as the backbone of the Buildings / Builder's Workshop meta. Add **Construction** as a real crafting skill in Skara Brae, feeding town-building upgrades.
---
## Process Ideas Worth Copying
- **Auto-generated wiki from game data.** IF's entire community wiki is generated from the game's data files. This validates keeping all content (items, adventures, crit tables, spells, recipes, medals, dungeons, tower floors, expeditions) as structured JSON/TOML in `skara-brae-common` — we can auto-generate both client tooltips *and* a community game wiki from a single source.
- **Layered PvE ladder.** IF matured into: expeditions → dungeons → raids → infinite tower, with buildings + carnival as parallel progression. Adopt this as our PvE spine.
---
## What NOT to Take from Idle Fantasy
- **No energy/stamina removal**: Skara Brae keeps Torn-style energy — it's a core differentiator
- **No fully offline game**: Skara Brae is multiplayer — offline is supplementary, not primary
- **No single-player focus**: Guild interaction, PvP, and economy are central to our game
---
## Related Notes
- [Game Concept Overview](joplin://9cf8a2e701654ffbbd6512cc837c7e2f) — Full game design with all features
- [Combat System & Stat Scaling Design](joplin://0ef630db4e3e4d6dab18ccaefccaaa5a) — Crit tables, BIGINT stats
- [Lore & World Building](joplin://867bdc9845624908a90928887a71c4c9) — Districts, NPCs, storyline
- [Tech Stack & Architecture](joplin://cecd2ef2690d4d1fba3450342aa63953) — Rust workspace, DB schema
- [Project Plan](joplin://d243ae57778343fca997d46b73d0ee3b) — Roadmap, MVP, repo structure