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Dependencies and Feedback

A → B means B needs a sufficiently defined applicable contract from A. It does not mean all of A must be complete. Distinguish prerequisites from relationships: two characters can know each other without both records blocking their first draft.

Creative Direction → World Foundation → Setting Rules → Lore Foundation
Creative Direction + relevant world/setting/lore → Narrative Foundation
Creative Direction + relevant Setting Rules → Game Design Foundation
Relevant fiction/narrative/game signals → Art Direction
Applicable verbs/metrics + narrative + visual cues → Level Design Foundation
Applicable Core + required linked entries → final Content

For novels, Game and Level Design are not prerequisites. Visual rules apply only when illustrations or another visual treatment need them. Even in games, a text conversation does not automatically need traversal metrics.

Useful feedback​

  • Setting and Game Design reconcile fictional costs with supported actions.
  • Narrative and Game Design reconcile agency with real outcomes and state.
  • Narrative and Level Design reconcile pacing and discovery with routes.
  • Art and Level Design reconcile visual cues with navigation and readability.

Prototype in either direction, then record decisions in their owning domains. Feedback is not a requirement to finish each side first.

Work order​

Start with Creative Direction and a provisional world frame. Explore independent setting, character, conflict and system questions after their inputs exist. Co-develop linked characters, places and arcs. Draft scenes, quests and concepts provisionally; finalization requires the relevant facts and contracts. A prototype can use placeholders, but its later integration must resolve them.

A quest cannot silently change a world law; a weapon cannot introduce an unreviewed verb; a level cannot assume an unsupported ability. Revise the owning contract, identify its consumers, and review their impact.

Dependency record​

Use each record's applicable-rule and relationship links. State which missing input blocks which decision, and why. Search those links when a rule changes. There is no separate graph or status database. Sequence outlines may be linear, branching or state-dependent; they are not the same graph as knowledge prerequisites.