Home / Maturity

Five rungs, each with a test

Games arrive half-built. A catalogue that hides that is useless, and a catalogue whose labels mean whatever the author felt on the day is worse. So every rung here has a test, and a game moves up when the test passes — not when it feels ready.

Rung	Means	The test that moves it up
sketch	an idea and a rules table, nothing playable	—
playable	you can finish a run	a stranger finished it without being told how
scored	the scoring is a stated rule, self-tested	`selftest.json` passes and the rule is published where a player can read it
measured	play data exists and has changed something	a release whose notes cite play data
answered	players argue with it and get answers back	positions published in the ideas graph

Where the games sit today

Game	Rung	Why not the next one
What Can It Do?	scored	It has telemetry and a reply channel, but no release note yet cites play data. v0.16.1 moved the feedback controls on a bias argument — that is reasoning, and good reasoning, but it is not data.
Which Agent Is It?	playable	Its engine is self-tested against a reference, but it has had far less play than the scoreboard and its reveal predates the results redesign.
Ideas & feedback	answered	Not a game, so the ladder fits it awkwardly. It is listed at the rung it enables for the others — it was seeded with the first three real pieces of feedback.

These placements are our reading of somebody else's work, made by reading the vault rather than by asking. If a release did move because play data said so, name it and the rung moves — that is what the reply channel is for.

Why the rungs are ordered this way

The order is not effort, it is how much the game can be argued with. A playable game produces an experience. A scored one produces a number you can check the rule behind. A measured one has been changed by contact with players. An answered one has a public position on the objections. Each rung is a step further from we made a thing toward we made a claim and defended it.

One consequence worth stating: measured is the hard one, and everything before it is under the author's control. A game can be built to scored in a weekend and then sit there for a year, because moving up needs other people to play it. That is the honest reason the first game has its own domain at what-can-it-do.games.sgit.ai — a link you can send to somebody is the mechanism by which a rung gets earned.