Start with a milestone delta sheet
Write each milestone as a path from player action to the next decision. The worksheet below is an authoring aid adapted from the source methods for executable causality, progression, and deletion checks. It is not a native NovelToGame file format.
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Milestone | An observable change in situation, capability, opportunity, or understanding |
| Earning action | What the player personally completes to make the change valid |
| Choices before | Available actions, opportunities, costs, and understanding at that point |
| Committed change | The fact that has changed and will be read later by a rule or character |
| New action after | What the player can now do, or do differently |
| Materially different next decision | The new tradeoff created by this change |
| Readable feedback | The character action, object, space, or outcome that communicates the change |
| Counterpath without the milestone | The action, cost, or judgment lost when the milestone is removed |
Use this sentence as a check: state before + player earning action + world rule → committed change + readable feedback + materially different next decision. Progression may change understanding, but the player must still act on that understanding. Turning to a new paragraph alone does not complete this path.
Place milestones where the conditions for action truly change
A chapter ending, a filled experience bar, a title, or a revealed secret may accompany progression. Put the milestone itself in a participatory change. The player may learn how to judge a rule, acquire a way to act, change what another person chooses to do, or replace one cost with another.
Ask these questions when selecting a milestone:
- What concrete action did the player take to earn it?
- Which fact now persists, and where will later play read it?
- What can the player immediately do that was unavailable or unreasonable before?
- How does the next decision change in its target, opportunity, cost, or understanding?
- What lets the player read that the change has occurred?
A change in understanding must enter the action surface. After discovering the true relationship between two irrigation channels, a player could reorder the flow, persuade a sceptical person to verify it with them, or accept a smaller harvest. If the secret adds only an explanatory paragraph and the player proceeds with the same options and costs, it remains a disclosure rather than a complete progression milestone.
Complete original example: the North Slope Orchard's final water turn
The following scene from the fictional paper game *The North Slope Orchard* is original teaching material. No build was run and no playtest occurred. The player is the orchard cooperative's temporary night steward. Only one turn of channel water remains before dawn. Older sister He Yun wants to irrigate the market pears on the south slope and fill the contracted number of baskets. Younger sister He Qing wants to preserve three late-ripening trees on the north slope, whose grafts their mother promised to a neighbouring village's seed exchange. The sisters have not managed the water together for three years.
At the start, the player can inspect gates, feel the soil, walk the channels, question each sister separately, or send the entire water turn south or north. The player does not yet know that an old stone divider cuts off the north channel whenever the south gate is fully open, or whether the slopes can receive water in sequence. “Support He Yun” and “support He Qing” are therefore broad declarations; the apparent cost is simply contract baskets versus grafts.
One author-designed paper rule creates the cost. After the brief flow test, one packing interval remains before the first bell, the sealing deadline. The south already holds enough ripe pears; this water turn does not change their quantity. He Yun alone can fill every basket except the last. The player must stay south to carry and sort for that basket to be sealed on time. The distant divider prevents the player from packing and operating the gates. The cost comes from time and labour, not orchard yield.
The first milestone should make the player discover how the water actually travels. The second should turn that understanding into a costly arrangement and elicit concrete actions from both sisters. The example contains no levels, experience points, upgrade prices, or reward collection. It tests only whether two milestones materially change the next decision.
Milestone one: the player discovers the irrigation order through action
He Yun opens the south gate to its usual position while the player walks to the late trees; the north channel stays dry. At the divider, the player places a fallen leaf at each channel head and reduces the south gate to half-open. The southern leaf continues downhill, and the northern leaf moves beyond the stone lip. He Qing watches the north and strikes a basin when water arrives. He Yun returns to the waiting pears, while the player sees the southern soil darken. The brief test ends before packing begins.
| Milestone-one field | Content in this example |
|---|---|
| Choices before | Send all water south and stay to help He Yun pack, send all water north, or keep listening to separate claims |
| Earning action | Change the gate position, trace both channels with leaves, and have the player observe the south while He Qing observes the north |
| Committed change | The player confirms that the south still receives water with its gate half-open; He Qing witnesses water arriving north, and their observations jointly support a split sequence |
| New action after | Propose half-flow first, followed by closing the south gate at the bell, with He Yun packing, He Qing watching the north, and the player operating the divider |
| Materially different next decision | Decide whether to give up helping He Yun seal the final basket and operate the split so the north graft trees also receive water |
| Readable feedback | Both leaves cross their channel heads, He Qing strikes the basin, and the player sees the south-slope soil darken |
| Counterpath without the milestone | The player can still send the whole water turn to only one slope and cannot propose a split verified by observers on both slopes |
The player must act on the new understanding: stay south and help seal the full contract, or operate the divider at the cost of one sealed basket. Playing the mother's old letter would leave the sisters, channels, and player actions unchanged.
Milestone two: turn understanding into a shared commitment
The player chooses the split and remains at the divider. He Yun packs alone on the south slope. He Qing watches the north, strikes the basin when water arrives, and clears the channel head. Hearing the signal confirms the half-flow. At the first bell, the player closes the south gate and sends the remaining water north; the contract-sealing interval also ends.
Back south, the player finds the completed baskets sealed and enough ripe pears beside the unfinished last basket. Without the player's carrying and sorting, He Yun missed the bell. The authored location-and-labour rule causes the shortfall; irrigation never changes the ripe-fruit count.
The player can ask the buyer to record the smaller delivery, or offer a tasting basket after the seed exchange for the buyer's consideration. The player chooses a joint explanation. He Yun marks the sealed baskets; He Qing reties the three trees' red cloth markers and agrees to accompany her sister.
| Milestone-two field | Content in this example |
|---|---|
| Choices before | The split remains a verbal plan; the player can still return south to help pack or stay at the divider and carry it out |
| Earning action | Stay at the divider, execute the gate sequence, hear the north-slope arrival signal, verify He Yun's sealed-basket count after the bell, and propose a meeting in which both sisters face the buyer |
| Committed change | The south shipment is one sealed basket short, the three north trees have received water and retain their fruit, and both sisters agree to explain the contract and graft purpose together |
| New action after | Bring verifiable sealed baskets, ripe fruit left outside the deadline, tree conditions, and both affected people into an honest negotiation |
| Materially different next decision | At dawn, ask the buyer first to record the smaller delivery or first propose a tasting basket after the seed exchange; both options begin from the executed split and the actual one-basket sealing shortfall |
| Readable feedback | Sealed baskets, ripe pears beside the unfinished final basket, wet soil on the north slope, retied red markers, and the sisters walking to the gate together |
| Counterpath without the milestone | Without personally executing the split and verifying the basket count, dawn still presents only the original contract-versus-memorial-tree choice |
The buyer's response remains a later design task: accept a smaller delivery, reschedule, or end this order. This paper path establishes a new decision with different objects, evidence, and costs. Reconciliation, economic balance, and player enjoyment require evidence from later design and a real candidate.
Use a counterpath without the milestone to expose false progression
Walk again from the same initial state, remove the milestone, and retain only its surface signals. In the *North Slope Orchard* counterpath, the player reads the mother's old letter, receives “orchard understanding +1,” and then sees the same options: send water south and stay to help pack, or send water north. The player never discovers the channel relationship, cannot propose a split, and cannot connect staying at the divider to the labour cost of one fewer sealed basket. Removing the letter and the added point leaves the next decision effectively unchanged, exposing false progression.
Use this comparison to revise the path:
| Problem found | Smallest repair |
|---|---|
| Only a number or title rises | Define a persistent change in situation, capability, opportunity, or understanding that later play reads |
| The player only reads a secret | Have the player use it to change an action, order, or cost |
| New permission opens another version of the same button | Explain how the new action changes its target, opportunity, or world response |
| A character gives verbal approval and then behaves as before | Make the character act visibly in response to the player's specific deed |
| The same options appear before and after | Rewrite the next decision with evidence, opportunities, or costs that exist only after the change |
| Removing the milestone produces nearly the same result | Remove the passage or establish its real effect on the later path |
A paper counterpath can check causal difference and scope. Interface clarity, player comprehension, and pacing require separate observation in a candidate build.
Validate one progression path at a time
Choose one representative path that runs from the pre-milestone state to the changed decision. Preserve the initial state, player actions, committed facts, and readable feedback. Then walk the counterpath without the milestone and compare what characters know, what they do, where objects are, and which opportunities genuinely exist.
This design pass focuses on change across milestones. The core-loop guide handles closure within one cycle; the level-pacing guide handles teaching and recombination across segments; the reward guide handles award, holding, and use; the stat guide handles numeric sources and rule checks. XP curves, upgrade prices, and long-term balance answer other questions. A progression path may contain no numbers, or may include them, as long as the player's next decision truly changes.
Once the representative path and counterpath are explicit, carry them into a real candidate. A paper result can establish a causal difference in the design. It cannot establish enjoyable progression, balance, or smooth pacing.
FAQ
Does story-game progression require levels and experience points?
No. Persistent changes in situation, capability, opportunity, character action, or understanding can create progression. Check how the player earns the change and how it alters the next decision.
Can revealing a secret count as a progression milestone?
Yes, when the player earns or verifies the understanding through action and then uses it to take a new action, reach a new opportunity, or accept a new cost. An added explanation with unchanged later options and outcomes does not complete the progression path.
Do it with the skill
With SOURCE_BIBLE.md, a selected CONCEPT.md, and PRODUCT_BRIEF.md in place, use /game-world-design ($game-world-design in Codex) to design one progression path. For each milestone, record the earning action, choices before, committed change, new action after, materially different next decision, readable feedback, and counterpath without the milestone. Place the result in GAME_DESIGN's world rules and progression, decision beats, and validation slice. Deliver the paper design only; do not claim a build, playtest, balance result, or proof of fun.
Read the method: False-progression veto and changes in situation, capability, or understanding · Executable causality, representative paths, progression, and world response · Public game-experience and world-design workflow