§07 · Gameplay Loop · Per Mission
CORE LOOP
Hold the Sigil
REPEAT UNTIL FALL
Read Castle K-11 — a proposed castle-defense game mode.
PHASE I — PREPARATION
Vector: INT
Walk your lanes. Plant towers on chokepoints. Read the intel, if the Archive shares any. Hero proximity buffs matching-stat towers. Resource is Signal — you earn it by holding what you already have.
PHASE II — SIEGE
Vector: STR
Horn blows. Waves enter multiple lanes simultaneously. Direct hero control, real-time. Hold your lane or sprint to save a friend’s. Towers and heroes alone are fine. Towers and heroes together are survival.
PHASE III — CRISIS
Vector: LUCK
The Echo arrives — or a Rift opens where your wall used to be. Towers alone cannot win this. Hero coordination is required. Someone will speak to you during this phase. What you answer matters.
Game mode — Castle K-11
Design proposal · 1–4 player co-op · 30–40 minute match target
Choose a Warden. Build your defenses. Hold an orbital castle through twelve waves and the Echo at its heart.
The three phases above are the original mission loop. Everything below is a proposed mode built from that loop: the castle layout, encounter schedule, recovery rules, and balance targets are new design, pending playtesting.
The castle
The station plans call them docking arms, pressure doors, and a transmitter enclosure. The Wardens call them roads, gates, and a keep. After enough sieges, the older words are easier to shout.
K-11 is the Sigil you were woken to hold. In this mode, its orbital structure has been fortified into a castle: four enclosed boarding approaches meet an outer defensive ring, a courtyard connects the gates, and the keep protects the working beacon. No king sits inside it. There is a signal, still reaching someone.
This defense fits Act II, after the first Echo greeting. The Archive may offer intelligence; it does not command the other factions. Wardens cooperate because the Sigil must survive, carrying their existing affiliations and grudges with them. The assault brings familiar threats to the same place without establishing that they share a commander or origin.
What the team must hold
The keep is the objective. Each outer gate delays attackers and protects tower positions. A broken gate opens a direct route through the courtyard; losing one hurts, but the match continues. Losing the keep ends the defense immediately.
The courtyard is the team’s crossing point. A Warden can leave a stable lane, pass through the inner ring, and reinforce another gate. The same short routes let a breach threaten several defenders at once. Surviving towers still matter after their gate falls.
All four approaches are used with three or four players. Solo and two-player matches use two opposing approaches, with the unused approaches sealed. Waves still arrive on both active lanes together. Solo crises present their required hero actions in sequence; they never require two players to activate something simultaneously. Enemy counts and response windows scale with party size; their values require playtesting.
One siege, three cycles
Each cycle follows Preparation → Siege → Crisis. Preparation lasts until every active player is ready. Siege contains four numbered waves; each wave ends when its spawned attackers are defeated. There is a short regroup interval between waves, but no full repair phase. After waves 4, 8, and 12, the corresponding Crisis begins. Resolving the first two crises returns the team to Preparation; resolving the third ends the match.
| Cycle | Siege pressure | Crisis and required response |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Waves 1–4 | The Tide tests the gates. Reclaimer squads then probe the lane receiving the least attention. | A Rift creates a temporary boarding route into the courtyard. Wardens intercept its finite incursion, then one hero holds the exposed junction until it seals while the others cover. |
| 2 · Waves 5–8 | The Corrosion arrives alongside Reclaimer pressure. Its successive generations adapt to the damage used against them. | A Reclaimer assault commits to the weakest gate. Defeat the assault and have a Warden secure its boarding junction; intact towers support that action but cannot perform it. |
| 3 · Waves 9–12 | Corrosion returns hardened against the damage used in waves 5–8; retool during the preceding Preparation before wave 9. Tide pressure and Reclaimer flanks punish a team that has spent everything on one lane. | An Echo enters the inner ring, commandeers towers, and addresses a Warden. Heroes must deal with the hacked defenses, answer its offer, and defeat the Echo while keeping K-11 operational. |
Pressure rises through combinations, breaches, and competing demands. Basic alerts always identify the threatened approach and an imminent breach. Full advance composition remains conditional on Archive intel or abilities such as Yuen’s Forecast. A Rift telegraphs a temporary route before attackers use it; it changes the battlefield without making a permanent safe lane into an unannounced loss.
The first Crisis still carries a voice: a fragment calls through the opened route. The second includes a Reclaimer demand. These are proposed encounter beats, not explanations of who sent the fragment or what the Rift is.
Preparation: spend what you held
Signal remains the resource earned by holding what the team already has. The proposed economy gives the team a starting reserve and a shared Signal award after each wave for the keep and each gate still held. Kills grant no Signal. A breached gate stops contributing until it has been secured and rebuilt during Preparation; reclaiming it never awards repeated capture income.
During Preparation, spend the common reserve on towers, tower improvements, damage-type changes, or gate repairs. During Siege and Crisis, Wardens can fight and use their existing abilities, but ordinary construction and purchases wait for Preparation. That restriction does not disable Torque’s Retrofit or other dossier abilities. The keep cannot be repaired during a match, so damage reaching it carries forward.
The starting reserve must afford coverage on every active approach. Each later budget should force a choice between restoring a gate and improving a defended lane. Prices, income amounts, and structure durability are playtest variables; the spending priorities are the design commitment.
Hero proximity continues to buff towers with matching stats. A tower’s vector and its damage type remain distinct: a DEX defense answers the Corrosion’s listed weakness, but DEX alone does not excuse firing the same adapted damage type for four waves. Retooling between cycles is part of survival.
Siege: heroes make the difference
Each player chooses one of the ten existing Wardens for the match. All three dossier abilities are available from the start, with their recorded effects and values intact. The phase labels INT, STR, and LUCK describe the loop; they do not lock other Wardens out of a phase.
The mode builds the hero-siege feeling through direct control, tower investment, and rescues under increasing pressure. Progress stays inside the match: the team ends with a stronger defensive network and more demanding combinations to manage. Hero leveling, equipment loot, and permanent stat gains are outside this first draft.
An example four-Warden team gives each player a different reason to move:
| Warden | Job in the castle | Decision under pressure |
|---|---|---|
| Sable Rook | Hold a crowded gate with Draw and Event Horizon. | Use Long Arc to clear a breach, knowing she cannot attack for the following 8 seconds. |
| Ren Silao | Reinforce threatened approaches through friendly towers in Chronoslip range. | Leave a healthy lane early enough to rescue another, while keeping a usable tower route. |
| Torque | Improve the defenses with Retrofit and respond with Jury Rig. | Invest her attention in a surviving chokepoint or turn a threatened structure into temporary firepower. |
| Dr. Yuen Asara | Use Forecast to identify the next wave’s priorities. | Save This Version Only for a dangerous Rift trigger or spend its 8 seconds stabilizing the current fight. |
This composition is an example, not a roster requirement. Other Wardens bring their documented tools. Every required junction interaction is available to any Warden, so no named hero or vector is mandatory for completion.
Crisis: the castle asks something of you
Threat identities and weaknesses remain as recorded: Corrosion → DEX; Reclaimers → INT; Echoes → LUCK; Tide → STR; Rift → AGI. The Rift remains an environmental change, not a creature with a health bar. Defeating its incursion and securing a junction ends that local encounter, not the existence of the Rift.
In the final Crisis, the Echo turns the team’s best investment against it. An affected tower can be temporarily isolated by a hero at its control point. Isolation stops that tower firing until the Echo is defeated; it also removes its defensive coverage. Remaining attackers keep moving while the team decides which controls it can afford to reach.
The Echo offers to release one hacked tower if the team opens an outer gate. Accept restores that tower immediately and permanently breaches the active gate with the most integrity remaining, admitting one additional assault group through that approach. The offered tower and gate are identified before the vote; if gates have equal integrity, one eligible gate is selected and shown. Refuse leaves the tower hacked and preserves the gate. If every active gate is already breached, the offer cannot be accepted. The response is chosen by a team vote; a tie or an unanswered offer defaults to refusal. In solo play, the player chooses directly. Combat continues during the response window.
This is a local bargain with visible tactical consequences. The Echo may know a Warden’s name without proving what it is. No answer completes LF-0001 or chooses a campaign ending.
Recovery and the last stand
At zero health, a Warden is incapacitated at their position. Another Warden can revive them through an uninterrupted interaction; taking damage interrupts the attempt. A downed Warden who is not revived returns at the keep after a delay while the defense continues. In solo play, the same delayed return applies. Timings and restored health are playtest variables. This is a proposed recovery rule, not a claim about resurrection in the lore.
A full team incapacitation does not end the match while K-11 still stands: surviving defenses may buy time for a return. A breached outer ring becomes a last stand in the courtyard. The keep’s destruction always takes priority, including if the Echo falls at the same moment.
Victory: complete all twelve waves, resolve all three crises, clear their remaining attackers, and keep K-11 operational. A temporary Rift encounter counts as resolved when its junction is secured; the Rift itself is never a kill target. Defeating the final Echo restores surviving hacked towers.
Defeat: the keep is destroyed and K-11 goes dark. Retry starts a fresh match; repeated losses do not subtract Sigils from the canonical 1,213 count. A victory records one successful defense. It neither prevents Act III’s later loss nor restores the Lattice.
The reward is a held Sigil and the damage report for the next watch.
Design provenance
Castle K-11 was drafted from the user’s request for one castle-defense mode inspired by X Hero Siege’s hero-and-castle objective. Its setting, Wardens, threats, and terminology come from the Dimming, vectors, threat archive, existing Warden dossiers, and campaign acts. The original source is signal-decay/public/site/data.js and signal-decay/public/site/app.jsx; neither contains this mode. The mode is a written design proposal, not a playable implementation.