# Hertz Quest: After Hours / World prototype 1 **Current release: Director’s update — September 23, 2026.** Thirteen walkable locations, seven territories, nine chapters, two optional activities and the 60-slide V6 research deck. See [Director_Update.md](Director_Update.md) for current scope, recording controls, art provenance and research changes. Earlier PDF/PPT world-bible exports remain dated design snapshots. Built September 22, 2026. The current entrance is `game/index.html`. ## Play - Click the floor, or use WASD / arrow keys, to walk within a location. - Click a character or their name in the side panel. Lucky walks over before dialogue starts. Press E to talk when nearby. - Ask a research question to open that character's original V5 slides. Return to game resumes the conversation. - Choose Drive / map, or press M, to walk back to the rental. Select a district and the car follows connected streets. Press E or Park & enter when it arrives. - H toggles character labels. The notebook offers all 60 original slides. The question-mark button provides help and a fresh-night reset. ## The changed finale The café serves S02 only. Anita gives Lucky the invitation. Drive to Biscayne Marina, walk from the Hertz to the gangway, cross the yacht deck and enter the salon. Portia Stern and Sandy Yield are fictional party guests. Cathie hosts the fictional financial meeting, while Max presents the bill. Choose cash, debt or partner equity for the corresponding ending. Portia and Sandy wear coral and turquoise bikinis on the yacht party deck. Cathie and Max keep their business attire in the separate salon. Lucky wears his white Miami leisure suit. The mood is a cheeky, glamorous retro adventure. Yacht ownership and spoken lines are invented. ## Implemented Eleven walkable room screens across seven territories, plus a drivable city map. Lucky has a separate four-frame alpha sprite. Floor limits keep him on the foreground walking surfaces. NPC clicks trigger an approach and then dialogue. City travel follows an axis-aligned road graph. The interface supports mouse, keyboard and touch clicks. Persistent story state includes rental keys, yacht invitation, the jellyfish service ticket and cleanup, EVA's reveal, a financing ending and visited locations. The browser stores progress locally. The game makes no analytics or customer-data requests. Research views retain their existing local bookmarks and viewed-slide state. The beach lift and robot reveal currently display the approved storyboards as cutscenes. Research slides, source notes and original deck downloads remain bundled locally. The original V5 research has not been refreshed by this world-building update. ## Still in production Further inventory interactions, detailed obstacle navigation, separated and animated resident NPCs, recorded voices, ambient sound, action effects and cinematic travel. Residents currently appear inside the painted room backgrounds. This build is a playable prototype, not a finished adventure episode. ## Source files - `game/world-config.js`: room geometry, residents, entrances, greetings and road connections. - `game/world.js`: movement, conversations, story flags and saved progress. - `game/world.css`: world presentation and responsive controls. - `game/research.html` and `game/research.js`: embedded slide reader. - `game/research-bindings.json`: character research topics. Run `python game/rebuild_bindings.py` after editing this mapping or the bible cast/scenes. - `source/game_bible.json`: current editorial specification. Its remaining puzzles describe the intended full episode. - `source/world_art_prompts.json`: exact built-in image-generation prompts, original locations and saved asset paths. - `game/world/assets/`: all runtime art, including the alpha sprite revision. Original generated files remain untouched. ## Reference versions `Review.html`, the current Markdown bible, CSV handoffs and the 13-page World Update PPTX/PDF describe the new yacht finale. The earlier 43-page bible PPTX/PDF retain the previous café finale as historical snapshots. Use the new supplement for room scope and the final scene. Earlier text and CSV files are preserved in `archive/pre_world_revision/`. The master package lives in the Dropbox workspace. A matching copy is saved outside Dropbox under `C:/Users/phill/Documents/epochX/Hertz_Quest/Game_Bible_v2`. Both are on C:. The ZIP beside each folder contains the same current package. ## Soundtrack v1 / September 23, 2026 Seven original retro lounge loops now follow the game locations. Press Play music above the world; use the track selector to audition any cue. Volume is saved, transitions crossfade, dialogue and research soften the mix, and hidden tabs pause playback. See Soundtrack.html for listening, Soundtrack.md for details and source/compose_soundtrack.py for the editable score. ## Full route test edition / September 23, 2026 Launch_Game.cmd opens game/index.html?playtest=1 with an independent save. The nine chapters now include the agreement, café contribution, log classification, fixed auction overbid and invoice, beach incident, cleanup, safe four-car dispatch, hypothetical data-offer choices, EVA handoff and Cathie evidence classification before three financing endings. Tonight’s route guides the run. Existing illustrated boards serve as story payoffs. See Playtest_Guide.md. ## Alex Karp cameo / 23 September 2026 S03 adds Alex Karp at the right of the Landing Strip exterior. Three optional banter choices, three research groups, and the existing club-log activity are available after walking over. Prior progress and all nine chapter flags are retained. The original plate and storyboard are preserved. The artwork, presence and dialogue are invented satire. ## Marina character refresh / 23 September 2026 Marina keeps her name and gameplay. Her beach room and four-panel jellyfish storyboard now use the matching Asian swimwear-editorial model direction, with jet-black hair and the existing turquoise bikini. The new versioned assets replace active references; earlier art remains preserved. ## Current world atlas The playable world now uses seven territories and eleven scene entrances with animated zoom, travel and current/next-stop markers. See [Atlas World Guide](Atlas_World_Guide.md) for the current territory grouping and controls. Open World atlas or press G in the game. ## Living scene performance Walking now leads into camera close-ups and in-scene speech clouds. Lucky and Nina have new idle gesture poses; other characters and locations have subtle motion. Use P to audition Lucky’s poses and Motion to pause ambient animation. See [Scene Performance Notes](Scene_Performance_Notes.md) for the current implementation and asset prompts. ## Mack Piston: counter encounter At S01, approach Nina and choose **Try your best pickup line**. Her mechanic boyfriend Mack emerges from the service bay, delivers a comic dust-cloud beating, and leaves Lucky rumpled and seeing stars. Nina returns him to the rental agreement. The optional scene adds no chapter gate. Mack remains available for banter and research on maintenance, operational intelligence and uptime. [Full script and assets](Counter_Scuffle_Notes.md).