Remove confusion. Complexity hides tension.

Today is a subtraction day. You are not adding anything — you are removing things that create confusion. If the player doesn't know what to do next, the game has a clarity problem, not a feature problem.

Ask yourself these three questions:

  • What action is unclear?
  • When do I not know what to do?
  • What feels cluttered?
Ami — Combat Clarity
  • Remove unnecessary console logs.
  • Ensure only one active encounter at a time.
  • Confirm banking is clearly restricted to Camp.
  • Remove experimental code that is no longer used.
Ida — Economy Clarity
  • Ensure only one active build at a time (V1 constraint).
  • Clarify debt warning visually.
  • Remove unused variables.
  • Clean up job generation logic.
  • Play and identify 3 confusing moments
  • Remove all unnecessary console.log statements
  • Remove unused variables and functions
  • Ensure one active event at a time
  • Simplify any overly complex logic
  • Verify: codebase is smaller or cleaner than yesterday
    •
    Checkpoint

    The codebase is smaller or cleaner than yesterday. Confusion is reduced.

    No feature expansion disguised as cleanup. "While I'm in here, I'll just add..." — NO.

    Adding features during cleanup — the temptation is real. Today is subtraction only.

    Removing code that's actually needed — test after every removal. If something breaks, undo immediately.

    Not testing after removal — every deletion should be followed by a play test. Verify nothing is broken.

    "Improving" code instead of simplifying it — refactoring is not the goal. Removal is the goal.

    This is the hardest lesson for young developers. Removing code feels like going backward. Ask: "Why is removing code powerful?" Answer: every line of code is a potential bug. Less code = fewer bugs = clearer game.