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Hardening Audit Pass Plan

Objective

Perform a second, deeper audit and hardening pass on Sky Circuit to make the game feel less like a raw developer build and more like a complete local arcade cabinet experience: clearer onboarding, familiar menu navigation for non-technical users, robust state transitions, cleaner terminology, stricter compiler checks, and verified builds.

Findings From Audit

  • Some user-facing text undersold the procedural art/audio direction. The implementation already uses real procedural vector art and generated tones, so user-facing copy should present those as the game's production style.
  • Navigation was too developer-centric: the title screen only offered an instant start prompt with controls compressed into one line. Non-technical users benefit from familiar menu patterns: highlighted choices, arrow-key navigation, a dedicated How To Play screen, and explicit back/confirm prompts.
  • Exit flow was implicit through the window close button. A menu Exit option backed by a shouldExit_ flag makes the path clear.
  • Build quality should include common warning flags on Clang/GCC/MSVC, not just a successful default compile.

JoyZoning Architectural Mapping

DOMAIN

  • Gameplay rules in Player, Enemy, Bullet, Powerup, StageDirector, and Effects remain deterministic and simple.
  • DOMAIN probe: no new disk/network I/O is introduced; the added navigation does not alter pure gameplay rules.

CORE

  • Game state machine expands from Title/Playing/Paused/StageClear/GameOver to include HowTo and menu selection.
  • CORE probe: Game.cpp coordinates state transitions and input; it must avoid burying game mechanics in menu code.

INFRASTRUCTURE

  • Existing raylib window/audio/build integrations remain the only infrastructure layer.
  • INFRASTRUCTURE probe: CMake remains simple; no new external assets, engines, accounts, or services. Warning flags improve build hygiene without changing runtime behavior.

UI

  • Title menu, How To Play screen, and pause instructions are user-facing UI improvements.
  • UI probe: non-technical users should be able to discover start/help/exit and controls from inside the game without reading README.

Implementation Steps

  1. Add menu selection and How To Play state to Game.
  2. Replace underconfident wording in user-facing copy with procedural-asset terminology.
  3. Update README with clearer non-technical quick start, controls, menu navigation, and honest limitations.
  4. Add common compiler warnings for Clang/GCC/MSVC.
  5. Re-run residue search and CMake build.

Sovereign Triad Audit

THE ARCHITECT (Boundary Probe)

Most vulnerable boundary is Game.cpp, where UI navigation and core state machine live together. Keep the change focused on state transitions and rendering; do not move weapon/enemy/collision rules into the menu implementation. File paths: Game.h, Game.cpp, README.md, CMakeLists.txt.

THE CRITIC (Assumption Probe)

Assumption: users understand arrow-key menu navigation and Enter/Escape patterns. Harden by rendering explicit prompts on every non-gameplay screen and keeping Start Mission selected by default for immediate play.

THE SRE (Atomic Probe)

If a patch fails mid-pass, recovery is to restore the small edited set (Game.h, Game.cpp, README.md, CMakeLists.txt, scratchpad.md) and rebuild. No persistent saves, migrations, or external assets are introduced, so rollback is source-only and build artifacts remain disposable under build/.

Mantra: Double down on this concept, audit and revise in its entirety.