# Step Away final product freeze

## Launch shape

- The app is free.
- The official deck is the first paid product.
- Cases remain open to all players.
- Premium campaigns are built into the product structure as future paid story arcs.
- The app carries the living layer: global case locks, player history, Clinic growth, world conditions, campaigns and the ledger.

## Deck shape

The official deck uses 63 front cards across seven 3x3 print sheets:

- 52 core intervention cards, matching a standard poker deck.
- 2 optional Risk Event Jokers: Fracture and Resilience.
- 4 player aid cards.
- 5 reference / friction-reduction cards.

The back sheet is one repeated 3x3 card-back page. Use the same back for all fronts.

## Risk Event Mode

Optional. Shuffle both Jokers into the deck.

- Red Joker, Fracture: all players discard their hands, redraw to hand count, Pressure +2, remove the Joker. The app does not know unknown cards lost from hand.
- Black Joker, Resilience: turn the played pile face down and place it on top of the draw deck without shuffling, reopen spent exact-card availability and suit powers in the app, Pressure -1, Anchor +1, remove the Joker.

Risk Event Mode awards extra Afterlight because the deck is harsher even if Jokers do not appear.

## World condition rhythm

World conditions are generated from a seven-day week and four daily time blocks using Europe/London time:

- Night Watch
- Morning Intake
- Afternoon Pressure
- Evening Outreach

This avoids a static weekly event and lets the app feel alive without manual updates every day.

## Case previews

Case previews are modular and category-coloured. They use:

- category colour
- category icon
- generic figure silhouette
- small sign tags
- global progress bar toward locking

The case image should identify the pressure category without turning the case into one fixed portrait.

## Campaign mode

Campaign mode is scaffolded as paid story arcs. Campaigns use the same deck and core system, but follow one case through linked chapters with saved progress and a final local conclusion.

PayPal unlock/API integration is the intended future unlock route.
