# Step In v16 Rulebook

## What you are doing
Step In is an app-assisted pressure puzzle. Each player has their own Mind, Body and Soul lanes. The app gives the Moment targets. Your cards build raw values. The app applies your current Aspect afterwards.

## Setup
1. Each player chooses one condition deck.
2. Shuffle your deck to form your draw deck.
3. Draw 6 cards. This is your normal hand size.
4. Build the players in the app. The app randomly assigns each player an Aspect.
5. Put the matching physical Aspect card in front of you, front side up.
6. Choose and load a scenario in the app.

If you later become Pressed Mind, your hand size is 5 while that Pressed side is up.

## Card zones
- Draw deck: face-down deck you draw from.
- Hand: cards available to play. Unplayed cards stay in your hand between Moments unless an effect makes you discard them.
- Lanes: your Mind, Body and Soul play areas.
- Banked Lead area: face-up cards saved by Bank effects for the next Moment.
- Discard pile: cards discarded by effects or removed before halfway and not returned to hand.
- Used pile: cards that were in your lanes and moved to Used during Cleanup after a Moment. Used cards are not discard. Do not reshuffle Used cards during the current scenario.

In Moment 1, your Used pile starts empty. Cards currently in lanes are not Used yet.

## Moment structure
1. Reveal the Moment. The app shows Mind, Body and Soul targets.
2. Lead phase. Before halfway, place up to one Lead per lane.
3. Halfway lock. Current Leads lock.
4. Support phase. After halfway, play Supports. Resolve each Support, then its Ripple, before another Support.
5. Final entry. Enter raw Mind, Body and Soul totals into the app.
6. App result. The app applies Aspect modifiers, grades results, checks RETURN recovery, and Presses Aspects when a trigger is met.
7. Cleanup and draw-up.

## Lead and Support
The first card in a lane is always that lane's Lead.
The second card in that lane is its Support.

Before halfway, you may rearrange or return uncommitted Leads to hand. At halfway, the current Leads lock.
If a lane has no Lead before halfway, you may still play the first card there after halfway; it becomes the Lead, but that lane usually misses its Support chance.

## Ripple
A Ripple is the extra effect printed after Support. Resolve the Support first, then its Ripple. If a Ripple says it changes another lane, it means one of your other lanes unless it explicitly says another player or the table.

## Bank 1
Bank 1 means:
1. Reveal the top card of your draw deck.
2. Assign it face up to Mind, Body or Soul for the next Moment.
3. Place it in your Banked Lead area beside that lane.
4. It does not enter your hand.

A Banked card becomes that lane's Lead next Moment. It is not a Support. You may have at most one Banked Lead assigned to each lane. If all three lanes already have Banked Leads, discard the newly revealed card.

## Final value entry
At the end of the Moment:
1. Finish resolving Supports and Ripples.
2. Count each player's raw Mind, Body and Soul totals.
3. Enter those raw totals into the app.
4. The app applies Aspect modifiers.
5. The app grades each adjusted value against the target.

Ideal means exact. Close means within 1. Miss low or Miss high means outside Close range.

## Cleanup and draw-up
After the app resolves the Moment:
1. Move all Lead and Support cards in your lanes to your Used pile.
2. Keep all unplayed cards in your hand.
3. Keep any Banked Leads assigned for the next Moment in your Banked Lead area.
4. Draw from your draw deck until your hand has 6 cards.
5. If your Mind Aspect is Pressed, draw up to 5 instead.
6. If your draw deck is empty and you must draw, shuffle your discard pile into a new draw deck and mark Reshuffled in the app.
7. Do not shuffle your Used pile into your draw deck during this scenario.

Cards enter the Used pile only during Cleanup after app resolution.

## Aspects and Pressed
At setup, players choose decks, not Aspects. The app randomly assigns Aspects.

Aspect modifiers apply after raw final values are entered. Do not apply Aspect modifiers while resolving physical card text.

An Aspect can become Pressed in three ways:
1. Reshuffle: if your discard pile is shuffled into your draw deck.
2. Repeated results: two consecutive Moments with Ideal in the same lane, or two consecutive Moments with a Miss in the same lane.
3. Scenario boundary: some Moments Press or shift affected players.

When the app says an Aspect became Pressed, flip that player's matching Aspect card to its Pressed side. Pressed is a player constraint, never table-wide. Aspect modifiers still apply while Pressed.

Pressed Mind: hand size is 5. Draw up to 5 during Cleanup.
Pressed Body: you may not Bank. If a card says Bank 1, ignore only that Bank instruction.
Pressed Soul: you may resolve at most 2 Supports total each Moment. Banked Leads do not count as Supports.

## RETURN recovery
Each deck has three RETURN cards: Mind, Body and Soul.

A RETURN card does not recover you immediately when its Ripple line is read. It marks a recovery attempt that the app checks after final value entry.

You recover from Pressed only if all are true:
1. Your Aspect is currently Pressed.
2. You physically played the RETURN matching your current Pressed Aspect category.
3. That RETURN was played in its matching lane this Moment.
4. That matching lane finished Close or Ideal after app adjustment.
5. You selected that exact matching RETURN in the app.

Example: if your Mind Aspect is Pressed, only your Mind RETURN can recover it.

## Scenario progression and ending
After each Moment, the app looks at all player results. If one lane has more misses than the others, the next Moment follows that lane's route. If no lane dominates, the route is Balanced.

After the final Moment, the app shows a scenario ending with the whole-scenario pattern and the final-Moment pattern. This is not a win/loss. It is the shape of what happened inside.
