# meat

A from-scratch browser **first-person-shooter game engine** with a configurable
**PS1 aesthetic**. Everything is hand-written: a **software rasterizer** draws
textured triangles into a low-res CPU framebuffer, then Canvas2D blits it
upscaled. No WebGL/WebGPU, no game-engine dependencies.

This file is the durable project brief (checked in, auto-loaded). The per-topic
rules live in `.agents/rules/*.md`.

## Guiding decisions (the "why", not derivable from code)

- **PS1 look is a set of live knobs**, dial-able from full-PS1 to clean. See
  `RenderConfig`. Nothing about the era is hardcoded into the renderer.
- **Software rasterizer on purpose** — the PS1 look leans on rasterizer traits
  (vertex snap, low-res + dither/banding, no mipmaps). Raytracing was considered
  and cut (it removes the very artifacts we want). Note: **affine texture "swim"
  was dropped** — texturing is always perspective-correct now (it warped badly on
  the big outdoor terrain); the other era knobs stay.
- **Minimal architecture.** Scene-graph-lite / plain data + functions.
  Deliberately **not** ECS or any "Big Game Architecture." Prefer the smallest
  clear structure; add knobs to experiment rather than abstractions.
- **Culling beats batching here.** A "draw call" is just a JS loop (no GPU state),
  so merging the world into big meshes only defeats visibility skipping. Instead
  the outdoor world is stored as spatial **chunks** that are frustum-culled per
  frame; on-screen solids also **backface-cull**. This is what keeps a dense world
  (thousands of trees/rocks) affordable — off-screen content costs ~nothing.
- **2D assets only.** Sprites/billboards (PS1-style), **no 3D model loading**.
- **Three layers, one-way deps: `engine` ← `game` ← `app`.** `engine/` owns
  reusable, content-agnostic **concepts and mechanisms**: levels, terrain, actors,
  prefabs, collision, render scenes, chunking/LOD, rasterization, and worker render
  transport. `game/` owns **this game's concrete content**: actual level values,
  placements, materials, and frog/bee/robin or oak/spruce/birch definitions.
  `app/` is browser glue (canvas, input mapping, image decode, workers, frame loop).
  Enforced: `engine/` imports nothing from `game`/`app`, `game/` nothing from `app`
  (`tests/layering.test.ts`). Both `engine` and `game` are DOM-free (tsconfig).
- **No closed game-content kinds or registries.** Instances reference concrete
  `ActorDefinition`/`Prefab` objects directly. Do not add `MobKind`, `TreeKind`,
  `*_KINDS`, content dispatch switches, or stable content-order protocols. Numeric
  prototype indexes are scene-local engine transport details only. Closed unions
  remain valid for finite engine capabilities such as collider or cloud shape.

## Stack & tooling

- **Bun** runtime + `bun test`. **TypeScript 7** (native `tsc`), strict,
  `moduleResolution: bundler`. **Vite 8** serves/builds the client (ES-module
  workers; dev/preview serve COOP/COEP headers so the multi-threaded renderer's
  `SharedArrayBuffer` works — a static prod host must send them too, or the app
  falls back to single-threaded).
- **oxc** toolchain: `oxlint` + `oxfmt` (no eslint/prettier).
- commitlint + husky (Conventional Commits), OpenSpec change workflow,
  forge-sync (Forgejo). Templates generated by `regime` from a `sigitex:` source.

## Commands

- `bun start` — Vite dev server; open the printed URL. Edits hot-reload.
- `bun run build` — production build to `dist/`.
- `bun run assets` — regenerate the placeholder PNGs in `/assets`.
- `bun run bench:browser` — Playwright: drive headless Chromium through the
  `?bench=st`/`?bench=mt` flythrough, print single-thread vs worker frame timings
  (median/p95/max). The real-browser profiler; run it on the target machine.
- `bunx tsc --build tsconfig.app.json` — **typecheck the engine+game+app graph. Use
  this**, not `bun run check` (see Caveats).
- `bunx oxlint engine game app` — lint.
- `bun test` — tests (world compilation, render protocol, boundary guards).
- `bun run serve` — Bun server (`server/server.ts`, a stub for now).

## Layout

- `engine/` — content-agnostic mechanism (no DOM, no game content); consumed by
  `game/` then `app/` via tsconfig project refs.
  - `math/` — `Vec2`, `Vec3`, `Mat4` (column-major, OpenGL-style; verified).
  - `render/` — `Color` (packed RGBA, little-endian = canvas ImageData order),
    `Framebuffer` (Uint32 color + Float32 1/w depth; `quantize` = color-depth +
    Bayer dither), `RenderConfig` (the look dials + presets), `Rasterizer`
    (optional backface cull per draw), `Frustum` (6 planes from the viewProj +
    AABB test, for chunk culling), `Texture` (nearest/bilinear, wrapping, no
    mipmaps), `Material` (texture + cull flag; a `DrawGroup` pairs a mesh with one,
    so the renderer draws by list, not by named texture), `Chunk`/`ChunkBuilder`
    (spatial batches + two-level LOD), `RenderScene` (clone-safe scene projection,
    culling + band rendering), `RenderProtocol` (shared worker frame layout), and
    `Sky` (full-resolution gradient + sun, procedural clouds sampled at 1/`step`).
  - `scene/` — `Camera` (fps yaw/pitch; far plane reaches the outdoor peaks),
    `Mesh` (indexed tris; verts stored flat: `STRIDE` floats x,y,z,u,v per vertex,
    no per-vertex objects — cache-friendly + alloc-free to draw), `Sprite`
    (Y-axis billboard), `MeshBuilder` (generic quad/slab/box construction), `Actor`
    (open behavior + render/collider contract), and `Prefab` (open static-content
    contract + type-erased placed value).
  - `world/` — `Terrain` (height contract, built-in rolling generator, generic
    patch meshing), `Collider`/`CollisionWorld`, `CharacterController`, and `Level`
    (live actor/collision state + clone-safe `RenderScene` projection).
- `game/` — this game's definitions and level data, on the engine interfaces
  (headless: no DOM, imports nothing from `app`).
  - `actors/` — the placeable things. `Mob` (a **roaming** creature — `frog` hops
    the ground, `bee` hovers/darts, `robin` mostly hops but now and then takes a
    short powered flight — the only moving geometry; each module exports an
    `ActorDefinition` factory and instances hold the resulting object directly.
    `Tree` is shared placement state; Oak/Spruce/Birch modules export material-bound
    `Prefab<Tree>` factories with no species registry. `Boulder`
    (squashed jittered part-buried sphere), `Bush` (leaf-blob cluster, shares the
    leaf mesh), `Flower` (stem + colored bloom, 2x2 atlas, double-sided). Baked props
    append into shared per-material meshes; mobs draw live.
  - `level.ts` — concrete playground values and placement policy: room dimensions,
    rolling-terrain parameters, counts/seeds/reach, material bindings, sky, and
    spawn definition lists. It places direct `Prefab` objects, submits the resulting
    values to engine `ChunkBuilder`, then creates engine `Level`; no game renderer or material-key
    registry exists. Trees + boulders bake full and far-impostor geometry; bushes
    and flowers provide near geometry only.
  - `player.ts` — concrete player tuning only; movement and collision live in
    engine `CharacterController`.
- `app/` — browser glue only (top layer; depends on `game` + `engine`).
  - `main.ts` — game loop: input, sim, preset switching, per-frame culling, then
    the non-blocking pump (`renderer.dispatch`/`done`) + `present` (GPU/CSS upscale)
    + a multi-line frame HUD (`work + present` critical-path ms, vsync, visible
    chunks / LOD-aware tris). Calls engine `Level` simulation/collider extraction,
    maps browser keys into `CharacterInput`, and dispatches visible render instances.
  - `renderer.ts` — the render driver. When the page is cross-origin-isolated it runs
    a pool of `render-worker.ts` threads (`MAX_WORKERS`) over a `SharedArrayBuffer`
    framebuffer, each owning a disjoint row band, synced by a lock-free `Atomics`
    barrier; otherwise inline. `dispatch`/`done` are non-blocking so the caller paces
    on rAF. Per-frame inputs ride shared arrays: camera/matrix/visible-chunk list +
    visible engine instance prototype indexes + transforms. `?bench=st|mt` A/Bs
    the paths. Renderer and worker import no game modules.
  - `assets.ts` — load `/assets/*.png` → `Texture` (zero-copy; ImageData bytes are
    already the `Color` layout); returns the `game` `Textures` palette.
- `index.html` — Vite entry at repo root; holds the `#screen` canvas and the
  `#fps` meter div (styled inline).
- `scripts/gen-assets.ts` — procedurally draws the placeholder textures and
  writes PNGs (hand-rolled encoder via `node:zlib`). Run via `bun run assets`.
- `assets/` — generated `floor/grass/bark/birch/leaf/needle/rock/flower/wall/crate/npc/frog/bee/robin`
  PNGs (`floor` = room stone, `grass` = outdoor ground, `bark`/`birch`/`leaf`/`needle` =
  brown trunk / white birch trunk / oak leaf / spruce needle, `rock` = boulders, `flower` = 2x2 bloom-color atlas,
  `frog`/`bee`/`robin` = mob skin atlases: frog green + eye tone; bee stripe bands +
  head-dark + wing-pale; robin brown back + orange breast + dark eye/beak).
  Swap for real art anytime;
  filenames are the contract.
- `server/` — Bun server stub. `shared/` — isomorphic slot.

## Frame pipeline (`app/main.ts` `tick`)

`Level.update` (all actors) + `Level.refreshActorColliders` →
`CharacterController.update` → build `Camera` → `Camera.viewProjection` →
`RenderScene.visibleChunks` + `Level.visibleInstances` (frustum-cull, once on the
main thread) → `renderer.dispatch` (non-blocking) →
next rAF: `renderer.done()` ? `present` : skip this vsync. Frame N is presented
while N+1 is dispatched; the pump never blocks or async-awaits, so it can't
desync from rAF.

**`present` is a GPU/CSS upscale, not a CPU blit.** The `#screen` canvas backing
store *is* the internal render resolution, so `present` is one internal-res
`putImageData` (viewport-independent, ~fixed cost). The browser compositor scales
the element to the display via CSS — `layout()` sets the element's pixel size to
an integer multiple (crisp letterbox, centered) once per resize/config, and
`image-rendering` follows `upscaleFilter` (`pixelated` for `nearest`, `auto` for
`linear`). This replaced a per-frame main-thread `drawImage` that scaled to the
whole window (cost grew with window size); present is now ~0.2ms.

`renderBand` runs `RenderScene.renderBand` for rows [y0,y1): `Sky.render` with
clouds sampled at 1/`SKY_STEP` res (fills color + resets depth, replaces a clear) → `Rasterizer.draw`
floor/walls/crate (room, always) → for each visible `Chunk`, loop its draw-groups —
`near` or `far` chosen by the pure `Chunk.isFar` test (dist² from camera to the chunk
AABB vs `lodDistance²`): `near` is grass + full trees/rocks + flowers, `far` is grass
+ the cheap impostors (foliage/flowers dropped). Each group draws with its own
`Material` (cull per-material, so solids backface-cull and flowers stay double-sided)
→ each billboard → each visible actor prototype instance (shared local draw groups ×
its `Mat4.compose` model matrix) → `Framebuffer.quantize`. `Chunk.isFar` is pure (camera + baked bounds + config
only), so every worker band picks the same LOD for a chunk → no horizontal seam.
Multi-threaded: N workers each run `renderBand` over
their band of the shared framebuffer in parallel; single-threaded: one call over
the full height. Bands are disjoint (no two workers touch a pixel) and their
interior edges snap to `SKY_STEP` so the sky's block grid stays seamless.

Rasterizer specifics: near-plane clip (Sutherland-Hodgman), **1/w z-buffer**,
perspective-correct UVs, screen-space vertex snap, flat directional lighting,
distance fog, **alpha cutout** (discard texel alpha < 128, for sprites).
**Backface culling is opt-in** (`draw(..., cull)`, default off = double-sided):
on for solid world chunks, off for sprites and the room. It relies on winding, so
generators feeding culled draws (terrain patch, tree/boulder builders) must wind
front-out — a culled mesh that renders inside-out has its index order flipped
(see `Terrain.patch`). The cull sign: back-facing == positive screen area here.

## The look — where to tune

- **`engine/render/RenderConfig.ts`** — per-frame render dials + presets:
  `standard` (384×216, the startup default), `soft`, `clean`, plus an unbound
  `ps1` (320×240). In-app keys **1/2/3** switch standard/soft/clean live.
  Knobs: `internalWidth/Height`, `upscaleFilter`, `colorDepth`, `dither`,
  `vertexSnap`, `textureFilter`, `lighting`, `fog`, `lodDistance`. (Texturing is
  always perspective-correct — the affine-swim dial was removed.)
- **`RenderConfig.lodDistance`** — beyond this many world units, a chunk's trees
  + boulders draw as cheap impostors (see Performance). ~60 for standard/soft/ps1
  (well inside `fog.far`, so far detail is already fog-dimmed at the switch),
  `Infinity` on `clean` to disable LOD. Lower it for more headroom (more pop),
  raise it for more far detail (more tris).
- **`game/level.ts` `GROUND_UV`** (0.25) — outdoor ground texture tiles per world
  unit. Lower = the stone tiles bigger and less busy = less far-distance moire
  (there are no mipmaps); higher = finer but shimmerier.
- **`game/level.ts` `CHUNK_GRID`** (12) / `TERRAIN_SUBDIV` (5) — spatial-cull
  granularity and terrain resolution. World terrain divisions = `CHUNK_GRID *
  TERRAIN_SUBDIV`. Smaller cells cull tighter (draw less off-screen) but cost more
  per-cell tests/bounds. This is the lever if a dense world still lags.

## Performance / where the frame goes

The world is dense (hundreds of trees + boulders, ~50k tris) but most of it is
off-screen or fogged each frame, so several things keep it cheap:
- **Frustum culling** (`Frustum` + per-`Chunk` AABB test in `main`) — skips whole
  chunks that fall outside the view. Behind you + off to the sides = free.
- **Backface culling** (`draw(..., true)`) — ~halves fill on solid geometry
  (terrain, foliage, rock). See the Rasterizer note re winding.
- **Half-res clouds** (`SKY_STEP` in `app/renderer.ts`, default 2) — cloud fbm runs per
  pixel and dominated the frame; sampling once per 2×2 block quarters it.
- **Distance LOD** (`RenderConfig.lodDistance`, `Chunk.isFar`) —
  past `lodDistance` a chunk's trees + boulders swap to pre-baked low-poly
  impostors and its bushes/flowers drop; both meshes are baked once at load, and
  the near/far pick is a pure function of camera + chunk bounds, so it costs
  nothing per frame and stays worker-safe (no seam). In a dense forest view this
  is what tips the per-frame work under the 16.67ms (60fps) vsync budget — it cut
  ~1.4x of the triangles in-forest and drops far-tree/rock detail that fog is
  already dimming anyway.
- **Flat geometry + zero-alloc raster** — `Mesh` is a flat float array and the
  whole per-triangle path uses reused scratch, so a frame allocates ~0 bytes
  (measured). Buys frame *consistency* (no GC-pause spikes; worst/mean ~1.3x) and
  makes geometry shareable across worker threads. It did **not** raise mean fps —
  allocation was never the bottleneck; the mean is the transform+fill **compute**.
- **Multi-threaded rasterization** (`renderer.ts` + `render-worker.ts`) — split the
  framebuffer into row bands, one worker each, over a `SharedArrayBuffer`. The
  barrier is **lock-free**: workers `Atomics.wait` on a frame counter (no per-frame
  messages), main writes camera/matrix/visible-list into shared arrays, `dispatch`
  is non-blocking, and `main` polls `done()` on its rAF and presents the finished
  frame (present frame N, dispatch N+1). Measured real-browser (`bun run
  bench:browser`): **~1.5x median AND ~1.2x p95** vs single-thread, frame time
  pinned near vsync. The gotcha is **oversubscription** — too many workers (main +
  browser + OS competing) wrecks the p95 tail even as the median improves (6
  workers were far worse than 3); `MAX_WORKERS` caps it, retune per machine.
  Requires a cross-origin-isolated page (COOP/COEP; Vite serves them) — else it
  falls back to single-thread, so the app never breaks.

Frustum + backface + half-res sky give ~1.5–2x, workers ~1.5x more, distance LOD
another ~1.4x of the tris in dense views. Together they get the heavy in-forest
view (the worst case) under the 60fps vsync budget on the worker path; the
single-thread fallback still lands ~30fps there. The blunt content dials if it
still lags are `TREE_COUNT`/`BOULDER_COUNT` (less world) and `lodDistance` (more
aggressive impostor swap).

**Profiling**: `bun run bench:browser` (Playwright) starts Vite, drives headless
Chromium through `?bench=st` and `?bench=mt` (a scripted flythrough with a fixed
camera path), and prints median/p95/max **work time** (critical-path band time)
and **frame time** for both. Headless absolute fps ≠ a real display, but the
single-vs-workers *relative* result and the *tail* (p95/max = jitter) are real —
that's how the worker path was actually validated instead of guessed.

## Clouds

Procedural, moving, in the sky pass (`engine/render/Sky.ts`). Two styles picked
by a `CloudLayer` discriminated union `kind`:
- **`basicCumulus`** — flat hard-thresholded white puffs, 1 noise lookup/pixel.
- **`fancyCumulus`** — domain-warped + heightfield-shaded fake volume,
  ~5 lookups/pixel (pricier; watch the FPS meter).

Both are exported presets in `game/level.ts`; the active one is set in
`buildLevel`'s `sky.clouds`. Add new cloud types by extending the union and
branching in the cloud shader. Cost scales with sky resolution — fine at
`standard`, heavy at `clean` (mitigate: fewer fbm octaves or half-res sky).

## Trees (`game/actors/Tree.ts` + `game/actors/trees/`)

Procedural low-poly geometry, faceted flat-shaded like everything else. `Tree.ts`
contains only shared placement state. Oak, Spruce, and Birch each expose a concrete
`Prefab<Tree>` factory from their own module; level data references those definition
objects directly, and shared geometry primitives live in `trees/treekit.ts`.
- **`oak`** — short tapered trunk, a couple of branches, a broad cluster of
  lumpy canopy `blob`s (wider than tall, bushy).
- **`spruce`** — tall thin trunk under stacked narrowing `cone` tiers pointing
  to a tip (taller than wide, conical).
- **`birch`** — silver birch: tall, slender, near-straight trunk with an airy,
  high, slightly drooping canopy (lean silhouette). Uses a separate **white**
  `birch` bark texture (brown bark can't stand in), and shares the oak `leaf`
  foliage.

`growth` (0..1) runs **sapling → full grown**: it scales height/girth and adds
canopy blobs (oak/birch) / tiers (spruce); `seed` gives each tree its own wobble.
Each factory receives concrete trunk/foliage `Material` objects and closes over
them. `ChunkBuilder` accumulates meshes by material object, so a forest still
batches into a few draw groups without string keys or a registry. `game/level.ts`
`placeTrees` selects from a weighted list of prefab objects. **Add a species** =
add one concrete prefab module and include its object in level data.

**Boulders** (`game/actors/Boulder.ts`) work the same way: `Boulder.build`
appends a squashed, per-vertex-jittered low-poly sphere (seam/pole-safe so it
never cracks) into one shared rock mesh, sunk partway into the ground.
`scatterBoulders` sizes them small→big (biased small) and drops colliders on the
big ones. `Bush` (leaf-blob clusters) and `Flower` (stem + colored bloom, atlas
UVs) are the same again — ground detail scattered near the play area, no
colliders; add a new prop type by cloning the pattern (generator + scatter).

## Controls

WASD move · **Shift** run (speed from `Player.config` in `game/player.ts`) · mouse
look (click canvas to pointer-lock) · **Space** jump · **1/2/3** switch look
presets. FPS shown bottom-right. The room's north wall is open — walk out onto
the terrain and toward the peaks.

## Code style (oxlint-enforced — match it)

No semicolons, double quotes, 2-space indent, trailing commas. **`type`, never
`interface`.** Function declarations (arrows allowed). Uppercase hex (`0xFF`).
Curly braces required on all `if`. No `void` operator. `T[]` not `Array<T>`.
Prefer `globalThis` over `window`. Domain behavior lives in a `type` +
matching `namespace` (see `Vec3`, `Color`, `Rasterizer`).

## Caveats

- No mipmaps, so distant textures shimmer (period-correct); far cloud/geometry
  is hidden by fog.

## Debugging the renderer without a browser (key workflow)

The engine is pure, so you can **render headless to a PNG and inspect it**. A
throwaway `bun` script can: `buildLevel()`, decode `assets/*.png` (they're
filter-0 RGBA — trivial to inflate), set a `Camera` pose, run
`Sky.render` + `Rasterizer.draw` into a `Framebuffer`, encode the color buffer
to PNG (same hand-rolled encoder as `scripts/gen-assets.ts`), write it, and read
it back. Sampling individual pixels this way tuned the clouds, framed the terrain
peaks, and confirmed the ground textures flat (no swim). Put temp scripts in the
job tmp dir, not the repo.

## Roadmap / not yet built

In-browser RenderConfig slider panel; mipmaps; `painter` depth mode; gouraud
lighting; more cloud types; more props / a weapon; more mob definitions + smarter mob
behavior (they wander + block/stand-on today, but don't yet react to the player). `shared/`
is nearly empty. The FPS meter is static HTML + `textContent` writes only — no
DOM-built UI yet (deliberate).