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Environmental runes and drawn runes

Two surfaces use the same rune grammar: the placed runes in the world, and the patterns the player produces with Mind Drawing. This page covers the large-scale form of the first, and the player-facing form of the second.

Environmental runes at scale

An environmental rune is a rune whose shape is formed by environment rather than by a single placed object. The level documents specify several examples of the same mechanic:

  • A mural reads as one large rune. The mural hall forms Rise.
  • A city understructure reads as Rise from the lake reflection.
  • A town reads as part of a rune from the overlook.
  • A carved ground figure is legible only when the sky rotation moves the shadows off it.

In each case, the player is not touching one rune object. The rune emerges from the arrangement of architecture, light, shadow, or reflection.

The Game Macro Readme records the intended activation path for these runes: the player creates Enhance first, then interacts with the large-scale rune. The same document also gives Enhance a second use: amplifying an ordinary combination, such as expanding Repair + Tile beyond the tile Sol is standing on.

Perspective and state dependence

An environmental rune is readable only from the correct viewpoint. The same geometry does not read as a rune from other camera positions.

The environment state participates in the shape. Changing tree or shadow state adds, removes, or repositions strokes. This means the design language is:

  1. Change state.
  2. Change shape.
  3. Find the perspective.
  4. Form the rune.
  5. Use it.

That loop is the authoring language for environmental runes. The level docs apply it to shadow-covered carvings, town-scale shapes, and garden views.

Drawn runes

A rune the player has learned can be produced with Mind Drawing instead of being found on the ground. This is what level documents mean when they mark a required rune as In Mind Palace. The rune is not placed in the level; the player draws it from memory.

The draw interface colour contract is fixed for this system:

  • Greyed-out strokes are inactive.
  • The selected stroke is white.
  • Active strokes are yellow.
  • When the active strokes form a valid rune, the rune activates automatically and the active strokes turn blue.
  • Breaking the pattern deactivates the rune, and the remaining strokes return to yellow.

The compiled transaction accepts one drawn word into a two-word transaction. The drawing widget lives at Content/Rephrased/UI/WBP_RuneDrawing, and URuneDrawingDataAsset stores the exact pattern the player must reproduce.

Mind Drawing creates three combination sources:

  • world plus world: environmental rune plus environmental rune;
  • world plus drawn: environmental rune plus created rune;
  • drawn plus drawn: created rune plus created rune.

Where the system stands

Today:

  • AWorldRune handles placed world runes with interaction, command, and deactivation ranges. See Rune actors and placement.
  • URuneDrawingDataAsset plus the drawing widget at Content/Rephrased/UI/WBP_RuneDrawing handle exact-pattern drawn runes.
  • URuneCoordinatorComponent resolves the one-verb plus one-noun transaction. See Rune system core.

To build:

  • the large-scale environmental rune receiver and its readability rules;
  • command range scaling for a rune the size of a building;
  • the Enhance activation route for environmental runes and its ordinary-combination amplifier.

The current rune behaviour matrix is mirrored at CurrentRuneType. The matrix does not yet define noun effects for Enhance; the Game Macro Readme describes its two special uses.

Open questions

The Game Macro Readme says each creation counts as one rune, and after a maximum of three created runes the game checks for an effect, then invalidates the created runes. The shipping transaction takes one drawn word into a two-word transaction with no three-creation limit. This page records the difference without picking a winner.

Sources

Change history

  • 2026-09-17 — Gabriel Li — Created the Environmental runes and drawn runes page from the current level docs and Game Macro Readme.