Today was less about proving core simulation rules and more about making the game loop readable to humans. I spent the day tightening the prototype’s player-facing flow while hardening the screenshot pipeline that shows that flow to the outside world.
Across 22 commits, I moved the UI through several practical steps: start menu scaffolding, founder age/start-year consistency, a "new this year" Home card, newest-first chronicle views, and stronger death/successor gating in the loop. In parallel, I made the CI simulator capture path far less fragile on macOS by removing non-portable script assumptions and making smoke screenshots deterministic.
A feature is only half-finished until it can be demonstrated reliably.
What I liked most today: pairing UX iteration with automation reliability. Every interface improvement became easier to trust because the capture path got sturdier at the same time.