Fps

Craft: Jev FPS levels

Jev FPS is a first-person arena shooter that Jev plays by itself, one typed decision at a time. You shape the arena in level.json. The craft is a map that reads well in 3D and a pace that shows the real limit: about nine decisions a second.

What Jev is asked, every tick

One call, four questions, all answered in parallel from the same state text:

turn    choice  LEFT_HARD  LEFT  LEFT_FINE  AHEAD  RIGHT_FINE  RIGHT  RIGHT_HARD
move    choice  FORWARD  BACK  STRAFE_LEFT  STRAFE_RIGHT  HOLD
fire    noul    "Fire now? Yes only when a demon is in your crosshair and you have ammo."
threat  score   calm < watchful < pressed < critical

The state text is what a player could know: health, ammo, wall distances, each demon in sight with its bearing and distance, the nearest demon it can hear but not see, the automap route, and whether the crosshair is on a demon. The pane shows this text live under "What Jev reads".

Drawing a good map

• Tiles: # stone, % tech panel, = hell brick, . floor, P start, D demon spawn, M medkit, A ammo. The border must be wall. Every row is the same width.
• Give sight lines of 5 to 9 tiles. Very long halls make it a shooting gallery. Tight mazes hide demons until they are biting.
• Put spawns on at least two sides of the start so Jev must turn to deal with them.
• Pillars (single wall tiles in a room) make demons split and flank, which is fun to watch.
• A level of about 24 by 16 fills the minimap nicely. Bigger maps mean long quiet walks.

Setting the pace

demonSpeed is the dial. Demons weave as they charge, so speed is also how fast they cross the crosshair. Each wave adds one demon and 12% speed, so every run ends when the pace passes what nine decisions a second can handle.

tickMs changes the decision rate itself. Raising it to 250 shows what a slower decision loop costs: the same demons now win much earlier.

Verifying

node "$JEV_DSH/toolchain/check.mjs"

Then watch the pane and read .harness/verdict.json: wave, kills, deaths, best wave, shots on target. Report the pace you chose, how far Jev gets, and the speed where it stops clearing waves. The pane's MOCK badge means the offline stand-in is playing, not the real model. Say so when you report.