Foldwink

Version 0.8.4 - externally staged pilot candidate, by Neural Void.

Foldwink is a short daily grouping puzzle. Find four hidden groups of four in a 4x4 grid. A correct group locks in; four mistakes end the round.

Medium puzzles use the Foldwink Tabs: every solved group reveals one more letter on each unsolved tab. Once per medium puzzle, the player may Wink one tab to reveal its full category. Easy puzzles intentionally have neither Tabs nor Wink; Hard has no Tabs and no Wink (pure deduction).

Product status

• Mobile-first static web/PWA. Direct web is the canonical product; itch.io is optional discovery.
• Tactile 2.5D card surface, nine local paper/card/wood/tile audio cues, and a canvas share card.
• Local-first: no accounts, backend, cloud sync, or leaderboard.
• Active curated pool size is reported per language by npm run validate. The pool is being de-duplicated after a 2026-10-01 audit found that roughly half of the September scale-up consisted of recombined copies of existing boards, so no fixed catalogue count is quoted here.
• Optional Ko-fi and cosmetic Supporter checkout are code-ready but hidden until valid public URLs are configured. No core gameplay is paywalled.
• itch.io playable build #1984826 and download build #1984827 are the hash-matched public W7 pilot surfaces. The direct canonical deployment, physical-device QA, real human pilot and D1/D7 evidence remain required before commercial-release acceptance.

Run locally

npm install
npm run dev

Open the URL Vite prints, normally http://localhost:5173.

Verification and release commands

Command	Purpose
npm run typecheck	TypeScript check
npm run lint	ESLint
npm test	Unit tests
npm run validate	Validate active English puzzle pool
npm run build	Typecheck, sound-pack check, production build
npm run test:e2e	Full Playwright browser suite
npm run release:preflight	Validate a free build and report hidden public CTAs
npm run release:preflight:paid	Require public payment config and print checkout return URL
npm run pack:itch	Build a versioned itch.io HTML5 upload archive
npm run release:butler	Push a packed archive to configured itch.io target
npm run pilot:freeze	Freeze the clean build as pilot/<version>/ for a cohort
npm run pilot:verify-deploy	Fetch and hash-check the live web pilot file by file
npm run pilot:verify-staging	Smoke-test the live web pilot EN/DE/RU at acceptance sizes

Deployment

Foldwink is a static Vite application. npm run build writes dist/. Deploy that directory to the canonical direct web/PWA origin first.

For a free deployment, no environment values are required. For optional paid surfaces, configure public values outside source control:

• VITE_KOFI_HANDLE
• VITE_SUPPORTER_CHECKOUT_URL
• FOLDWINK_CANONICAL_URL for the paid preflight command only

Read docs/DEPLOY.md and docs/MONETIZATION.md before publishing. Do not activate payment CTAs until the deployed checkout return has been tested on the same origin.

Content work

Puzzle JSON is bundled at build time. Add or change a puzzle only through the editorial workflow:

1. Create or revise a draft outside the active pool.
2. Run the draft/reference validator against the active pool.
3. Require editorial review for naturalness, ambiguity, and language quality.
4. Promote one-for-one, archive the retired board, then run the full gates.

The validator catches structural errors and defined duplicate risks; it cannot replace human editorial judgment. See docs/content/PUZZLE_EDITORIAL_GUIDELINES.md.

Product boundaries

Foldwink deliberately does not include accounts, cloud sync, multiplayer, runtime-generated puzzles, paid gameplay advantages, autoplay ads, interstitials, banners, a 3D renderer, or a motion framework.

Documentation

• docs/DEPLOY.md - direct web and optional itch release flow
• docs/MONETIZATION.md - public config and privacy rules
• docs/KNOWN_LIMITATIONS.md - remaining real limits
• docs/TODO.md - current milestone and release checklist
• docs/reports/ - audit, sprint, content, and release evidence

License

Proprietary - all rights reserved.