Week 7: A gate everyone passes asks no question

A gate is a point the player must be strong enough to pass. Its size is not a design opinion. It is a multiplication, and the first version got it wrong.

20 April 2027

Is it me or is it the game? The game, and you can tell before anyone fights: the opening weapon alone does 20 damage a second for 26 s, so beating a boss under 520 hp says nothing about you.

Open the slides

Twice a run, Close Quarters sends a boss with a clock on it. Kill it inside 26 s or the run ends. The boss exists to ask one question: did you pick up enough on the way here?

The claim#

A gate only asks its question if a player who did nothing fails it. Whether they fail is arithmetic, and you can do the arithmetic before anyone fights the boss.

The multiplication#

The opening weapon deals 17 damage every 0.85 s. That is 20 damage a second, and over a 26 s window it is 520 hp. Any boss under 520 hp can be killed by a player who never took a single upgrade.

The first boss shipped with 200 hp. Players who declined every card walked through it in 11 runs out of 15 (56f46ba). It looked like a gate and asked nothing.

What it asks now#

The boss’s health depends on how many upgrades the player holds when it arrives, counting the weapon they start with as one: 884 hp for one or two, 680 hp for three, 510 hp for four, 340 hp for six. The line crosses 520 hp at four. So the gate’s question, in plain words, is “have you picked up at least three cards in the first 40 s?”

Measured with the 100 ms player over 51 runs: choosing cards normally, it arrives holding a median of 7, and 47 runs are still alive after the window closes. Declining every card: 0 out of 51.

It counts upgrades banked and not level reached, because a player who refuses every card still levels up, and the first version handed that player a weaker boss for it (010a79d).

What you leave with#

The health a third boss would need at 110 s to stop a player holding fewer than ten upgrades, with the multiplication shown.