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Containment

How new games are judged. A 48-hour vote by players to release or bury, who can vote, how weight works, the exact bury rule, payouts, and how a buried game comes back.

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Every new game spends 48 hours in containment while players decide whether it gets out. Nobody is obliged to be gentle.

How it works

A developer submits a finished draft. It appears on /containment.
For 48 hours, players who have played it vote to release it or bury it.
Judgment closes. A released game is listed on the site. A buried game keeps its page, but the game doesn't run.
A buried game can come back for another round after 7 days, with a new build.

Anyone can play a game in containment. Comments and ratings are open, and they have no effect on the vote.

Submitting

Only developers submit, from /dev/<slug>. A draft needs a live build, a cover and a description. Hold the Hold to submit button for about a second. See Publish a game.

The game moves to In containment, and the judgment window opens. The developer can keep uploading builds while it's in there.

Who can vote

All of these must be true:

You're signed in and have claimed a handle (a badge).
You have played the game while signed in. Starting the game from its page counts.
You aren't its developer.
The 48 hours haven't ended.

Once you're signed in, the Release and Bury buttons stay locked until you have played the game. You can change your vote at any time before the countdown ends. Only your last vote counts.

Exposure levels	Rads	Vote weight
0 Clean, 1 Exposed, 2 Irradiated	0 to 699	1
3 Glowing, 4 Contaminated, 5 Mutating	700 to 5,999	2
6 Mutant, 7 Radioactive, 8 Critical	6,000 to 49,999	3
9 Meltdown	50,000 or more	4

The bury rule

A game is buried only if both of these are true when judgment closes:

The total bury weight is greater than the total release weight.
At least 3 people voted bury. This counts people, not weight.

Anything else is a release. That includes a tie, a game nobody voted on, and a game that has a bury majority but fewer than 3 buriers.

Release	Bury	Result	Why
No votes	No votes	Released	Nobody voted.
3 votes, weight 3	3 votes, weight 3	Released	A tie.
5 votes, weight 5	3 votes, weight 3	Released	Bury doesn't outweigh release.
1 vote, weight 1	2 votes, weight 8	Released	Only 2 people voted bury.
2 votes, weight 2	3 votes, weight 3	Buried	Bury outweighs release, and 3 people voted bury.

The tally

While judgment is open, everyone sees how many people have voted. Nobody, including the developer, sees the release and bury split. Admins can see it.

When judgment closes, the count is frozen on the game as release <weight> · bury <weight> · <n> voters. The release and bury numbers are weights. The voter count is people. A buried game's page shows the final count to everyone. The game's Manage page shows its developer every closed round.

Closing

Judgment ends 48 hours after the game was submitted. Votes stop at that moment.

Closing has no timer. The first time any page that lists or shows games loads after the deadline, the site closes the judgment: it counts the votes, sets the status and pays out. Payouts can't happen twice. If nobody loads such a page, the close waits for the next visitor. The result is the same either way, because votes stop at 48 hours.

Admins can release or bury a game before the 48 hours are up. An early close pays out like any other, and the judgment history marks it as an admin decision.

Payouts

Who	When	Reward
Voter	Casting a vote. Once per game per round. Changing your vote pays nothing more.	3 rads and the Juror mutation
Voter	Judgment closes and your last vote matches the result. Once per game per round.	10 rads and the Called It mutation
Developer	The game is released. Once per game.	100 rads and the Breach mutation
Developer	The game is buried.	The secret mutation Buried Alive

See Rads and exposure for everything else that pays.

Release

A released game:

Leaves /containment and is listed with the other games on /games.
Pays its developer 100 rads and the Breach mutation.
Keeps its comments and ratings.
Gets new builds whenever its developer makes them live.

Burial

A buried game isn't deleted.

Its page stays up at /games/<slug>, marked Buried, with the final count, the round and the date its developer can send it back.
The game itself doesn't run on the page. The game is out of the listings and isn't indexed by search engines.
Comments stay readable but closed. Nobody can add comments or replies. They stay up so the developer knows what to fix.
The game's Manage page shows the developer the verdict and what is needed to come back.

Coming back

A buried game can go back into containment for another round. All of these must be true:

Requirement	Detail
7 days	Since the verdict.
A new build	A live build uploaded since the verdict. An upload to a buried game becomes the live build automatically.
A cover and a description	The same as a first submission.

The Manage page shows each check, and a cooldown timer. The Hold to resubmit button stays disabled until all are met. The server refuses an early attempt with It can go back in on <date>. or Make a build uploaded since the verdict live first. The next round judges the new version.

A new round:

Runs another 48 hours, from the moment it is submitted.
Clears every vote from earlier rounds.
Requires voters to play the new version. A play from before the round opened doesn't count, and the vote panel says Play this version first, then judge it.
Shows as Containment · round 2 on the game's page, and as R2 on its card.
Pays voters again: 3 rads and 10 rads are paid once per round. The Juror and Called It mutations are one-time. The developer's release payout is once per game.

Nothing in the site limits how many rounds a game can go through.

Judgment history

Every closed round is kept. The game's Manage page lists them under Judgment history: the round, the outcome, the release and bury weights, the number of voters, whether an admin decided, the closing date and the first 7 characters of the build that was judged.

A buried game's page shows the latest round's final count.

As a voter

Sign in, open a game from /containment, click Start, then choose Release or Bury.
Play enough to judge it. You can change your vote until the countdown ends.
The vote decides whether the game is listed. Use ratings and comments for the rest.
Bury only counts if it outweighs release and at least 3 people agree. A lone bury vote doesn't sink a game.
Use the report button on the game's page for anything that breaks the rules. Reports go to admins. They aren't part of the vote.
Voting pays 3 rads whichever way you vote. It pays 10 more if your last vote matches the result.

As a developer

Run a playtest first. It's a private link with a feedback form, and it works while the game is a draft. Fix what breaks before strangers see it. See Playtests.
Tell people to play it. Votes come only from players who have played. A game nobody votes on is released, but nobody has judged it.
Have the cover and description ready. They're what people see on the containment page.
Keep the live build steady. Uploading a new build during judgment doesn't reset the votes, so voters may have judged an earlier version. Choose Upload only to hold an update until judgment closes.
Read the comments. They stay readable if the game is buried.
If it's buried, read the comments, run a playtest, fix what needs fixing, upload a new build and wait out the 7 days. Then resubmit and tell people to play the new version. They have to.