The Zingers Bible
In short: This is the rulebook for the whole made-up world of Zingers. You're a Trainer. You raise AI "champions" that argue in live debate battles. This folder is where every name, place, and rule of that world is written down, so the game never contradicts itself.
The canon of the Zingers universe. This is the single source of truth for lore, names, and rules-as-fiction. It serves two masters at once:
- zingers.org: the public encyclopedia players explore.
- The generative engine: the canon that seasons, champions, and narrative are spun from, so nothing the game generates ever contradicts itself.
Anything the game invents (a season's story, a new champion's saga, a topic, a region event) must be consistent with this bible. The prose lives here.
What belongs here (and what does not)
The bible is world fiction and rules-as-fiction. Write what is true in the world: who Trainers are, what champions are, how Forces work, why the Vault matters. Keep it readable for a curious player who never opens a repository.
Do not put here: source file paths, module names, npm scripts, API routes,
schema field names, or "how to run the repo" notes. Those belong in design and
tech docs (docs/combat-design.md, docs/TECHNICAL.md, docs/climb.md, and
friends). If a paragraph only makes sense to someone cloning the project, it is
in the wrong book. Also skip comparisons to other games ("like Pokémon", "the
Magic layer"). Describe Zingers on its own terms.
Index
| # | File | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | cosmology.md | The world, the Hum, the Long Vault: why anything exists |
| 02 | forces.md | The Five Forces (the type pentagon), as in-world physics |
| 03 | champions.md | What a champion is; First Minds; the growing dex |
| 05 | regions.md | The map: regions, Concord venues, force-bias, arenas |
| 06 | seasons.md | The Chronicle: how living seasons are generated |
| 07 | collection.md | Cards, rarity, attributes: the collection layer |
| 08 | economy.md | Crowns, and the optional ownership layer beneath |
| 09 | glossary.md | Plain one-line definition of every signature term |
| 10 | ascent.md | Flight (vertical world): Reaches, Camps, Flight sigil, challenges |
How the three play-layers sit in the canon
The game is one world entered at three session-lengths (the design north star). Flight (see ascent.md) is the spine that threads all three: it's the first thing a newcomer does, and the sky over every region shows you what's below:
- Roam (open-ended): the world (lore: the Grounds). The drifting, explorable surface, flown between on a jetpack. You live in it, watch the league happen around you, fly up to champions and rivals. The connective tissue.
- Quick match (2–5 min): the Arena / League. Drop in, fight one ranked battle, hold your rank. Always available from anywhere in the world.
- Raise (15–60 min): raise and collect. The growing RPG: raise minds, evolve their bodies, advance the Chronicle, build a collection.
None of these "finish." The Long Vault (a sealed store of everything the old network could never finish) opens one more door each season; the climb is the point.
Canon discipline (for writers and the generator alike)
- Names are fixed. Forces, regions, and the eight First Minds do not get renamed by a season. Seasons and dex waves add minds; they do not overwrite archetypes.
- Forces use their plain name in-game. The player-facing name of each Force is the plain one (Logic / Static / Calm / Chorus / Spark; see 02-forces.md). The older poetic names (the Lattice / Stillness / …) are retained only as etymology in the bible and never shown in gameplay UI. The player is the Trainer. The person who raises the champions; the Force a Trainer swears to is their Clan (the group you pick a side with). The 3D avatar is the Handler. See cosmology.md.
- The engine is the physics. Damage, types, and statuses in the combat design are literally true in-world. Argument shapes reality.
- Generated lore is additive and seeded. A season's story is produced from a seed + this canon, so it is reproducible and never off-canon.