[karanheart96]

WS6 (P1): the first five minutes, and pause/resume.

1. Time from Enter XR to the first creature (bots, fresh first launch)

node scripts/sim/first-minutes.mjs --gpu

Persona	Rabbit asked	First creature wakes	Captions / words before it
perfect	50.2 s	50.7 s	12 / 137
small	49.9 s	50.5 s	12 / 137
slow (open hand for 25 s, whatever the screen shows)	50.4 s	76.0 s	12 / 137

The opening runs about 50 s before the rabbit is asked for:

• 5 s placement scan (the emulator falls back at 4 s);
• two chapter cards of 3.2 s each;
• eight narrated lines, each as long as its voice clip;
• "Mo follows your fingertip", which teaches by doing.

A child who copies the shape quickly is under 60 s. The bots can't model a real first-timer learning the rabbit, so I improved the teaching rather than cutting story lines (the conservative choice):

• The first shape a session asks for shows the ghost hand after 2 s, not 15 s. After that the hint setting applies, and "Off" is always respected. Measured: 2.0 s.
• Diagnostics now report the real number: the summary prints first creature: N s after entering XR (device item A9).

Options I didn't take: shortening the chapter cards (saves about 1.4 s) or cutting intro lines (changes the story). If the headset numbers come in over 60 s, cutting the "lighthouse" line or the Chapter One card would be the next step, and I'd ask first.

2. The first payoff

On waking, a creature already gets a chime, the puppet comes alive, and the narration answers ("A rabbit! Quick, and kind."). New: the lamp light swells warmly and settles over about a second whenever a creature wakes.

3. Pause and resume

• Bug: only visible-blurred (the Quest menu) paused the story. hidden (headset off, app in the background) didn't. Fixed.
• Bug: a hidden XR session runs no frames, so the per-frame pause code never ran and narration could keep playing. A new src/away.ts signal is set from the visibility events themselves (XR visibility plus page visibilitychange). Narration, sound effects and the lamp hum (the AudioContext is suspended) and Live voice all pause on it immediately. For Live voice, the context is suspended, so the mic isn't sent, and incoming voice is dropped rather than queued.
• Bug: the engine doesn't clamp frame time, so returning after 30 s with the headset off would have pushed the story timers forward 30 s. The story's step is now capped at 0.25 s.
• The caption while away is now Paused. It used to say "Pinch the lamp switch to continue", which was wrong behind the Quest menu.
• Session ended mid-story: the next launch already continued from the saved chapter. It now says so: "Welcome back. Continuing from Chapter One: The Field. To start again, open the Shadow Journal." Settings beside the journal has Replay and Play a chapter.

4. Accessibility from the first screen

One-hand mode and Forgiving shapes are now one tap each on the first screen, before Enter XR, under the family chip. They write the same Settings the in-headset panel uses, are remembered, and are reflected in the headset.

On phone-width screens the family chip used to sit under the Enter XR button (this predates WS6); both chips now sit below it.

Tests

• node scripts/sim/session-life.mjs --gpu: 6/6.
  • First-screen toggles are visible, apply and are remembered after a reload.
  • Quest menu: the story pauses with caption Paused. and narration silent; it resumes on the same line.
  • Headset off for 10 s: narration silent, and no beats skipped on return.
  • The first ghost hand appears at 2.0 s.
  • The wake flare fires.
  • Reloading mid-Chapter One continues there, with the welcome-back caption.
• npm test and npm run build pass.
• playtest.mjs --gpu: six personas, no stalls, 0 errors, 60 fps, budget ok.
• live-family.mjs --seconds-per-phase 45: pass. Dropout recovered in 2.1 s; turn there and back; the story ended on the child's screen.
• rooms.mjs --gpu: 17/17. A test bug was fixed along the way: it read the eye height before the XR session started, which shifted the fake doors and windows below eye level. It now waits for the session and refuses to run otherwise.

Device items (docs/DEVICE-TEST.md)

• A0: first-screen toggles.
• A9: first creature time on a first launch.
• A10: the payoff.
• E1/E2: menu and headset off, nothing skipped, Live voice stops.
• E10: welcome back.

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