Overwhelm II has been drawn entirely by code since the first day. Today that rule ended for six of its characters.
What was rejected
The Knight and the Wizard, built earlier in code, were approved. The Witch was acceptable. The six newer classes were rejected as they stood.
They were rebuilt, and the rebuild was a real attempt. Each class got its own torso profile, higher-resolution limb contours, fitted armour shells, split layered garments, and its own equipment and a restrained palette. Other sword users were given the sword collection the Knight draws from. The result was rated 2 out of 10, and the rebuild is not complete and not for release.
The decision
The code-built bodies were not getting these six to the reference. We lifted the all-in-code rule for them. They will be replaced by sculpted, rigged 3D models, with a roster sheet of the ten classes as the target.
Two things stay as they are. The Knight is protected, with a standing rule to leave him alone. The Wizard was approved and stays.
The first candidates were wrong in a useful way
No suitable character model files were on hand. Two free character models were downloaded and viewed in a local Three.js viewer. Both were around 150,000 triangles with 22 bones and a base colour texture only, and both read as cartoon-stylised. Both were rejected and deleted.
The size matters as well as the style. The current bodies run from 23,000 to 30,000 triangles, so those two were five to six times over what the game is built around.
Archer, Bounty Hunter and Butcher
Before the move, these three got another pass. The hunter's mantle was shortened and its leather chest layered, and the Archer's bow now reads in the right orientation.
The Butcher now carries two double-edged axes, and his apron is bloodstained from the start of every run. The first stain repeated visibly across the apron, so it was replaced with irregular patches and drips. The offhand axe was re-posed to hang down beside the body, matching the one-handed stances used in play.
Loot that stays
The rule: weapons and loot you pick up are yours permanently, and you keep them when you die.
The bug underneath it was that possessions were tied to checkpoint progress, and a run had no saved checkpoint at the start. Inventory, equipment, gold and keys are now saved the moment they are picked up, independently of checkpoint progress. A key is consumed when it is used, and the latest possessions are saved on death too.
A regression test covers it: pickup persistence, a reload from the serialized save, death and retry with no duplicated items, checkpoint and XP progress unaffected, consumed keys, and separate save slots.