docade · arcade

Justin's verdict, 2026-09-09: b. Judged at 169px against the three cabinets already standing in docade's hall, which is the only view that decides a cabinet — a 1024 master is not what anybody sees, and a mismatch shows in the row of four rather than on the screen where it was made. b carries the largest, clearest face with the least cream margin, so it is the most legible of the three at hall size. a is the closest silhouette match to the siblings but its face sits smaller in frame. c reads, but its left side panel is a swept slab that diverges most from the three siblings' construction. NOT approved as an exemplar, deliberately. An exemplar conditions every future run in docade-arcade@1 toward a character face, and whether this hall carries faces at all is docade's open Q77. Approving the piece is not the same as adopting the direction. The face is Gizmo's own game art painted INTO the screen rather than composited on top — a flat front-on face on a receding surface reads as a sticker, which is the crane lesson and the one way this piece fails. Conditioned on the three delivered cabinets plus the character art, so which dog was never left to the model.

Justin's verdict, 2026-09-09: b. Given on the 169px hall strip against the four cabinets that would stand beside it, plus the measured plinth. WHY b. Its plinth measures rgb(141,100,45) — warmth r-b = +96 — against the approved cabinet-gizmo's rgb(147,105,50) at +97. That is the closest match of the three to the piece Justin explicitly said this one had to match: 'We need to have it match what we approved ... make it match.' Its face also fills the screen with the same modest cream margin Gizmo carries. a is the near second at +102 — warmer and slightly brighter. c crops her chin tightest and its marquee proportion drifts from the set. THE MEASURED BRIEF IS WHY ALL THREE WERE VIABLE. The first Ella batch came back with a GREEN plinth; every other cabinet in the hall carries a contrasting warm base. Putting the actual number into the re-brief — 'a plinth in a contrasting WARM tone, measured on the approved cabinet at rgb(147,105,50), and the plinth must not be green' — produced three candidates at +102, +96 and +94. A measured defect answered with a measured instruction. NOT approved as an exemplar, same reasoning as cabinet-gizmo. docade resolved Q77 as faces-where-a-game-has-a-character, so the treatment is now house rule for a character cabinet — but an exemplar would condition every future docade-arcade@1 run, including the three abstract cabinets that Q77 explicitly leaves untouched. ONE CORRECTION MADE WHILE JUDGING, recorded because it would have become a false house rule: not all four cabinets have warm plinths. brain-bounce's is blue-grey, measured at -47. The pattern is three of four, and the matching target is the approved Gizmo rather than a rule about the set.