# Roadmap

One milestone ≈ a chunk of working sessions. Each ends with something you can
actually run and see. Timelines assume solo dev + heavy AI assistance, steady
(not full-time) pace.

## M0 — World skeleton (single-player) · ~2–4 weeks
**Goal:** walk around a lit, atmospheric terrain. Prove the look.
- [x] Project scaffold, git repo, docs
- [x] Godot installed, project opens
- [x] First-person / third-person character controller (move, jump, mouse-look)
- [x] One flat/heightmap terrain chunk with a material
- [x] Atmospheric lighting: directional sun, sky, volumetric fog, tonemapping
- [x] Place one low-poly tree + rock to set the mood
- **Done when:** you load the game and walk around a Valheim-ish lit field.

### M0.5 — Scenery & world bounds (done)
- [x] Mountain-rim boundary (steep cliffs + invisible wall + respawn safety net),
      covered by `tests/test_boundary.gd`
- [x] Procedural terrain shader (grass/dirt/sand/rock strata/snow), lake + water shader
- [x] 5 procedural tree types, faceted mossy rocks, cliff outcrops, bushes, logs, stumps
- [x] Streamed wind-animated grass + flowers; cloud sky; swimming

## M1 — Survival loop (single-player) · ~3–5 weeks
**Goal:** the core game verbs.
- [ ] Resource nodes: chop tree → wood, mine rock → stone
- [ ] Inventory + simple hotbar UI
- [ ] Crafting (recipe: wood → tools / building pieces)
- [ ] Health / stamina, day-night cycle
- [ ] Snap-together building: place a wall/floor, resource cost, basic support rule
- **Done when:** gather → craft → build a tiny shelter, single-player.

## M2 — Multiplayer · ~2–4 months
**Goal:** self-hosted, authoritative, 2–8 players.
- [ ] Refactor state to server-authoritative (single-player becomes loopback server)
- [ ] Headless dedicated server mode (`--headless -- --server`)
- [ ] ENet transport, client prediction for local movement, interpolation for others
- [ ] Replicate resource nodes, inventory, building, health
- [ ] Persistence: world save/load on the server
- **Done when:** a friend joins your self-hosted server and you build together.

## M3 — Addon SDK + sandbox · ~2–3 months
**Goal:** the differentiator. Easy, safe mods.
- [ ] Embed sandboxed Lua VM in the server
- [ ] Capped API surface (events + safe world queries/commands)
- [ ] Per-addon CPU/time + memory quotas
- [ ] Addon manifest format (declare items/recipes/prefabs as data)
- [ ] 2–3 example addons (a new craftable item; a "welcome" message on join; a
      custom spawn rule)
- [ ] SDK docs for modders
- **Done when:** a modder drops an addon folder in and it safely adds content,
      and a deliberately-malicious test addon is contained (can't read files,
      can't hang the server).

## M4 — Content & polish · ongoing
- More biomes, creatures, items, building pieces
- PvP / raiding rules, building damage
- Better UI, settings, controls
- Audio, music, weather
- Packaged builds for Win/Mac/Linux (+ Mac signing/notarisation)

## Honest overall estimate
A genuinely playable **self-hosted survival game with a working sandboxed addon
SDK** is roughly **6–12 months** of steady solo work with AI help. The M0–M1
vertical slice (a few weeks) is what proves the concept and keeps you motivated.