Run ./play.sh. Expect: a fullscreen window opens with no crash dialog and no immediate return to the shell prompt.

Note that play.sh execs Godot with --path ".../milkshake/play" — the clean worktree pinned at commit 5ff530b — and passes MILKSHAKE_FORCE_COLD_OPEN=1, which is documented in the script's own header comment as consumed "only by the local play route" and never touching your saved progress. Expect: this is the tree you are testing for the rest of this document; if you instead wanted to test the in-progress, uncommitted game/ tree, the separate game/_build/run.sh launches that one windowed and without the forced cold open — do not mix the two mid-session.

Final check: the terminal that launched play.sh shows a normal Godot engine startup banner with no repeated SCRIPT ERROR: lines scrolling past.

Let the cutscene run without touching Attack. Expect: a HOLD ATTACK TO SKIP label with a fill meter is visible throughout (this control exists in code) but you do not use it yet.

Judge the picture and sound together, start to finish. Expect (to confirm — this is the open question, not a settled fact): no visibly choppy or stuttering cuts between shots, dialogue and score audio stay in sync with the picture rather than drifting, and the visual register reads as the intended cinematic ink look rather than an "off-campaign manhua" look. If any of the three 2026-07-25 symptoms is still present, name which one in your notes — that is the actionable output of this flow.

Confirm the story lands in the binding beat order: adult disciples defend the dojo, exactly three pages are removed mid-fight, the thief escapes without his identity ever being shown on screen, Ten Dan slams the doors open, the disciples kneel, Ten Dan examines the book and says the line Now the book looks raggedy, fucking up the feng shui., then a beat of silence, a fade, and the title. Expect: every beat present, in this order, thief's face never shown, no slideshow or still-photo montage standing in for any of it.

Hold Attack partway through. Expect: the skip meter fills over a short hold and the cutscene cuts directly to the title screen.

Final check: quit and relaunch play.sh. Expect: the cutscene forces itself again on this exact launcher every single time, regardless of having just seen it — that is deliberate (the force flag exists specifically so Wolf can re-review it on demand) and is not a bug; a normal player launch without the env var would instead play it once and never again.

Read the left-aligned title block. Expect exactly: eyebrow THE FIRST POUR, the title itself I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE across two lines, genre line A CINEMATIC KUNG FU PARODY, and a music credit reading MUSIC — ARAM / ARVM BEATS.

Find the primary button. Expect: a single button reading exactly OPEN THE MENU.

Press M. Expect: game audio mutes, and pressing M again unmutes it — this key is hardwired on every screen in the game, not just gameplay.

Press F11. Expect: the window toggles between windowed and fullscreen. This exists in code but is not listed in the shipped PLAY.md controls block — worth adding there if confirmed.

Final check: press Attack (J/Space), Interact (E/Enter), or a gamepad A button — any one of the three. Expect: the campaign menu (THE MENU) opens, same as clicking OPEN THE MENU with the mouse.

Read the heading and subheading. Expect exactly: THE MENU, then EIGHT COURSES. ONE IS BEING SERVED. — a direct admission that only one of eight planned courses is built yet; that is a scope fact from the code, not something to file as a bug.

Read the main course card. Expect exactly three lines: THE MAIN COURSE, GRANDMASTER TEN DAN, SERVING NOW.

Read the Continue button. Expect exactly two lines: CONTINUE, NO COURSE ON FILE — and it must be disabled; clicking it does nothing beyond a soft "deny" sound.

Look for a ninth or hidden campaign slot anywhere on this screen — try tabbing/arrowing focus through every visible control. Expect: none is visible or reachable. In code it exists as a button named HiddenCheckSlot reading THE CHECK, unconditionally set invisible, disabled, and focus-excluded; its unlock condition ("all eight courses complete") cannot fire in a build that only contains one course, so this is provably permanent right now, not a race you could win by trying harder.

Read the status line at the bottom of the menu. Expect exactly: COURSE 1 OF 8 · THE KITCHEN IS OPEN.

Final check: press Escape (or gamepad B). Expect: you return to the title screen with OPEN THE MENU visible again — the menu's own way back out works.

Activate SETTINGS. Expect exactly six rows, in this order: MASTER VOLUME, MUSIC, SCREEN SHAKE, FLASH INTENSITY, CLOCK SPEED, DISPLAY MODE.

Look for separate Effects or Ambience volume sliders, or any Gore toggle. Expect: none exist on this screen by design — a code comment states gore is the game's identity rather than a settings switch, and sound effects/ambience are hard-muted under the current music-only policy while the effects pass is still unbuilt. Only mark this a defect if you can produce an actual sound effect during real gameplay (F7) that this policy claims does not exist yet.

Change DISPLAY MODE and CLOCK SPEED away from their current values. Expect: both change immediately, with an audible confirm cue and (for display mode) a visible window-mode change.

Final check: back out to the campaign menu, then reopen SETTINGS. Expect: your step-3 changes persisted — they are written into user://save.json's settings block, not reset per session.

Activate CHARACTER FORGE. Expect: a comparison view mounts, showing a track label, an animation-state label, and a palette label.

Cycle the animation state control through its full list. Expect: it steps through a fixed named set including idle, walk, stance_ladle, stance_debt, stance_funeral, attack, hit, and taunt — note whether the on-screen label shows these raw internal names verbatim (stance_debt, stance_funeral) or cleaner display text; the code only confirms the former.

Cycle the palette control. Expect: the backdrop's grade/light/accent colors change together with the palette name, cycling through named sets such as MANTIS COURTYARD, IRON AUNTIE FORT, and PORRIDGE KITCHEN.

Final check: exit the Forge back to the campaign menu. Expect: you land on THE MENU with the main course card intact — no crash, no stuck overlay.

Activate THE MAIN COURSE from the campaign menu. Expect: the menu closes, gameplay music switches on, and you are placed inside a first-person 3D world.

Move with W/A/S/D or the arrow keys. Expect: camera-relative movement, with no immediate wall-clipping or falling through the floor at spawn.

Press J or Space. Expect: an attack action fires.

Press K or Shift. Expect: a dodge fires, visibly distinct from the attack.

Approach an NPC and press E or Enter. Expect: an interact or dialogue prompt engages.

Press Escape mid-run, then press Escape or Attack again. Expect: the game pauses on the first press (a pause panel appears, time stops) and resumes exactly where it paused on the second — no position or HP reset.

Press M once while paused and once while unpaused. Expect: audio mutes/unmutes both times — the mute key is special-cased to work through the pause panel rather than being swallowed by it.

Final check: press F11 mid-run. Expect: fullscreen and windowed toggle without pausing or otherwise interrupting gameplay.

Enter a duel. Expect: the camera and controls shift into a dedicated duel framing, visibly distinct from open-world first-person movement.

Press 1, then 2, then 3 in turn. Expect: your character visibly changes stance on each key — these three physical number keys are hard-bound to three stance slots. Note in your record whatever on-screen label (if any) actually names each stance; this was not independently confirmed by reading the code.

Attack (J/Space) while holding a stance you believe reads the opponent correctly. Expect: a visible hit response on the opponent — not a silent whiff either way.

Deliberately hold the wrong stance or stand still. Expect: an honest failure signal — a visible HP or state change, or a retry offer — not a silent stall with no feedback.

Final check: resolve the duel to its end (win, or whatever its designed failure path is). Expect: control returns cleanly to open-world first-person movement — no stuck duel camera, no input left frozen.

From gameplay, pause (Escape) then press Interact (E/Enter). Expect: this quits out to the title screen.

From the title, open the menu. Expect: the main course card's third line now reads ON FILE · <beat> with your actual current beat (for example M1) in place of SERVING NOW.

Read the Continue button. Expect exactly two lines: CONTINUE, then <beat> · DUELS n/6 — six is the total duel count in this build (mantis, tiger, leopard, monkey, crane, snake) and n is however many you have actually completed — and the button is now enabled.

Click Continue. Expect: gameplay resumes at the saved beat and position, not a restart from M1.

Final check: quit the app completely (⌘Q or close the window) and relaunch with play.sh. Expect: after the forced cold open (F2), Continue at the campaign menu still reflects the same saved beat — the save survived a full process exit, not just in-session state.

From the campaign menu, activate REPLAY COLD OPEN. Expect: the same filmed sequence from F2 plays again.

Let it finish, or skip it by holding Attack. Expect: you land back on the campaign menu (THE MENU) — not the title screen; replaying from the menu returns to the menu, unlike the boot path in F2 which returns to the title.

Final check: read the main course card and Continue button again. Expect: both still show your F9 progress unchanged — the script's own header comment claims this replay path "is not consumed" against a real save, and this step is the direct check of that claim.

On a fresh save (no run started), open the campaign menu. Expect: the ledger button reads DIM SUM'S LEDGER, NO COURSE ON FILE, and is disabled.

With a save present but no campaign started (to confirm — not independently walked in this pass): expect the same button to instead read DIM SUM'S LEDGER, RUN NOT YET INDEXED, still disabled; once a campaign has actually started, expect it to read plain DIM SUM'S LEDGER and be enabled.

With a started campaign, open the ledger. Expect: a full-page journal listing your current objective and progress, matching the same state the main course card and Continue button show elsewhere in the menu — no contradiction between the three.

Final check: close the ledger (Escape or ui_cancel). Expect: you return to the campaign menu, not the title screen or a blank screen.

Reach and clear M14, the campaign's final beat. Expect (to confirm — not re-verified against this exact commit): a protected, uninterrupted closing sequence — hard silence, a first-light beat, an unchanged-HP moment, then the protected close and credits, per the prior D3 story-walk's recorded shape.

Return to the campaign menu. Expect exactly: the main course card's third line reads COURSE SERVED, and the Continue button reads exactly two lines, CONTINUE then COURSE SERVED.

Open Dim Sum's Ledger. Expect: it reflects the completed state with no beat still shown as active.

Final check: this is the actual Founder headed verdict the workspace has been waiting on since at least 2026-07-24, when PLAY.md recorded its own F20 line as DEFERRED-⚠ Wolf must run the build and play the full course headed. A real pass/fail recorded here — with notes on anything that broke the illusion along the way — is the deliverable this whole document exists to produce.