The season: the tournament becomes the story — the plan of record

Oliver's read: the modes feel decoupled, the menus and end screens enforce no
story-line. Settled in discussion: the tournament is the canonical path and
everything else is Beiwerk, a cup attempt is one evening (no resume, no
seeding), classic stays a side room. The spine — the splash names the next
fixture, the club remembers your attempts, the side modes are described in cup
terms, every ending hands over, and the season opens inside the promotion.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

PROJECT.md

@@ -491,6 +491,67 @@ zombie (now an occasional opponent, `TUNE.racketEvery`, not the every-game fixtu
   `RETURNED`, `DOUBLE KILL`) is a footnote to something you already watched happen. Sharing the loud
   FACE with the milestone cards is right; sharing their SIZE made every footnote read as a milestone.
 
+## THE SEASON — the tournament is the story (2026-08-31, AGREED in discussion; NOT BUILT YET)
+
+Oliver's diagnosis, and it is right: "alles ist irgendwie beliebig... die Menüführung und die Start-
+und Endscreens enforcen keine Story-Line". The cause is not a missing story — THE LEAGUES already
+are one. It is that the story runs UNDERNEATH while a mode picker sits in front: five modes as
+peers on a poster wall, the goal a caption on the plaque, and every ending dropping you back on
+the splash with nothing handed over. The one screen that already works is the PROMOTION, because
+it says *what you did, what is new, where you go next* — that is the pattern the rest is missing.
+
+### Decisions, settled with Oliver 2026-08-31
+
+1. **THE TOURNAMENT IS THE CANONICAL PATH.** It is the only thing that moves the career. Every
+   other mode is Beiwerk by design and stays that way — no second promotion route, ever.
+2. **A CUP ATTEMPT IS ONE EVENING.** No resume across sessions, and **no seeding**: reaching the
+   semi-final once does NOT let a later attempt start there. Elimination sends you back to round
+   one. That price is what makes the cup a test rather than a queue — explicitly weighed against
+   the friendlier alternative and rejected.
+3. **Classic tennis stays Beiwerk** with no narrative role. Gore and netplay likewise: "ausser
+   Konkurrenz" is their ROLE, not a demotion.
+4. **Guidance is structural, never a lock.** The leagues' rule holds: nothing that is playable
+   today gets sealed behind progress to manufacture a path. The player is POINTED, not fenced —
+   two taps still reach anything.
+5. **The story is carried by structure and screens, not by more prose.** The copy audit already
+   proved the failure mode: rules buried in modal text do not land. No narrator dumps.
+
+### The spine — five pieces
+
+1. **THE FRONT DOOR IS THE FIXTURE.** The splash's primary button stops saying PLAY MATCH and
+   names the next cup fixture instead ("LIGA 3 · THE CUP — FOUR ROUNDS · ROUND ONE: THE
+   GROUNDSKEEPER"), entering the draw directly. The poster wall moves one level down behind a
+   secondary door. One tap to the canon; one extra tap to browse.
+2. **THE CLUB REMEMBERS THE ATTEMPTS.** Two small profile fields per league: the best round
+   reached, and who eliminated you last. Shown on the plaque and the league panel ("BEST:
+   SEMI-FINAL"). A lost cup stops being a null event and becomes a line on the board — this is
+   what turns repetition into an arc, and it is the cheapest piece here.
+3. **BEIWERK IS DESCRIBED IN CUP TERMS.** The poster wall groups into DIE SAISON (the cup) /
+   DAS TRAINING (the climb, the training court, the drill) / AUSSER KONKURRENZ (gore, classic,
+   netplay), so the menu itself answers "what does this do for me?". The strongest coupling:
+   **after an elimination the training court preselects the body that knocked you out** — one
+   remembered rung and one line of copy turn a generic practice mode into the answer to the
+   last defeat.
+4. **EVERY ENDING POINTS BACK.** Non-cup endings close on the fixture line and its button. The
+   cup elimination gets its own small ceremony (the board notes how far you came) instead of the
+   generic death summary.
+5. **THE SEASON OPENS INSIDE THE PROMOTION.** No new screen: the promo screen gains a second beat
+   naming what waits in the new league (rounds, who stands at the bottom of the band). Ceremony
+   without another tap between the player and the court.
+
+### The phases
+
+- **Phase 1 — the front door.** The fixture line + button on the splash, and the same handover on
+  every ending. Presentation only; reads `cupRoundsFor` and the profile, adds no state.
+- **Phase 2 — the record.** The two profile fields, their display on plaque and league panel, and
+  the elimination ceremony.
+- **Phase 3 — the rooms.** Poster-wall grouping and the training-court preselect.
+- **Phase 4 — the season beat** inside the promotion screen.
+
+Open for the build (not decisions): the exact fixture wording; whether the fixture button skips
+the cup setup screen entirely (it has no court choice anyway); how the record reads at league 5;
+and whether the elimination ceremony is its own screen or a variant of the run-end summary.
+
 ## Session log: the copy audit — every modal says what it means (2026-08-29, Oliver's ask)
 
 A sweep over every modal/card message for decoding-required copy, four finds fixed: