Story after Oliver's first test: metal, a straight prologue, 2x3 chapters

- The gore bed is "Dystopian Survival", made loopable: the last ten
  seconds cross-faded into the first ten, 203.5 s, as MP3 at 128k (the
  decoder strips the encoder's delay, so the seam has no gap). High-pass
  at 40 Hz instead of 800, level matched to the menu theme.
- The prologue no longer drops into gore for a moment: after the turn,
  act I's card and cup take over directly.
- RESET STORY under the build stamp (two taps; test only). It resets
  the story, league, cups and title, keeps the level, and pushes at once
  so the mirror cannot hand the old act back.
- The story screens have sound: a whoosh and a boom for the act card,
  applause and the rack's own click as each weapon lands, applause and
  a pock per arcade door on the act's end.
- Chapters are six games: mid-boss after three, the horde after four,
  the act boss after six.

v384, staging only.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

PROJECT.md

@@ -636,6 +636,38 @@ Each phase ships to staging and gets a phone verdict, and tests ride along with
 5. **LATER.** The metal bed (when Oliver has a track: start at the transformation, gore only) and Members'
    Night (option C).
 
+## Session log: THE STORY, Oliver's first test (2026-10-15, v384, STAGING ONLY)
+Oliver: *"after my first test it all made a good impression"*, plus five asks.
+- **The metal track** ("Dystopian Survival", 3:36). `assets/audio/metal-loop.mp3` is 0.5-214 s with the
+  last 10 s cross-faded (equal power, `acrossfade qsin`) into the first 10. The seam sits inside the
+  fade and the loop is exactly 203.5 s.
+  - Built with a static ffmpeg in the scratchpad: decode to WAV first, then three `-ss/-t` inputs. Two
+    `atrim`s of ONE input read out of order yield an empty crossfade.
+  - It was AAC first; MP3 at Oliver's call. The LAME tag carries the encoder delay and padding, and the
+    decoder strips them: 8974350 frames measured in Chromium, signal at both ends. `GORE_BED.loopEnd`
+    pins it anyway.
+  - `lowcut` is 40 Hz (the old 800 Hz high-pass would gut metal) and `vol` is 0.5: it is mastered at
+    -14 LUFS against the old bed's -8.
+  - The open-source Chromium used for tests cannot decode AAC at all, the old beds included. Phones
+    can; that was never a file defect.
+- **The prologue goes straight on** (*"momentan wechselt man kurz in den Gore-Mode, das ist
+  verwirrend"*). In the story the old transformation stops after the turn: no mob, no "remain
+  seated", no gore beat. At 5.2 s, `enterSplatter(quiet)` and act I's card and cup take over.
+  - Because the quiet entry no longer loads the gore bed, the chapter start and the transformation's
+    run-off call `zombieMusic()` (load if needed, then un-duck) instead of `zombieDuck(false)`.
+- **RESET STORY** (test only, `STORE.testReset`) under the splash's build stamp. Two taps within 3 s.
+  - It resets the story, league, cups and champion flag; the level stays.
+  - It pushes at once, or `pull()` (forward-only) would hand the old act back.
+  - Gotcha: `armT` started at 0, which counts as armed in a page younger than 3 s.
+- **Screen sounds:**
+  - Act card: a whoosh and a boom when the title lands.
+  - Ceremony: applause, and the rack's own `weapon-click2` as each tin lands, at 70% of its drop.
+  - Act card at the end: applause, a boom for the badge, a rising pock per arcade door.
+  - Timers are cleared when a screen is tapped away.
+- **Chapters are 2×3** (*"statt 2x5 lieber 2x3"*): `STORY.midAt` 3, `length` 6, and `hordeAt` 4. A
+  chapter's "set" is four games: at the arcade's six the set would land on the act boss, and the horde
+  would vanish behind him. The test pins one horde after game four.
+
 ## Session log: THE STORY, PHASES 1-4 — built on staging (2026-10-15, branch `story`, v380-v382, STAGING ONLY)
 
 Oliver: *"mache alle, ich vertraue. alles erst mal auf staging"*. The plan is in "THE STORY" below.