# Mission Mode — Project Instructions

## What It Is
A physical card deck product that gives kids (ages 6–12) real-world missions in any environment — airports, museums, home, outdoors, cities. Core premise: every environment has a system, kids can learn it if given a role. **Not a travel product.** Travel is origin story only.

## Key Decisions (Locked)
- **Animal companion:** Fox — mother force-disperses cubs at 6 months. Independence is engineered. Maps exactly to the product premise.
- **Character relationship:** Calvin & Hobbes logic. Kid and fox as peers, not guide and follower.
- **Execution style:** Tintin/Hergé clean line. Hilda (Luke Pearson/Flying Eye) is closest existing parallel.
- **Card format:** Field guide entry — annotated, labels what to look for, teaches before you walk in.
- **Visual brief:** "A field guide card format, drawn with picture-book warmth, showing a small kid and an animal navigating a large real-world environment together — as peers, not as guide and follower."

## Files
- **Landing page:** `public/mission-mode.html` → curiousendeavor.com/mission-mode.html
- **Reference board v2:** `public/mission-refs/index.html` → curiousendeavor.com/mission-refs/
- **Styles board (rejected):** `public/mission-mode-styles.html`
- **Work files:** `work/pitches/mission-mode/`
  - `index.html` — landing page source
  - `style-research.html` — styles board source
  - `style-refs/` — downloaded reference images

## Reference Brands Studied
- **Hilda + Twig** (Luke Pearson): Kid + deerfox as peers. Clean bold graphic line.
- **Richard Scarry/Busytown**: World has systems, every environment is learnable.
- **Shaun Tan / The Arrival**: Small figure navigating enormous incomprehensible world.
- **Ernest & Célestine**: Peer relationship conveyed without words.
- **Field guide format**: Card format logic — annotated, systematic.

## Collaborators
- **Tal:** Assaf's partner on Mission Mode. Rewrote the deck (too sanitised — removed founder story, science, soul).
- **Original deck:** 18 slides (Assaf) + 21 slides rewrite (Tal)

## Pending
- Assaf reaction to reference board v2
- Brief illustrator: fox + child, 3 test cards, 3 environments
- Landing page copy revision (Assaf noted "copy needs work")
- Deck structure: 9-section approved, needs slide copy