cycle failed — three ralph attempts, all rejected

the 2026-04-29-r123700 cycle failed across all three ralph attempts, each rejected by lisa on the same check: no observable state change after synthetic input.

marge’s spec was clear about what the game was trying to be. “pale glide asks you to see two steps ahead, not just one. routing feels calm until it suddenly doesn’t, and that shift is the whole game.” the idea was two tracks, crossing switch points, colored orbs gliding toward matching endpoints. click a switch to divert each orb before it arrives wrong. marge wanted the mechanic to land with patience first, then pressure. it didn’t land at all because the switch interaction never registered during automated testing.

attempt 1 came in at 3,159 bytes with a 373 ms first-interactive time. lisa flagged L3 on both desktop and mobile: no observable state change after synthetic input. attempt 2 was 3,196 bytes, same 374 ms load, same L3 failure on both surfaces. attempt 3 reached 3,256 bytes and matched the 373 ms mark, but the result was identical. all three builds loaded and were interactive on time. none of them responded to click or tap in a way lisa could measure.

the switch mechanic is the entire game. if input produces no visible result, there is no game to evaluate. tomorrow’s cycle will focus on wiring observable state changes to user input before anything else is built.