Characters: the family, the street, the clients

Everyone you mow for is somebody. Grandma Claudia knows every soul on Primrose Lane and wrote it all down; dad rambles, mom slips you money, Chad films you. Every client carries five traits that never change: how picky they are, how much timing matters, how hard they haggle, how much they talk, how they take a problem. You never see a number. You hear it in their voice, see it on their porch, read it in grandma's address book, and after a few visits you know them as well as she did.

The player's view

The family, mostly by phone. Grandma Claudia moved to the retirement home by the sea last year, but she's everywhere in her house: pink sticky notes, a kitten calendar, a framed photo in the hall of her and Harold in front of the garage, a mower between them. Harold is gone; his handwriting is all over the mower's manual. Dad leaves rambling voicemails from the Caribbean, mom leaves kind ones. Grandma rings to judge your work.

The street. Mrs. Higgins next door watches you mow from her porch in her cardigan, haggles like a pro and calls grandma "Claudia". Further down, Mr. Kowalski mows his own lawn and tells you about it, Edna Pruitt's roses are (she says) better than grandma's, Mr. Abernathy yells at the pigeons, the Nguyens' lawn is covered in toys, and Darlene sleeps until one because she works nights.

Reading people. A caller says "I like it just right. I'll be checking": she's picky. Another asks the price before saying hello: he'll haggle. One porch has a "No soliciting" sign and a man with his arms crossed: careful. You arrive twenty minutes early at Mr. Abernathy's and he's furious. Next time you come in his window, and the address book by the phone now says, in your handwriting, under grandma's pink lines: "Hates early birds. Come in the window."

A town of different people. The man at the first door is tall and stooped with a white comb-over; the woman at the next is short and round, in a headscarf, with glasses that make her googly eyes enormous. A teenager bikes past, a grandfather waits on his porch with a cane. Nobody looks like anybody else, and your own sibling is as tall, short, broad or narrow as you made them. Everyone has googly eyes.

The book. Grandma's battered address book sits by the corded phone. Her entries on the old neighbours are priceless ("Edna. Her roses are NOT better than mine. Never before 10, she does her hair."). Every new client you deal with gets a page, and what you learn about them writes itself in. Your sister's notes are in her ink, yours in yours. Later, the book moves into your own phone.

Ideas

The cast (CH1-CH6): who each named character is, how they look and sound, where they appear. Their mechanics stay in the specs that use them.
The traits (CH7-CH10): five hidden traits per client, what each one does, how generated clients get theirs.
Reading and remembering (CH11, CH12): the tells, and grandma's contact book.
Grandma in person (CH13): later, you see her.
Bodies and faces (CH14-CH19): what people look like, for the cast, the clients and the siblings.

CH1: the family

The four people the siblings call family. None of them is a client; all of them teach (TU2, TU3). The siblings themselves are SI1 and SI2.

Who	Who they are	Voice	How they talk	Where
Grandma Claudia	Dad's mother, early 80s, sassy and sharp. Moved to the retirement home by the sea last year. The siblings say "Grandma"; the neighbours say "Claudia".	"Mower Game - Grandma" (designed)	Short, dry, loving, judging. Gossips. Never explains twice. "Your father mowed that lawn at nine. In flip-flops."	Notes (TU2), calls and verdicts (TU3, J2), her calendar, her address book (CH12); in person later (CH13)
Harold	Grandma's late husband, dad's father. Never seen. The rusty mower was his; he taught dad on it.	none	Through his handwriting: blunt, practical, a little rude ("ALL FOUR. Every time.").	The manual's margins (MO9), the framed photo in the hall, grandma's memories ("My Harold broke that window twice, dear")
Dad	60s, cheerful, rambling, sunburns in the shower. Built a garden company from grandma's yard with Harold's mower, sold it to GreenCorp, retired to the Caribbean.	"Mower Game - Dad Final 1" (designed)	Warm, proud, too long. Business and tools. "Kiddo" to one, "kids" to all.	The intro (ST1-ST3), voicemails (TU3, ST4)
Mom	Sun hat, orange juice, on the kids' side when dad isn't looking.	"Mower Game - Mom" (designed)	Kind, a little conspiratorial. "Don't tell your father."	The intro, mom's voicemails (TU3), money later (EC2)

The photo: a framed photo in the hall of young Claudia and Harold in front of the garage, the mower between them. A prop with no text; E on it plays one grandma line the first time ("He'd have liked you. He'd have made you redo the edges.").
Dad and mom have no first names in the game so far: the siblings say Dad and Mom, grandma says "your father".

Needs: none · Done when: every line by grandma, dad and mom plays in their cast voice and manner; Mrs. Higgins and the notes call grandma Claudia; the hall shows Claudia and Harold's photo, and E on it plays her line once, solo and in 2-player co-op.

CH2: Mrs. Higgins

The first paying client and the street's voice (J2, later J16). Grandma's best friend for forty years, next door on lot 26.

Look: 70s, cardigan, glasses on a chain, slippers on the porch, a cake tin. Googly eyes behind thick lenses.
Voice: to design: a sweet older lady with steel underneath. Every one of her lines is voiced (J2 says she needs clips).
How she talks: "dear" in every sentence, compares you to Claudia, haggles with a smile. "Your grandmother charged me $20, dear." "Claudia would have done the edges." She pays in cash, and cake.
Traits (authored, CH7): Picky mid, Punctual high, Thrifty high, Chatty high, Touchy low.
Grandma's entry (CH12): "Mrs. H. My best friend. Haggles like a pirate, pays in cake. Don't you DARE come early."
Where: grandma's call (J2), her porch during her own job (she watches), the door at the end (EC8), the fence later (J16), gossip with grandma.

Needs: none · Done when: Mrs. Higgins has her model, her voice and her authored traits, and every line she has on the MVP path is voiced; solo and in 2-player co-op both players see her on her porch during her job.

CH3: Chad

Your best friend from the yacht club, and now your audience.

Look: your age (31), popped collar, sunglasses even at night, the phone always up and filming. Drives the red sports car, the same model as the one in the pool.
Voice: to design: a smug, upbeat "bro". New cast (ST1's Tech).
How he talks: "Bro." "BRO." Talks to his followers more than to you; every insult sounds like a compliment. "Love the new car, by the way. Is it a toaster?"
Traits for his job (ST11, authored, CH7): Picky high (it's on camera), Punctual low, Thrifty low (he pays anything, for a laugh), Chatty high, Touchy mid.
Where: the yacht club (ST1, shot 6), his scene after Mrs. Higgins (ST9), his viral video in the paper at the MVP's end (ST10); later his booking and filmed job, drive-bys, posts and headlines (ST11). Who his father is waits for ST7.

Needs: none · Done when: Chad's model and voice play in ST1's shot 6 and in ST9, at the same moment on both instances in 2-player co-op.

CH4: the intro's extras

The small parts in the intro (ST1, ST2), so they get a look and a voice once and stay consistent.

The watch clerk: nervous and delighted, on the client rig. Voice to design: eager, a little scared.
The phone: a cheerful synthetic voice ("Payment declined."). Voice to design; no body.
The GreenCorp lawn crew: the client rig in green polos, silent, mowing the mansion's stripes (ST1, shot 2; ST2, shot 9). The polo is the quiet plant of dad's sale.

Needs: none · Done when: the clerk and the phone have their own voices, and the crew wears GreenCorp polos in every shot it's in.

CH5: Primrose Lane

Grandma's street. Five hand-made neighbours besides Mrs. Higgins, all people grandma knew, with authored traits, lines and grandma's entries in her book (CH12). The other households on the street and in the whole town are generated (WK1, CH8). Their schedules, chats and gossip belong to the neighbours spec (not written yet; its notes wait in Leftovers from the old plans); this is who they are. The built street clients Mrs. Parker (No. 25) and the Hendersons (No. 22) move to the suburbs when the neighbours are built, and their lots go to this cast (the user, 2026-10-03).

Who	Who they are	Traits (P / Pu / T / C / To)	Habit	Grandma's entry
Mr. Stan Kowalski	Retired, proud of his lawn, mows his own on Sundays. When his back goes, he calls you and watches every pass.	high / mid / high / low / high	DIY	"Stan Kowalski. Mows his own and tells you about it. When his back goes he'll call, and he'll WATCH."
Edna Pruitt	Grandma's rose rival for forty years. Garden club, perfect edges.	high / high / mid / mid / high	Show-off	"Edna. Her roses are NOT better than mine. Never before 10, she does her hair."
Mr. Abernathy	The man who yells at pigeons (ST2's joke, made real). The pigeons yell back.	low / high / high / high / high	none	"Mr. Abernathy. Don't feed the pigeons. Don't MENTION the pigeons. Don't come early."
The Nguyens	A young family, new in 2019. Toys all over the lawn (J33), pay late.	low / low / mid / mid / low	none	"The Nguyens. Lovely. Pick up the toys before you mow. They'll pay. Eventually."
Darlene	A night-shift nurse. Sleeps until one; her bedroom window listens (SN3).	mid / mid / low / low / mid	none	"Darlene works nights. NO engines before 1. Bring her a coffee, she likes that."

Pick a neighbour: their five traits in words, and grandma's entry about them

Traits read: Picky, Punctual, Thrifty, Chatty, Touchy (CH7). Habits are WK2's DIY and show-off (CH7).
J1's friend calls can name them ("Edna gave me your number") before you meet them.
Voices: each gets one from the client pool or a designed voice; Edna and Mr. Abernathy get their own.

Needs: CH7, CH8, WK1 · Done when: the five neighbours live on their lots with their looks, voices, authored traits and grandma's entries, the same on both instances.

CH6: the rivals' faces

The town's recurring people outside the street, so their look and voice are set once. Their mechanics are J20-J23 and WK4.

Kyle: a teenager mowing for pocket money. Headphones, a bike, a borrowed mower; stripes like a seismograph; forgets to show up. Later, your first hire (J23).
Old Walt: an old pro in overalls and a cap, a dented pickup, forty years of the same clients. Retires and sells his round (J23, WK1's goodbye letter).

Needs: J22 · Done when: Kyle and Old Walt have their looks and voices wherever their rival ideas put them.

CH7: the five traits

Every client carries five traits, each low, mid or high. They never change, they're never shown as numbers, and the same client always acts the same way, so people are learnable (J37c).

Trait	What it is	Low	High
Picky	how good the job must be	"Just keep it tidy."	"Like a golf course."
Punctual	how much timing matters	early, late, any day: fine	early is annoying, late is worse, the day is the day
Thrifty	how hard they haggle	pays the asking price	haggles hard, counters, "a deal's a deal"
Chatty	how much they talk	barely a word, tells nobody	keeps you at the door, tells the whole street
Touchy	how they take a problem	"Accidents happen."	sulks, calls angry, remembers

Habits sit beside the traits: DIY (mows their own, calls when away, ill or busy) and show-off (calls before parties and events). WK2's personalities read through CH7: fussy = Picky high, normal = Picky mid, relaxed = Picky low; DIY and show-off are habits. J11's estimate bias reads the same way.
Where traits come from: hand-made clients (the MVP's pool, the story clients, CH2, CH5) have them authored in their definition. Generated households roll theirs (CH8).
In the MVP, two traits are used; the other three are carried but do nothing yet (CH9):
- Picky moves the expectation: J1's district expectation + pickyShift (−5 / 0 / +5 points), so the band words in the call (J3) follow the person. Clamped to 70-98%.
- Thrifty scales the price room: J3's haggle ceiling × thriftyRoom (×1.3 / ×1 / ×0.7). Mrs. Higgins' tutorial haggle stays scripted (J2).

Needs: J3 · Done when: every MVP client carries five traits; a high-Picky client of the same district expects 5 points more and says so in the call; a high-Thrifty one accepts the +25% button less often than a low one; the same on both instances; no screen ever shows a trait.

CH8: rolled traits for generated households

Generated households (J5, WK1) roll each trait from the save seed + the lot, so every machine and every reload agrees, with weights by district: mostly mid, the hills pickier, grandma's street chattier.

District	Picky low / mid / high	The other traits
Grandma's street	35 / 50 / 15	Chatty 15 / 45 / 40
Suburbs	25 / 50 / 25	25 / 50 / 25 each
Leafy avenues	15 / 50 / 35	Thrifty 35 / 45 / 20
The hills	10 / 40 / 50	Thrifty 45 / 40 / 15, Touchy 15 / 45 / 40

Habits: DIY on 15% of households, show-off on 10% (WK2's events).
A household's look and its house's details follow its traits (CH11).

Needs: CH7, J5 · Done when: a generated street shows the district's mix of traits, and the same lot has the same traits on both instances and after a reload.

CH9: what Punctual, Chatty and Touchy do

The three traits the MVP carries without using. Each one plugs into an existing rule; this table is the one place that says how far.

Trait	Plugs into	Low	Mid	High
Punctual	early arrival (J37c, J10)	anytime is fine	up to 30 min early is fine (J10)	any time before the window: annoyed (mood −0.1) or not home
	late arrival (J10)	up to 1 h without a dip	J10's rule	J10's drop ×1.5
	the wrong day (J37c)	moves the booking happily	moves it	"Tomorrow, as agreed."
	rain (J37e)	waits for your call	waits for your call	calls first to postpone
Chatty	word of mouth (J1's talk)	×0.6	×1	×1.5
	at the door (EC8)	the verdict, nothing else	one line of small talk	a story first (skippable), then the verdict
	gossip (J16, grandma)	tells nobody	tells a friend	tells the street and grandma
Touchy	damage (J13)	forgives the first, once	bills you (J13)	bills you, talk −0.5
	a job under the expectation	the line only	J3's lines	the line, and no callback
	no-shows	CH10	CH10	CH10

Needs: CH7, J37c · Done when: two clients who differ in one trait react differently to the same event, and each reacts the same way every time, on both instances.

CH10: no-shows, by Touchy

You don't turn up on the booked day. It always costs: trust −3 (J1's track record) and, on grandma's street, TU5's standing drop. The rest depends on the client:

Touchy	What they do	Talk
Low	calls to rebook ("Did you forget me, dear?"); the job moves to a new day	−0.25
Mid	cancels quietly; no callback for twice `callbackMin`	−0.5
High	calls angry, cancels, and remembers: no callback for `grudgeDays`, and their next call (if any) expects 5 more	−1

Phoning ahead to postpone (J10) before the day halves the talk and costs no trust; rain is always free (J37e).
A no-show at a high-Punctual client counts as Touchy one level higher.

Needs: CH9 · Done when: missing a booked job brings the reaction of the client's Touchy level, phoning ahead halves it, and rain never costs anything.

CH11: the tells

How you read a trait before it's in the book. Tells never lie, but a person shows only some of them: each client shows one or two tells, picked from their seed. Four channels:

Voice and words: the call's first line and the door. Picky says it (J3's bands). Thrifty asks the price before hello. Punctual names an exact time ("Ten sharp."). Chatty rambles about the cat. Touchy is curt, or overly sweet.
Their house: seeded details on the lot. Picky high: gnomes in rows, edges like a knife. Punctual high: a porch clock, "Deliveries 9-5" on the mailbox flap (a sign, a shape, no text). Thrifty high: coupons on the fridge through the window, a patched hose. Chatty high: two chairs on the porch, wind chimes. Touchy high: a "No soliciting" sign, curtains drawn.
Their look: clothes and pose. Picky high: gardening gloves, a tape measure. Punctual low: dressing gown and slippers at noon. Thrifty high: a cardigan with bulging pockets. Touchy high: arms crossed at the door.
Grandma's notes: on Primrose Lane, her entries (CH12) already reveal one to three traits per household.

Needs: CH8, CH9 · Done when: every generated household shows one or two true tells, and testers guess a client's tell trait from them better than chance.

CH12: grandma's contact book

Grandma's battered address book on the hall table, next to the corded phone. A station: E opens its screen (no text on the prop). Shared by all siblings.

A page of grandma's address book: her pink entry, the notes the siblings wrote themselves, and the traits still unknown

One page per person, in alphabetical tabs: name, house number and street, phone number, the times you worked there, and two parts:
- Grandma's entry, in her pink handwriting, for everyone on Primrose Lane (she knew them all). Hand-made neighbours have authored entries (CH5); generated street households get one or two lines from a pool, one per trait they reveal.
- Yours: lines that write themselves when a trait shows: you arrive early and they're annoyed, they give in at +25%, they forgive the broken window. One fixed line per trait level ("Hates early birds. Come in the window.", "Haggles. Start high.", "Talks. Budget ten minutes."). The note is in the ink of the sibling who saw it.
A person gets a page the first time you deal with them (a call, a knock, a job). A trait shows once, then it's known; the book never shows the levels as dots or numbers, only the lines.
Unknown traits show as blank lines, so a page tells you how well you know someone.
Later, the phone: when you own a phone (J25), the book is in it too, the same pages.

Needs: CH9, CH11, J37c · Done when: witnessing a trait writes its line in the witness's ink on that client's page, on both instances; grandma's entries are there from day one; a reload keeps everything.

CH13: grandma in person

Grandma is a voice and a handwriting in the MVP. Later you see her: a visit to her at the retirement home by the sea (a drive; she looks at your before/after photos, J14, and judges), and the day she comes to inspect her own garden (a taxi, her cane, her roses). Both need her model and a few animations.

CH14: bodies, the first slice

Today every character is one of two bodies of one size; only clothes, hair and colours differ. The first slice gives people height, build and age, plus glasses, four hairstyles and more skin tones, so the MVP's doors open on different people. The rule for all of CH14-CH19: nobody's body is the joke. Googly eyes on everyone; the silliness is in what people do, never in how they look. And a body never hints at a temperament (CH11): only clothes and pose do.

Move the sliders or roll a stranger: height, frame, build, age, hair and glasses on one googly-eyed body

Height: five steps, ×0.88 to ×1.12 (heightSteps). The whole rig scales; the collider and, for siblings, the first-person eye height (PL2) follow.
Frame: narrow, average or broad: shoulder and hip width by bone scale.
Build: three shape keys on both bodies, Thin, Fat (a belly, rounder limbs, a fuller neck) and Muscle (arms, chest, shoulders), built as SK3 describes. CH14 builds them; SK3 later drives them from a sibling's muscle and fat.
Age: adult, older or old. Older: some grey in the hair. Old: grey or white hair, a stoop (a fixed spine offset over every clip) and a slower walk (×0.8). Wrinkles come with the face kit (CH15).
Glasses: none, round, square or thick lenses. The lenses magnify the googly eyes (thick: ×1.3 eye size).
Hair: four new styles on both bodies: bald, balding (a horseshoe), curly and afro, on top of today's five.
Skin: four more tones between and beyond today's six (d9a37a, b07a52, 6f4630, 3e2a1f).
Who uses it in the MVP: the hand-made clients (authored bodies), the cast, and the siblings.

Who	Body
Dad	average height, Fat 0.6, balding
Mom	tall, Thin 0.5, long hair under the sun hat
Mrs. Higgins	short, old, thick lenses, curly grey hair, Fat 0.3
Chad	tall, broad, Muscle 0.5
The watch clerk	short, narrow, square glasses

The siblings pick height, frame and glasses on SI1's screen (and change glasses at the closet). They don't pick Thin, Fat or Muscle: a new sibling starts at SK's start body, and later earns their shape (SK3). Their age is fixed (31).

Needs: none · Done when: the hand-made clients and the cast show their authored height, frame, build, age, glasses and hair; a sibling made tall and broad with round glasses looks it on both instances, in first person (eye height) and from outside; Push and the intro gestures look right at both ends of height and at full Fat and Muscle.

CH15: the face kit

Faces beyond the googly eyes: nose shapes (button, long, hooked, wide), ears (small, big, sticking out), eyebrow thickness, moustache and beard styles (four), freckles, wrinkles (following age), a hearing aid. All separate low-poly pieces on the head bones, like the eyes, so no new shape keys. The siblings get them on SI1's screen.

CH16: hair and headwear

More hairstyles (braids, a mohawk, curlers, a comb-over, a mullet) and headwear: a cap, a sun hat, a bucket hat, a headscarf, a hijab, a turban, a bandana. Headwear switches the hair to a short "under" version so nothing clips. For clients it's part of who they are (seeded or authored); for the siblings, in the closet.

CH17: kids and teens

Smaller bodies with bigger heads: kids (×0.55, playing on lawns, the Nguyens' two) and teens (×0.8, Kyle, the paperboy). Own proportions on the same rig and clips, checked for every pose they use. Kids never get near a running mower: they're called inside when you start (a parent's line), part of the household's schedule.

CH18: mobility aids

Some clients and neighbours walk with a cane or a walker, or use a wheelchair, as everyday life and never as a joke. Their house has a ramp when they use a wheelchair (the lot generator places it); they take longer to come to the door, and the door talk waits for them. Grandma uses a cane when you finally see her (CH13).

CH19: rolled looks for generated households

Generated households (J5, WK1) roll each member's look from the save seed + the lot + the member's index, on its own salt, separate from the traits (CH8), so a body never correlates with a temperament.

The mix: every skin tone, height, frame and build in every district. Ages lean by district (grandma's street older, the suburbs families, the hills middle-aged).
Family resemblance: members of one household share part of their look (skin tones from neighbouring steps, related hair colours), so a family reads as a family.
Each household rolls its headwear (CH16), glasses and aids (CH18) from small shares (headwearShare, glassesShare, aidShare).

Needs: CH14, J5 · Done when: a generated street shows a wide mix of bodies and ages, families that look related, and the same lot looks the same on both instances and after a reload.

Tuning

Name	Value	Idea	What it does / why
`pickyShift`	−5 / 0 / +5 points	CH7	Moves J1's district expectation per person; ±5 crosses one band of J3's words.
`expectationClamp`	70-98%	CH7	Nobody expects less than tidy or more than a golf course.
`thriftyRoom`	×1.3 / ×1 / ×0.7	CH7	Scales J3's haggle ceiling; a high-Thrifty relaxed caller still has a little room.
District trait weights	see CH8	CH8	Mostly mid; the hills pickier and stingier, grandma's street chattier.
`diyShare` / `showOffShare`	15% / 10%	CH8	WK2's habits on generated households.
`punctualEarly`	any / 30 min / 0	CH9	How early each level tolerates; mid is J10's rule.
`chattyTalk`	×0.6 / ×1 / ×1.5	CH9	Word of mouth weight per person; to tune with EC5.
`noShowTalk`	−0.25 / −0.5 / −1	CH10	By Touchy; halved when you phoned ahead.
`grudgeDays`	30 days	CH10	How long a high-Touchy client refuses to call after a no-show.
`tellsPerClient`	1-2	CH11	Enough to read someone, not enough to know them without the book.
`heightSteps`	×0.88 / 0.94 / 1 / 1.06 / 1.12	CH14	Varied enough to see from the curb; narrow enough that the push pose still meets the handle.
`frameWidth`	×0.9 / 1 / ×1.12	CH14	Shoulder and hip bone width.
`oldWalk`	×0.8	CH14	Old people walk slower; view only, the sim never waits on it.
`thickLensEyes`	×1.3	CH14	Thick glasses magnify the googly eyes.
`kidScale` / `teenScale`	×0.55 / ×0.8	CH17	With a bigger head ratio.
`glassesShare` / `headwearShare` / `aidShare`	30% / 20% / 5%	CH19	How many generated people roll each.

Co-op

Who owns it: the host, through the sim. Traits are data: authored in definitions or rolled from the save seed and the lot (SimRandom), so every machine computes the same traits and nothing is sent.
What syncs: only what the book has learned: which traits are known per client and which sibling wrote each line, in company state, changed by a command when the host's sim resolves a reaction (the host already decides reactions).
What each player sees: the same book, the same pages; each line in its writer's ink. Tells are on the lot and in the voice, the same for everyone.
Joining mid-way: the book comes with the company state; traits need nothing.
Solo: one ink. Same code path.
Looks: a sibling's height, frame and glasses are part of their PlayerLook, saved and synced by the built SetLookCommand like the rest of the look. Clients' looks are authored or rolled (CH19): nothing to send.

Tech

Data: a ClientTraits struct (Picky, Punctual, Thrifty, Chatty, Touchy, each Low/Mid/High) and a Habit (None, Diy, ShowOff) on the client definition (today's hand-made pool and m00-m14; the neighbours spec's NeighbourDefinition carries the same). The cast sheet's voices go in VoiceExport.Cast.
Rolling (CH8): SimRandom with a new salt (Salts.ClientTraits) + the lot id; covered by the seed fingerprint tests.
MVP wiring (CH7): OfferModel adds pickyShift to the expectation before picking the band words; the haggle ceiling multiplies by thriftyRoom. Both in OfferTuning.
The book (CH12): Company.KnownTraits (client id → five known flags + the writer per flag), set by a RevealTraitCommand, idempotent. Grandma's entries are static text in the definitions; the pool lines in ClientTexts.
Save: authored and rolled traits aren't saved (pure functions); only KnownTraits is.
Tests: same seed and lot → same traits; a high-Picky client's expectation is 5 above a mid one's; a high-Thrifty client's ceiling is ×0.7; revealing a trait twice changes nothing; the book survives a save and load.
Bodies (CH14): PlayerLook gains height, frame, glasses; NPCs get a BodyLook (height, frame, Thin, Fat, Muscle, age, hair, glasses, and later CH15-CH18's pieces). CharacterLook.Apply sets the root scale, the shoulder and hip bones, the shape key weights, the age stoop and the glasses. Blender (characters.py): the three shape keys on both bodies (SK3's recipe), the four hair meshes, three glasses meshes; turn importBlendShapes on for the two character FBXs and rebuild the character prefabs (they're saved copies). Old saves: missing fields read as average height, average frame, no glasses.
Rolling looks (CH19): its own salt (Salts.ClientLooks), never the traits' salt.
Voices to design: Mrs. Higgins, Chad, the watch clerk, the phone (MVP); Edna, Mr. Abernathy, Kyle, Old Walt later.

Open questions

Where Chad lives: which district his lawn is in for his filmed job (ST11), and how big.
Grandma's voice on the phone vs in person: the same designed voice, with the phone filter only on calls (the rule in Architecture › voices)?
The push pose at the ends of height: is ±12% enough to keep the hands on the handle, or does it need hand IK on the grips?
Do the siblings each have an ink colour picked on the SI1 screen, or set by slot?

Rejected

Archetypes only (fussy, relaxed, stingy...): everyone of a type would act the same. Five traits combine into people.
Trait levels shown as dots or numbers, even in the book: you learn people through words, like grandma did.
Notes the player writes by hand: most players wouldn't, and typing in co-op is clunky. The book writes itself.
A notebook each sibling carries: the company shares what it knows; one book by the phone.
Random reactions per visit: people must be learnable; the same person reacts the same way every time.
Bodies as tells (older means punctual, big means touchy...): stereotypes, and players would read bodies instead of tells. Looks roll apart from traits.
Fat and Muscle sliders on the face screen: a sibling's shape is earned (SK3), not picked.
Every household on grandma's street hand-made: five plus Mrs. Higgins carry the street; the rest are generated.