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Dave conversation pacing

The production 1-1 source-speech check answered the player's name/nickname joke, then unnecessarily told them to hurry and plant because zombies would not wait. The lawn snapshot showed enemies, but the prompt did not describe the native conversation pause. Its shared character direction also put tactical advice first whenever the lawn was dangerous, including a paused conversation.

During playing-phase player, arrival and interaction turns, the shared Dave prompt now includes the actual reading-time contract. Dave should answer the subject, keep ordinary banter free of an automatic planting reminder, and provide observed tactical advice when requested. This guidance is not player-facing copy. Unsolicited background turns retain active-combat advice and silence. Existing source and classic choices, offers, scene authority, rewards and timing are unchanged. Garden and dedicated plant conversations use their existing separate prompts.

Evidence:

  • Native AdventureDave::Open sets the board pause before the dialogue opens; authored inline and settings controls reuse the same ownership. The existing compiled reading/open/close checks cover preservation of that pause.
  • New prompt-context regressions cover source 1-1/2-3, later pool/fog/roof and final-boss levels with observed enemies, plus all five background triggers. They failed before implementation. All 430 NPC tests pass after the change. The first broad run also exposed positional test assumptions about the single initial system message; the final implementation keeps that layout. A separate Windows V8 JIT assertion terminated one HTTP-flow worker in that run; the focused rerun and final full suite passed without changing its tests or disabling assertions.
  • Required hosted build/typecheck and OSS export verification are recorded before merge. No asset release, browser bundle, database migration, environment variable or account-setting change is needed.

This removes a concrete prompt mismatch. It does not guarantee every provider will write a good line. Keep the first production follow-up sample, including any remaining weakness, instead of sampling repeatedly or changing the account's chosen model.