Design for the brain you have
Most habit apps punish the exact people they claim to help: miss a day, lose the streak, feel worse, quit. Every BlobLife mechanic was filtered through one question: does this still work on a bad executive-function day? Hence phases instead of timestamps, micro-steps instead of tasks, shields instead of broken streaks, and a habitat that fades instead of a counter that resets.
Rewards never punish
XP accumulates forever and is never spent; coins are the spendable currency. Splitting the two (ADR-009) means buying a cosmetic never feels like giving up progress. Cosmetics are strictly gameplay-neutral, and the daily treasure chest's variable drops add excitement without adding pressure.
Structure is fixed on purpose
The four phases are not customisable (ADR-008). Configurable structure is a tax on the user who most needs defaults; fixed structure keeps onboarding short and makes the blob's art and moods shippable. The trade-off is recorded, and it's the kind I'd defend in review: fewer options, more app.
Work gets a hard stop too
A habit app for ADHD that only nags you to do more would miss half the problem. The work budget, the hard-stop celebration, and the energy cost of overtime treat stopping as an achievement equal to starting.
Decisions on the record
48 ADRs cover the stack, the offline model, the AI integration, and the game economy, with amendment ADRs narrowing earlier ones rather than silently rewriting them. House rules from the repo: files under 500 lines, tests after every change, never commit a secret.