Declare the managers in boot.go, hand them to the engine whole

boot.manager.go becomes boot.go and carries all seven managers as one
block, so what the game holds reads in one place instead of a line hidden
in each category file. The category files keep their entity alias.

The hand-off stops copying. Our managers are the same *inkwell.Manager[T]
the Game holds, so New assigns them onto it and engine and game share one
registry per category. content.manager.go is gone with the copy loop.

Themes stay additive — NewGame seeds four presets we would otherwise
throw away — and registerScene becomes prepareScene, which now has to run
before the hand-off: with no copy pass left, the scene defaults are
written back into SceneManager with Set.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

CLAUDE.md

@@ -49,25 +49,25 @@ All game code lives in one flat package, `inc`. There are no subdirectories: a
 file's name carries the structure, in the form `[category].[name].go`.
 
 - The category is always **singular**: `item`, `scene`, `background`,
-  `character`, `dialog`, `script`, `world`, `ui`, `theme`, `names`, `boot`,
-  `content`.
+  `character`, `dialog`, `script`, `world`, `ui`, `theme`, `names`.
 - `[category].manager.go` is the file that ties a category together — its
-  manager, its entity type, whatever the category shares.
+  entity type and whatever else the category shares.
 - Every other file in a category holds exactly one entity: one scene, one
   background, one item. The file registers it itself, in an `init()`.
+- `boot.go` is the exception that has no category: it declares every manager
+  and builds the game.
 
 ```
 main.go                    flags + inkwell.Run
-inc/boot.manager.go        wiring; New(Opts) builds the game
+inc/boot.go                the managers; New(Opts) builds the game
 inc/names.manager.go       entity names and world-state keys
-inc/theme.manager.go       the theme manager and the colour helpers
+inc/theme.manager.go       the Theme alias and the colour helpers
 inc/theme.realworld.go     realworld-93
 inc/theme.nokia_punk.go    nokia-punk
 inc/world.manager.go       unsaved runtime state
 inc/world.action.go        custom actions and the action pump
 inc/ui.manager.go          HUD layout and widget registration
 inc/ui.*.go                custom widgets, coloured text
-inc/content.manager.go     composition root; calls every register…
 inc/background.*.go        one image asset per scene
 inc/character.*.go         the cast, tapes included
 inc/item.*.go              inventory
@@ -84,18 +84,30 @@ Every category that owns a collection of entities has a manager, and they are
 all the engine's own `inkwell.Manager[T]` — the same registry type the `*Game`
 hangs its content off. The game defines no registry of its own.
 
-The entity types are aliases of engine structs, so they already carry
-`GetName()` and satisfy `inkwell.Named`; the manager needs nothing else:
+All seven are declared together, in `boot.go`, so the list of what the game
+holds is one block rather than a line hidden in each category file:
+
+```go
+var (
+	BackgroundManager = inkwell.NewManager[Background]()
+	CharacterManager  = inkwell.NewManager[Character]()
+	DialogManager     = inkwell.NewManager[Dialog]()
+	ItemManager       = inkwell.NewManager[Item]()
+	SceneManager      = inkwell.NewManager[Scene]()
+	ScriptManager     = inkwell.NewManager[Script]()
+	ThemeManager      = inkwell.NewManager[Theme]()
+)
+```
+
+The entity types stay in their own category files, one alias each, and that is
+all a manager file holds now:
 
 ```go
 type Character = inkwell.Character
-
-var CharacterManager = inkwell.NewManager[Character]()
 ```
 
-That is the whole of a category's manager file — an alias and one line. There
-are seven managers: `BackgroundManager`, `CharacterManager`, `DialogManager`,
-`ItemManager`, `ScriptManager`, `SceneManager`, `ThemeManager`.
+Aliases of engine structs already carry `GetName()` and satisfy
+`inkwell.Named`, which is the whole of what a manager asks of them.
 
 The methods the game uses are `Register`, `Set`, `Get`, `All` and `Each`.
 `Register` panics on a duplicate name — a second registration is a
@@ -126,8 +138,9 @@ func init() {
 ```
 
 Adding an entity is adding a file. Deleting one is deleting a file. Package-level
-variables are initialised before any `init()` runs, so the managers exist by the
-time the first file registers into one.
+variables are initialised before any `init()` runs, whatever file each sits in,
+so the managers in `boot.go` exist by the time the first entity file registers
+into one.
 
 `init()` order is file-name order, so **registration order is alphabetical**.
 Nothing may depend on it — including the order the arrow keys walk the scenes,
@@ -135,23 +148,30 @@ which is simply the order the files sit in.
 
 ### Handing a category to the engine
 
-Once the game exists, `Each` walks a manager and gives every entity to the
-engine's own manager. `registerContent` is the whole of it:
+Nothing is copied. `inkwell.NewGame` builds its own empty managers, and `New`
+hands ours over in their place — the types are identical, so the engine and the
+game end up sharing one registry per category rather than two in step:
 
 ```go
-func registerContent() {
-	BackgroundManager.Each(World.G.AssetManager.Register)
-	CharacterManager.Each(World.G.CharacterManager.Register)
-	ItemManager.Each(World.G.ItemManager.Register)
-	DialogManager.Each(World.G.DialogueManager.Register)
-	ScriptManager.Each(World.G.ScriptManager.Register)
-	registerScene()
-}
+g.AssetManager = BackgroundManager
+g.CharacterManager = CharacterManager
+g.DialogueManager = DialogManager
+g.ItemManager = ItemManager
+g.SceneManager = SceneManager
+g.ScriptManager = ScriptManager
+ThemeManager.Each(g.ThemeManager.Register)
 ```
 
-`registerScene` is the one that needs its own function: it fills in the defaults
-a scene may leave out (Paul's starting position, the floor walkbox), and it
-derives the selector's pins by reading the exit graph backwards.
+Themes are the odd one out and stay a copy: `NewGame` puts four preset themes
+into its `ThemeManager`, and replacing it would throw them away. Ours are added
+to that set instead.
+
+Two consequences of not copying. `prepareScene` has to run **before** the
+hand-off, because there is no longer a copy pass to fill in the defaults a
+scene leaves out — it writes them back into `SceneManager` with `Set`, and
+derives the selector's pins by reading the exit graph backwards. And a manager
+swapped in this way must be in place before `inkwell.Run`, which is where the
+engine wires up the parts that hold a registry directly.
 
 ## The world
 
@@ -171,7 +191,7 @@ One package means one namespace, so an entity's constructor carries its
 category as a prefix:
 
 ```go
-sceneFloor  sceneDefaults  registerScene  fillSelectorPins
+sceneFloor  sceneDefaults  prepareScene  fillSelectorPins
 ```
 
 Entities themselves need no name at all — they are anonymous literals inside
@@ -183,8 +203,8 @@ constants in `names.manager.go`, the colour tokens, and the action constructors
 (`TapeSay`, `Paused`, `SetMode`, `EnterScene`, `Back`, `Fn`).
 
 Everything else is machinery and stays unexported: the HUD widgets
-(`tapeSlots`, `letterbox`, `hudFrame`, …), the `register…` functions, the
-runners, `sceneDefaults`, `fillSelectorPins`.
+(`tapeSlots`, `letterbox`, `hudFrame`, …), `registerUI`, the runners,
+`prepareScene`, `sceneDefaults`, `fillSelectorPins`.
 
 The word is **scene**, the engine's own. The wiki and the concept-art deck count
 *screens*, and this code used to as well, but everything a screen had that a

README.md

@@ -153,16 +153,17 @@ licence.
 The game is one flat package, `inc`. There are no subdirectories: a file's
 name says where it belongs, in the form `[category].[name].go`. The category is
 always singular, and `[category].manager.go` is the file that ties that category
-together — its manager, its shared types, its hand-off to the engine.
+together — its entity type and whatever else the category shares. `boot.go` is
+the one file with no category: it declares every manager and builds the game.
 
 ```
 main.go                    flags + inkwell.Run
+inc/boot.go                the managers, and New(Opts)
 inc/names.manager.go       entity names and world-state keys
 inc/theme.*.go             realworld-93 + nokia-punk
 inc/world.*.go             unsaved runtime state, custom actions, action pump
 inc/ui.*.go                HUD: layout, custom widgets, coloured text
 inc/<kind>.<name>.go       one file per registered entity, by kind
-inc/boot.manager.go        wiring
 ```
 
 Nothing is enforced by the compiler any more, so the layering is a rule the
@@ -194,13 +195,12 @@ Every category owns a manager, and they are all the engine's own
 `inkwell.Manager[T]` — the same registry the `*Game` hangs its content off, kept
 in registration order and addressed by name. There is no second registry type
 here: the entity types are aliases of engine structs, so they already satisfy
-`inkwell.Named` and need no help reading their own name. A category's manager
-file is an alias and one line:
+`inkwell.Named` and need no help reading their own name. The seven of them are
+declared as one block in `boot.go`, and a category's manager file is left
+holding the alias:
 
 ```go
 type Character = inkwell.Character
-
-var CharacterManager = inkwell.NewManager[Character]()
 ```
 
 An entity file is a literal that hands itself over in an `init()`:
@@ -223,9 +223,18 @@ step with the files by hand, and the deck is a thing to look at, not a thing to
 play through.
 
 The game's own catalogue is readable without going through the engine:
-`SceneManager.Get("alley")` answers before a single scene has been handed over.
-`registerContent` is where the hand-off happens, one `Each` call per category —
-the game's manager iterated straight into the engine manager's `Register`.
+`SceneManager.Get("alley")` answers long before there is a `*Game` to ask. And
+when the game is built, nothing is copied into it — `New` assigns our managers
+onto the `*Game` in place of the empty ones `NewGame` made, so engine and game
+share one registry per category instead of keeping two of them in step. Themes
+are the exception: `NewGame` seeds its theme manager with four presets, so ours
+are added to that set rather than replacing it.
+
+The price of not copying is that the defaults a scene may leave out — Paul's
+starting position, the floor walkbox — have to be written back into
+`SceneManager` before the hand-off rather than filled in on the way past.
+`prepareScene` does that with `Set`, and derives the selector's pins in the same
+pass by reading the exit graph backwards.
 
 There is one world, and it is a package-level singleton: `World`. Nothing takes
 a `*world` parameter and no widget holds a back-reference, which is what lets a

go.mod

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ module git.teletypegames.org/games/realworld
 go 1.26.3
 
 require (
-	git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830075028-08f15a7e3d11
+	git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830083613-39af65f3c98f
 	github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2 v2.9.9
 )
 

go.sum

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830075028-08f15a7e3d11 h1:DPN74Xy0xcyelfh5xLuv6XBj6wrdzKVME1a1HyACsj4=
-git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830075028-08f15a7e3d11/go.mod h1:/v6QtismTE8+e7kobbVR5B/CpTSrd4j2DYwJ8DvINhs=
+git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830083613-39af65f3c98f h1:Qw/sUeJeCBEFvdiqwGUn919hsmoTILJyKSPlkKvNgh0=
+git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell v0.1.1-0.20260830083613-39af65f3c98f/go.mod h1:/v6QtismTE8+e7kobbVR5B/CpTSrd4j2DYwJ8DvINhs=
 github.com/ebitengine/gomobile v0.0.0-20250923094054-ea854a63cce1 h1:+kz5iTT3L7uU+VhlMfTb8hHcxLO3TlaELlX8wa4XjA0=
 github.com/ebitengine/gomobile v0.0.0-20250923094054-ea854a63cce1/go.mod h1:lKJoeixeJwnFmYsBny4vvCJGVFc3aYDalhuDsfZzWHI=
 github.com/ebitengine/hideconsole v1.0.0 h1:5J4U0kXF+pv/DhiXt5/lTz0eO5ogJ1iXb8Yj1yReDqE=

inc/background.manager.go

@@ -5,5 +5,3 @@ import (
 )
 
 type Background = inkwell.Asset
-
-var BackgroundManager = inkwell.NewManager[Background]()

inc/boot.go

@@ -4,6 +4,16 @@ import (
 	inkwell "git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell"
 )
 
+var (
+	BackgroundManager = inkwell.NewManager[Background]()
+	CharacterManager  = inkwell.NewManager[Character]()
+	DialogManager     = inkwell.NewManager[Dialog]()
+	ItemManager       = inkwell.NewManager[Item]()
+	SceneManager      = inkwell.NewManager[Scene]()
+	ScriptManager     = inkwell.NewManager[Script]()
+	ThemeManager      = inkwell.NewManager[Theme]()
+)
+
 type Opts struct {
 	Scene  string
 	Finale bool
@@ -15,6 +25,8 @@ func New(o Opts) *inkwell.Game {
 		start = SceneAlley
 	}
 
+	prepareScene()
+
 	g := inkwell.NewGame("Real World", ScreenW, ScreenH)
 	g.MaxLogLines = 64
 	g.SceneRect = inkwell.Rect(0, TopBarH, ScreenW, HUDTop-TopBarH)
@@ -25,10 +37,15 @@ func New(o Opts) *inkwell.Game {
 		return inkwell.Say(Paul, "It's a way out, not a thing.")
 	}
 
-	World.attach(g)
-	registerTheme()
-	registerContent()
+	g.AssetManager = BackgroundManager
+	g.CharacterManager = CharacterManager
+	g.DialogueManager = DialogManager
+	g.ItemManager = ItemManager
+	g.SceneManager = SceneManager
+	g.ScriptManager = ScriptManager
+	ThemeManager.Each(g.ThemeManager.Register)
 
+	World.attach(g)
 	g.UseTheme(RealWorld)
 	registerUI()
 

inc/character.manager.go

@@ -5,5 +5,3 @@ import (
 )
 
 type Character = inkwell.Character
-
-var CharacterManager = inkwell.NewManager[Character]()

inc/content.manager.go

@@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
-package inc
-
-func registerContent() {
-	BackgroundManager.Each(World.G.AssetManager.Register)
-	CharacterManager.Each(World.G.CharacterManager.Register)
-	ItemManager.Each(World.G.ItemManager.Register)
-	DialogManager.Each(World.G.DialogueManager.Register)
-	ScriptManager.Each(World.G.ScriptManager.Register)
-	registerScene()
-}

inc/dialog.manager.go

@@ -5,5 +5,3 @@ import (
 )
 
 type Dialog = inkwell.Dialogue
-
-var DialogManager = inkwell.NewManager[Dialog]()

inc/item.manager.go

@@ -5,5 +5,3 @@ import (
 )
 
 type Item = inkwell.Item
-
-var ItemManager = inkwell.NewManager[Item]()

inc/scene.manager.go

@@ -6,13 +6,11 @@ import (
 
 type Scene = inkwell.Scene
 
-var SceneManager = inkwell.NewManager[Scene]()
-
-func registerScene() {
+func prepareScene() {
 	fillSelectorPins()
-	SceneManager.Each(func(entity Scene) {
-		World.G.SceneManager.Register(sceneDefaults(entity))
-	})
+	for _, entity := range SceneManager.All() {
+		SceneManager.Set(sceneDefaults(entity))
+	}
 }
 
 var sceneFloor = []inkwell.Polygon{

inc/script.manager.go

@@ -5,5 +5,3 @@ import (
 )
 
 type Script = inkwell.Script
-
-var ScriptManager = inkwell.NewManager[Script]()

inc/theme.manager.go

@@ -8,8 +8,6 @@ import (
 
 type Theme = inkwell.Theme
 
-var ThemeManager = inkwell.NewManager[Theme]()
-
 const (
 	RealWorld = "realworld-93"
 	NokiaPunk = "nokia-punk"
@@ -32,7 +30,3 @@ func RGBA(hex uint32, a uint8) color.Color {
 		A: a,
 	}
 }
-
-func registerTheme() {
-	ThemeManager.Each(World.G.ThemeManager.Register)
-}