Certification Arcade runs are deliberately short. A missed beat, lost ball, wrong chute, or escaped target should make the player want one more attempt—not repeat a long administrative sequence.
The first encounter with any program is a forgiving Install Trial. Once installed, the same software can return at Casual, Skilled, Expert, and Night Shift difficulty with faster patterns, tighter gates, and fewer recovery disks.
Retries and free play cost no work action. Campaign clears produce evidence; Program Library clears produce stars, scores, combos, and mastery without changing the active ruling.
The result is a difficulty curve that rewards learning while keeping the filing understandable: clear two assigned programs, retain two clues, and make one ruling.