Stop the dead for the changeover instead of letting the player wander

Oliver vetoed the free movement between points on sight: he never walks
freely during play, so being able to only between points reads as the game
breaking, not as a fix. Reverted to 'rally' only, and the rule is written into
the settled-feel list so it doesn't get re-invented.

The frozen changeover is answered his other way instead — the dead wait too.
`held` in updateZombies stops their advance, their steering and the eat check
for the breather; they still bleed and burn, they just stand there, because
the umpire called time and it is still a tennis match. The path where this
actually bit: losing a duel scheduled on a changeover beat spawns five fresh
shamblers and THEN starts five seconds you have no agency in.

The stuck pose was never about movement — 'run' is the one pose expirePose
doesn't expire, and runT stops advancing outside the block, so a beat that
began mid-stride welded him to a single frame. Reset it and it's fixed for
every phase.

And he could walk off the screen in ordinary play, not just during the beat I
had added: P_BOUNDS.x is 6.5 m, portrait shows about ±4 m at the baseline.
The xVis clamp already existed but only applied during auto-fire; it now
always applies, floored at the sideline so every legal ball stays catchable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

HANDOFF.md

@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@ everything they specified is shipped, and what still matters from them is record
 long history, `~/.claude/projects/.../memory/splatter-tennis-history.md` is auto-loaded; for the
 detail of any individual change, read the git log.
 
-Last updated 2026-07-30. All eight issues from Oliver's 35-game retest are fixed and verified in the
-browser; they are recorded at the bottom as **CLOSED** with what the fix was, because each one is a
-trap worth not re-digging. **Awaiting Oliver's next phone playtest.**
+Last updated 2026-07-30 after Oliver playtested the fixes. All eight retest issues are closed and
+recorded at the bottom with what the fix was, because each one is a trap worth not re-digging.
+Issue 1's first fix was **vetoed on feel and replaced** — read that entry before touching movement.
 
 ## What this is
 SNES-style pseudo-3D tennis (Super Tennis reference) that transitions into a zombie splatter game
@@ -102,6 +102,15 @@ zombie. Getting caught = `G.mode='eaten'` = permadeath, and the run summary is t
   nearer one still wins, so a straight-ahead lane still eats the nearest body first.
   `aimTie: 1` restores the old "nearest along the lane always wins" for A/B.
 - `TUNE.fps` 60 — 30 was vetoed on feel.
+- **The player only walks during `rally`.** Never between points. Letting him walk during the 'over'
+  beats and `pretoss` was shipped once and vetoed immediately: *"I basically can never walk around
+  freely"* — so suddenly being able to, only between points, reads as the game breaking rather than
+  as a fix. Frozen-with-danger-approaching is fixed by holding the DEAD instead (`held` in
+  `updateZombies`), never by handing back movement.
+- **The player must always be ON SCREEN.** `P_BOUNDS.x` is 6.5 m but portrait only shows about
+  ±4 m either side of the centre line at the baseline, so the walk bound alone let him leave the
+  frame entirely. `xLim = Math.max(xVis, COURT.W / 2)` — the camera limit, floored at the sideline so
+  every legal ball stays catchable.
 
 ## Verification recipe (the regression net)
 Drive the game deterministically via `window.T` with `javascript_tool`. The Browser-pane eval
@@ -190,16 +199,37 @@ Kept because each one is a trap worth not re-digging. Every fix was verified in
 `window.T`; the numbers quoted are from those runs.
 
 ### 1 + 6. Player frozen (and stuck mid-animation) during the between-game pauses — was HIGH
-Same root cause, one fix. The whole movement block — including `P.pose = moving ? 'run' : 'idle'` —
-lived inside `if (G.phase === 'rally')`, so every 'over' beat (changeover, game beat, set card) and
-every `pretoss` froze the player while `updateZombies` ran on. That `pretoss` case is issue 6:
-`endHorde` calls `setupPoint()`, which hands back to `pretoss`.
-The block now also runs whenever `G.mode === 'splatter' && G.phase !== 'toss'`. `'toss'` stays frozen
-on purpose — that is the aim, and the thumb is busy drawing the bow. **Tennis is deliberately
-untouched** (verified: a keyboard-held ArrowLeft moves the player 0.00 m during a tennis 'over',
-−2.70 m during a splatter one).
-Oliver's other option — stopping the zombies for the breather — was NOT taken. `startChangeover`'s
-"it's calm, not safe" is still the design; being able to walk was the actual complaint.
+**Two fixes: the first was wrong.** The movement block — pose update included — lived inside
+`if (G.phase === 'rally')`, so every 'over' beat and every `pretoss` left the player standing while
+zombies walked at him. The `pretoss` case is issue 6: `endHorde` calls `setupPoint()`.
+
+The first attempt widened the block to all of splatter except `'toss'`. Oliver vetoed it on sight:
+*"the mechanic where I suddenly can move freely around feels broken.. I basically can never walk
+around freely - also I could walk off the screen"*. He is right — free movement for five seconds
+between points, in a game where you otherwise only move while a ball is live, reads as a bug. It is
+reverted, and the rule is now in Settled feel decisions above.
+
+What actually ships, three separate pieces:
+- **The dead wait too.** `held = !!G.changeover` in `updateZombies` stops every zombie's `z` advance,
+  its x steering, and the eat check for the breather's duration. They still bleed, still burn, still
+  animate — they just stand there, because the umpire called time and it is still a tennis match.
+  This is Oliver's own second option and the characterful one (the boys mop, everyone waits).
+- **The stuck pose.** `expirePose` only ever expired `swing`/`serve`; `'run'` was the pose nothing
+  reset, and `P.runT` stops advancing outside the movement block, so a beat that began mid-stride
+  welded him to one run frame. An `else if (P.pose === 'run')` on the movement block fixes it for
+  every phase at once.
+- **The on-screen clamp** (see Settled feel decisions) — `xVis` already existed but was applied only
+  in auto-fire modes, so ordinary play could walk clean off the edge. Now it always applies.
+
+**The path where this actually bit** — worth knowing, because a clear court makes it look impossible:
+a changeover normally starts only after `G.clearing` has emptied the court, so nothing is walking.
+But `resolveInterlude('O')` spawns **five fresh zombies** ("the dead lose their patience") and *then*
+hands back to `startChangeover` via `G.afterDuel`. Lose a duel scheduled on a changeover beat and you
+get five shamblers plus five seconds with no agency. Verified fixed: they advance 0.000 m across the
+breather and resume 0.75 m/s the instant "Time." is called.
+
+If the 5 s still drags on a phone, `TUNE.changeoverT` is the knob — it is now a safe, watchable beat
+rather than a dangerous one, so shortening it is purely a pacing call.
 
 ### 2. The mop boy walks on during the 1:1 duel — was LOW
 `sendBoy` now returns early on `G.interlude`, and `startDuel` sets `G.boy = null`. Note the ordering

gameplay.js

@@ -814,11 +814,11 @@ export function update(dt) {
   if (G.phase === 'toss' && !G.aim) { const sv = score.server === 'P' ? P : O; sv.pose = 'serve'; sv.poseT = 0; }
 
   // --- player movement (near half only, generous margins)
-  // In splatter it also runs between points ('over' — game beats, changeovers, set cards — and
-  // 'pretoss'): the zombies never stop walking, so gating movement on 'rally' froze the player
-  // mid-stride with the dead closing in, and left him stuck in whatever pose he held. 'toss' is
-  // the one exception — that's the aim, and the thumb is busy drawing the bow.
-  if (G.phase === 'rally' || (G.mode === 'splatter' && G.phase !== 'toss')) {
+  // 'rally' ONLY, deliberately. Letting the player walk during the between-point beats was tried
+  // and vetoed on feel: you never walk freely during play, so suddenly being able to between points
+  // reads as the game breaking, not as a fix. The frozen-changeover complaint is answered by
+  // holding the DEAD instead (see updateZombies), and the stuck pose by the reset below.
+  if (G.phase === 'rally') {
     if (G.mode === 'tennis' && ball.active && ball.lastHit === 'O') { // closest approach, for never-swung passes
       const d = Math.hypot(ball.x - P.x, (ball.z - P.z) * 0.8);
       if (!G.rallyNear || d < G.rallyNear.d) G.rallyNear = { d, y: ball.y, bz: ball.z, px: P.x, pz: P.z };
@@ -854,7 +854,11 @@ export function update(dt) {
         assist = dx;
       }
     }
-    const xLim = mgMode ? xVis : P_BOUNDS.x; // auto-fire keeps even keyboard players on screen
+    // Stay ON SCREEN — always, not just in auto-fire. P_BOUNDS.x is 6.5 m, but at the baseline in
+    // portrait the camera only shows about ±4 m either side of the centre line, so walking to the
+    // bound put the player clean off the edge (x = -6.5 projects to screen -61 of 270). Floored at
+    // the sideline so every legal tennis ball stays catchable — the court is never out of bounds.
+    const xLim = Math.max(xVis, COURT.W / 2);
     P.x = Math.max(-xLim, Math.min(xLim, P.x));
     P.z = Math.max(P_BOUNDS.zMin, Math.min(P_BOUNDS.zMax, P.z));
     const moving = mx || mz || assist !== 0;
@@ -863,6 +867,10 @@ export function update(dt) {
     if (mx) P.facing = mx > 0 ? 1 : -1;
     else if (Math.abs(assist) > 0.25) P.facing = assist > 0 ? 1 : -1; // hysteresis: small corrections don't flip facing
   }
+  // ...and out of 'rally' he STANDS. 'run' is the one pose nothing else expires (expirePose only
+  // handles swing/serve), and P.runT stops advancing outside the block, so a beat that began
+  // mid-stride left him welded to a single run frame — the "stuck mid-animation" report.
+  else if (P.pose === 'run') { P.pose = 'idle'; P.poseT = 0; }
   // splatter: you START at the baseline but you're free to advance up-court (bounded at the net by
   // P_BOUNDS) — hunt the shamblers down, especially when mopping up a won game. Auto-assist still
   // recovers you toward the baseline between shots on touch; the duel is plain tennis as ever.

index.html

@@ -60,6 +60,6 @@
     <p class="start">TAP TO START</p>
   </div>
 </div>
-<script type="module" src="main.js?v=36"></script>
+<script type="module" src="main.js?v=37"></script>
 </body>
 </html>

zombies.js

@@ -269,23 +269,30 @@ export function updateZombies(dt) {
   // the only bodies left to catch were the ones it had already removed.
   if (ball.active && ball.flame && ball.y < 2.6) ignite(ball.x, ball.z, TUNE.burnBallR);
 
+  // The umpire called time. The changeover is a MANDATORY breather for the player — no serving, no
+  // walking — so it is one for the dead too, which is the joke: they wait, because it's still a
+  // tennis match. They stand where they are, still bleeding, still burning, still lit by anything
+  // in the air, but nothing advances and nothing can eat you. (The alternative — letting the player
+  // walk freely during the beat — was tried and vetoed: he never walks freely during play either.)
+  const held = !!G.changeover;
+
   for (let i = zombies.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
     const zb = zombies[i];
     if (!zb) continue; // a bomb detonation splices several out mid-loop and can gut the array under us
     zb.walkT += dt;
     if (zb.burnT > 0 && burnTick(zb, i, dt)) continue; // the fire finished it — the array moved under us
-    zb.z += zb.v * (zb.burnT > 0 ? TUNE.burnPanic : 1) * dt;
+    if (!held) zb.z += zb.v * (zb.burnT > 0 ? TUNE.burnPanic : 1) * dt;
     bleed(zb); // open wounds bleed every frame they're standing
 
     if (zb.shieldT > 0) zb.shieldT -= dt; // staggered chair comes back up when this runs out
-    if (zb.variant === 'r') { /* the racket boss holds station — its AI owns its x */ }
+    if (held || zb.variant === 'r') { /* the racket boss holds station — its AI owns its x */ }
     else if (G.mode === 'splatter' && zb.z > COURT.netZ) { // on YOUR half they close in — each on its own lane, not a column
       const tx = P.x + zb.homeOff;
       zb.x += Math.sign(tx - zb.x) * Math.min(Math.abs(tx - zb.x), zb.v * 0.7 * dt)
             + Math.sin(zb.walkT * 2.3) * 0.25 * dt; // shamble wobble — the approach reads organic, not tracked
     } else
       zb.x += Math.sin(zb.walkT * 1.7) * 0.15 * dt; // far half: aimless shamble
-    if (G.mode === 'splatter' && Math.hypot(zb.x - P.x, (zb.z - P.z) * 0.75) < TUNE.eatenR + (zb.variant === 'g' ? 0.2 : 0)) { // z weighted down: depth is foreshortened, so a head-on shambler eats you when it LOOKS on top of you
+    if (!held && G.mode === 'splatter' && Math.hypot(zb.x - P.x, (zb.z - P.z) * 0.75) < TUNE.eatenR + (zb.variant === 'g' ? 0.2 : 0)) { // z weighted down: depth is foreshortened, so a head-on shambler eats you when it LOOKS on top of you
       gore.push({ x: P.x, z: P.z, r: 0.9, a: 0.9 });
       for (let k = 0; k < 30; k++) parts.push({
         x: P.x, y: 1.1, z: P.z,