A charge that passes, two strides that actually stride, a door in the corner

THE LEGS. Measured as lower-third silhouette difference between the two stride
frames: the groundskeeper, whose walk has always been right, is 0.80. The seller
was 0.017 — the same legs twice, which is why he hopped along on one of them.
Both sheets regenerated with the stride as the entire subject (one foot planted
ahead, the other trailing, and they SWAP): seller 0.42, champion 0.67.

Three things the champion's re-rolls proved, all of them the same lesson —
THE REFERENCE IS WHAT IT COPIES. Anchored on his own one-legged frame it drew
that pose again. Given a working walk from another boss alongside him "for the
legs only" it blended the two and returned a slim side-on walker, then a
pot-bellied man in cream. One character in the reference, one character out —
and pick the keeper by EYE, because the metric happily crowned the side view.

THE CHARGE. It rushed, then withdrew a fraction of what it covered, so it ended
the fight parked on top of you: dodge or die every two seconds with no window to
hit it, and nothing but a hitscan laser quick enough to use the window there
was — Oliver, "they come too close, they seem unbeatable". A rush now RETREATS
to its line afterwards, and to keep it from being toothless the other way (from
the band it ran out of clock 8 m short) the rush is TIMED rather than paced: it
covers whatever ground the retreat left in bossChargeT, so every charge arrives
and every charge has the same readable run-up. Measured over 30 s: five rushes,
each one reaching you, 13% of the fight in your face instead of all of it.

And the back room moved off the whole splash onto an invisible box in the TOP-
LEFT CORNER. Five taps in the middle of the screen — which is where your thumb
goes on the way to PLAY MATCH — now do nothing.

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

config.js

@@ -148,7 +148,10 @@ export const TUNE = {
   bossZMax: 5.6,    // you (~57 s at bossSpeed) rather than by you killing it — and every extra hp
                     // above just made that MORE likely, not less. Only 'charge' breaks the band.
   bossChargeV: 4.2, // m/s the physio rushes at once it commits
-  bossChargeT: 1.5, // s a charge lasts before it withdraws
+  bossChargeT: 2.2, // s ONE RUSH takes, start to arrival — the charge speed is derived from it and
+                    // from how far away it is (bossAI), so the run-up reads the same every time and
+                    // is long enough to see coming. Was 1.5 s at a flat 4.2 m/s, which only reached
+                    // you at all because the boss crept nearer every cycle until it was on top of you.
   bossChargeRest: 2.2, // s of held ground between charges — the window you get to hit it
   bossHopT: 0.55,   // s per mascot hop (it moves in arcs, not in a slide)
   bossHopX: 2.0,    // m of ground one hop covers (the eased arc lands it at about 2/pi of this)
@@ -500,12 +503,13 @@ export const BOSS_ART = [
   { name: 'THE PHYSIO', walk: ['z_physio1', 'z_physio2'],
     wounds: ['z_physiow1', 'z_physiow2', 'z_physiow3'],
     throws: ['z_physiot0', 'z_physiot1', 'z_physiot2', 'z_physiot3'],
-    // THE BODY IS THE WEAPON — which it never once was. One ball every 3.4 s and a withdrawal that
-    // gave back 4.2 of every 6.3 m it charged meant the fight was over long before it arrived:
-    // Oliver, "the physio does basically nothing but move towards the net, too easy". It now keeps
-    // three quarters of every rush (withdraw) and covers the ground half again as fast (speedMul),
-    // so it is on top of you inside two charges, and it drills you on the way in.
-    move: 'charge', hpMul: 0.9, speedMul: 1.45, withdraw: 0.2,
+    // THE BODY IS THE WEAPON — which it never once was. One ball every 3.4 s and a charge that gave
+    // back most of its own ground meant the fight was over long before it arrived: Oliver, "the
+    // physio does basically nothing but move towards the net, too easy". It covers the ground half
+    // again as fast now (speedMul) and drills you on the way in, and since the charge style itself
+    // retreats to the front of the band after every rush (bossAI), it arrives OVER AND OVER rather
+    // than either never or once and for good.
+    move: 'charge', hpMul: 0.9, speedMul: 1.45,
     volley: 3, gap: 0.26, cycle: 2.4, wind: 0.3, shot: 22, spread: 0.5 },
   { name: 'THE SPONSOR MASCOT', walk: ['z_mascot1', 'z_mascot2'],
     wounds: ['z_mascotw1', 'z_mascotw2', 'z_mascotw3'],
@@ -526,7 +530,7 @@ export const BOSS_ART = [
   { name: 'THE STRAWBERRY SELLER', walk: ['z_berry1', 'z_berry2'],
     wounds: ['z_berryw1', 'z_berryw2', 'z_berryw3'],
     throws: ['z_berryt0', 'z_berryt1', 'z_berryt2', 'z_berryt3'],
-    move: 'charge', hpMul: 1.4, speedMul: 1.15, withdraw: 0.3, // a tray of cream and a ladle: he
+    move: 'charge', hpMul: 1.4, speedMul: 1.15,        // a tray of cream and a ladle: he
     volley: 4, gap: 0.12, spread: 1.4, cycle: 3.0, wind: 0.55, shot: 15 }, // sprays, then comes for you
   // THE FINAL BOSS, and the only row that is not in the chapter rotation: bossArt() hands him out
   // every TENTH chapter (game 100, then 200). Two things make him the wall the run ends on.
@@ -544,7 +548,7 @@ export const BOSS_ART = [
       { move: 'pace', paceMul: 0.9, volley: 1, cycle: 3.2, wind: 0.6, shot: 17, spread: 0.3 },
       { move: 'shadow', paceMul: 1.8, volley: 4, gap: 0.22, cycle: 2.2, wind: 0.4, shot: 20, spread: 0.5,
         cry: 'SECOND SET.' },
-      { move: 'charge', speedMul: 1.5, withdraw: 0.15, volley: 3, gap: 0.1, cycle: 1.9, wind: 0.3,
+      { move: 'charge', speedMul: 1.5, volley: 3, gap: 0.1, cycle: 1.9, wind: 0.3,
         shot: 24, spread: 1.1, cry: 'MATCH POINT.' },
     ] },
 ];