Oliver: from the Runner on the zombie game is very hard. Measured with
the ring bot: the win rate fell off a cliff wherever an opponent's
width crossed ~3.3 m, the auto-run's reach from the centre (at the
Steward, and again at the Seller), and from there every line could be
painted. Legs and flub decay moved nothing.
Every match opponent's spread is now capped at 3.0 m (matchWideMax),
and the put-away chance runs 0.15 to 0.8 instead of 0.2 to 0.85.
Level 10: the Runner goes from 44% to 68% of points, the Champion from
24% to 33%, with a steady slope between them. New test pins the cap.
v387.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: the strawberry seller as act I's first boss is way too hard,
"or it should not cross the net". His charge is the one boss move
exempt from the court band: it runs to a strike line in front of you,
and contact is death. In the story every boss's rush now stops a metre
short of the net and withdraws as before, so the threat is kept and the
reach is not. The Physio in act IV is held the same way. Only the
Champion's MATCH POINT rush in act V stays, because it is the finale.
New test. v385, staging only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- The gore bed is "Dystopian Survival", made loopable: the last ten
seconds cross-faded into the first ten, 203.5 s, as MP3 at 128k (the
decoder strips the encoder's delay, so the seam has no gap). High-pass
at 40 Hz instead of 800, level matched to the menu theme.
- The prologue no longer drops into gore for a moment: after the turn,
act I's card and cup take over directly.
- RESET STORY under the build stamp (two taps; test only). It resets
the story, league, cups and title, keeps the level, and pushes at once
so the mirror cannot hand the old act back.
- The story screens have sound: a whoosh and a boom for the act card,
applause and the rack's own click as each weapon lands, applause and
a pock per arcade door on the act's end.
- Chapters are six games: mid-boss after three, the horde after four,
the act boss after six.
v384, staging only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
config.GORE_BED names the track that plays while the dead are being
killed (gore and every story chapter, from the transformation's
run-off on) and its loop length and level. When Oliver has the metal
track, it goes into assets/audio and these three values change; nothing
else does. v383, staging only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- From the third attempt at a checkpoint, the death screen offers TRY
AGAIN · WITH HELP, at most two tiers, said openly. In the cup the help
is fresher legs and a longer swing; in gore, one more heart and a
slower director and horde. Every checkpoint passed resets the offer.
- The arcade shows only what the story has opened. Training and Classic
open after act I, the Climb after II, Splatter Gore after III, and
hosting a friend after IV (joining stays free). Locked doors are shown
greyed with the act that opens them.
- The non-story endings point at the story instead of the cup.
- Store switches for the free tier (act I's card points at the full
game) and a premium arcade, both off.
- The prologue's HUD no longer overlaps the kill pips.
PROJECT.md logs phases 1-4. One new test. v382, staging only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver settled the last questions: a prologue with the old
transformation, the racket zombie as an ordinary body in story chapters,
endless arcade gore keeps its duel, and the arcade unlock order. The
code survey's constraints are recorded: the cup runs in splatter under
an interlude, restartRun wipes G, runGames counts through the cup,
bosses are keyed on chapters, duels fire from two triggers, and cupWon
freezes the world. Phases: the spine, the transformation and prologue,
the screens, help/arcade/unlocks, then metal. v379 (docs only).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Five acts, one per league and court: the league cup, the beaten finalist
growing into the act boss and running off, then a ten-game gore chapter
with a mid-boss checkpoint. No duel in the story, healing and restock
after the mid-boss, the act as the saved unit with three checkpoints,
help after the third failed attempt, arcade limited to unlocked modes,
metal in gore only (track pending). Nothing built yet; the storyboard
link and the open questions are in PROJECT.md. v378 (docs only).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver on v376: "wenn man doppeltippt, geht er minimal vor". His own
ball's flight covered 4-9 m of the 10 to the net. His next ball was met
from mid-court, outside the net zone, and the recovery after that volley
walked him straight back to the baseline.
The double tap now sets a stance (P.post) that lasts until the next
double tap, a lob he has to run down, or the end of the point. Every
recovery heads for the net at full pace, and every incoming ball is
planned as a net man's. The 'back' stance clears once he is behind the
net zone, so short balls still pull him in.
Measured: contacts while committed are ~35% at the net and ~40% around
the service line, and he no longer falls back. The base ladder is
unchanged. New test; v377.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: "das Vorlaufen und Zurücklaufen sollte durch einen Doppeltipp
ausgelöst werden". It replaces v374's flick-length rule: the long
up-flick is only the deep ball again, the long down-flick only the lob.
While his own ball flies there is nothing to hit, so a tap there is not
a swing. Two inside 0.35 s take him in to the net from the back, or back
from the net. "TO THE NET" or "BACK" pops under him. An incoming ball
keeps every tap a swing, so the two meanings never share a moment. After
his own serve it is serve and volley. The short-ball approach stays
automatic.
Measured: the base ladder is unchanged, and following the ball in still
pays against pushers and costs against big hitters. Three tests replace
v374's two; v376.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: "wenn der Autoplay den Ball versucht zu bekommen, zittert der
Player schnell hin und her". Measured: the run's target flipped by
metres every other frame. intercept samples the flight every 10 ms
against a 16.7 ms frame, so any candidate on a margin (a low bounce
peaking on the 0.45 m floor, a point on the back boundary, a dying drop)
passed one frame and failed the next. Frames with no candidate sent him
home and back. 9-62 reversals inside 200 ms per five minutes.
The chase now latches its plan: the flight is fixed at the strike, so
the first point stays the answer while his legs still make it in time,
net of any time he stood (split-step, heels). Reach is judged from where
the chase began, and the target eases with a start/stop hysteresis.
After: no reversals at any rung, timing unchanged. He wastes no steps,
so he is a little stronger, mostly at the bottom of the ladder. New
test; v375.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: "Steuerung ans Netz gehen", option (1), and "einen Lob vom Gegner
als Volley annehmen soll derb schmettern".
- A long up-flick (90 px or more) is the attack: the deep ball, and he
follows it in. A long down-flick is the lob, and he goes back behind
it. Short flicks keep the deep ball / the drop and leave him where he
is. Length only, never context.
- The net costs him what it costs the CPU: he split-steps (netReact)
before reading the pass, and a CPU facing a net man passes at the
line. Without both, the attacker won 78-95% of his net points.
- The smash: a ball taken out of the air at 1.9-2.5 m is struck harder
and to the open court, read late by the opponent, and pops "SMASH!".
It wins ~80% of its points.
- Lobbed at the net, he decides once whether he can get under it. If he
can, he smashes. If not, he runs it down and only blocks it back, even
if he meets it in the air. Re-deciding every frame smashed every lob.
Measured at level 26: the base ladder is unchanged. Attacking pays
against pushers and touch players and costs against big hitters,
slicers and rushers. Three new tests; v374.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Step 4 (b), Oliver's pick. v372 measured why the ladder could not climb:
nearly every lost point was the player's own early whiff, the CPU barely
missed, and the auto-run reached everything, so no opponent dial decided
a point.
- The follow-through: a groundstroke swing meets a bounced ball up to
60 ms after its window at q 0.05. The early whiff edge goes from ~70 ms
back to ~130 ms, where the volley window had it before step 1.
- A sitter (a player ball under q 0.5) is put away with a chance that is
the ladder (0.2 at the bottom of the Climb, 0.85 at the Champion, by
difficulty in classic): clean, at the line, bounded by the rung's width.
- The player is on his heels for 0.5 s after a put-away of his own sitter.
Without it the auto-run covered the whole court and no put-away won.
- Fixed a step-2 regression this surfaced: the drop's dig-out cap fired on
every slice drive, so every low contact against the slicer was a sitter.
Measured at level 26: the Climb now slopes from 95% of points at the
Shambler to 28-39% at the Champion. The net rushers are still easier than
their neighbours. The log names put-aways. Three new tests; v373.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver on v371: the praise word is cut off on the left on the iPhone. It
is centred under the player's feet, so out wide it ran past the edge;
every pop is now clamped to the canvas by its measured width.
Step 4, measured first. The rally sim gets a human bot (taps on the timed
ring with a timing spread), a Climb mode and a lost-point breakdown. At
level 26 the ladder falls over six rungs and then goes flat: nearly every
lost point is the player's own early whiff, the CPU barely ever misses,
and the auto-run reaches everything, so no opponent dial decides points.
A quality ramp, a follow-through and CPU put-aways were each measured
and reverted; the options go to Oliver in PROJECT.md.
Shipped: in the rally modes q no longer drops from 1 to 0.43 one ms past
PERFECT; it falls smoothly to the window's edge (TUNE.qSeamless). A tap
30 ms early is q 0.86 instead of 0.61. Same window, same whiff edge. v372.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: the target ring twitches sometimes, and "shot of the day",
"textbook" etc. cover the ball. The timed ring re-solved every frame and a
small shift in the auto-run's target moved its moment by up to 158 ms in a
frame; the drawn cue now counts down on its own clock and eases toward
each solve (p99 jump 100 -> 17 ms). The rally's praise word rose straight
into the struck ball's path (and a serve's sat on the far bounce, where the
return comes back); it now lands under the player, behind his feet, and
stays put. Same moment, out of the way. v371.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver's v369 log ("vieeel besser") showed two misses with the auto-run
heading to x 6.5 and 8.7, far outside the frame he is held in. Since the
dip ends at the bounce, a hard cross-court topspin ball drifts sideways
long enough that its comfort point lies off the court; intercept had no
lateral bound, and its last-resort target was never checked at all
(headless: x 14.8). Candidates now respect xLimit — a kicking ball is
taken earlier, on the rise — and the final target is clamped. v370.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A shot's extra gravity is its dive in flight, but it was carried through
the bounce: heavy topspin skidded away low and Oliver met nearly every
ball 0-25 cm off the grass. After its bounce a ball now falls under plain
gravity (tennis modes only), and every planner that rolls a bounce
forward switches at the same moment. The higher bounces pushed the
auto-run into volleys, so it now takes a kicking ball at the top of its
bounce, up to chest height. Median contact rises from 0.42 to 1.13 m at
the bottom of the ladder. v369.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver's v367 log: every 62-64 ms flick landed 76-92 ms early and a 97 ms
one whiffed — v366's touch-down timing for flicks was wrong; a flick is
timed by its swipe (flickLead now 0, the age is still logged). The
early-swing half-volley rescue checked the bounce against the long volley
window and then expired on the bounce frame; it now uses the shorter
groundstroke window. The log also records where he stood when the
opponent struck and where the auto-run was taking him on a miss. v368.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver's v366 log: a LOST "passed you" with no swing. The match gave the
CPU the point the moment its ball crossed 0.3 m behind the baseline — a
line from when the player stood inside it. Since step 1 he waits up to
2.2 m behind the line for deep balls, and a ball going by ~1.5 m beside
him only enters his reach just in front of him, so the point was called
before it was ever playable. In the match "past you" now means past his
reach. The swing log's hits also say whether the timing was early or
late. v367.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
From Oliver's first swing log (cup vs the Brute): 13 of 22 hits were
perfect, 9 badly early or late — mostly forward-right flicks — and the
weak balls became seven "passed you". Every hit was a flick, and flicks
still swung only at the flickMin crossing while the timed ring says "touch
now": they are now timed from touch-down too (capped at flickLead 0.1 s).
The log gains its other half: a THEM line per opponent shot (kind, pace,
where it lands relative to you, coming in) and "never swung" judged per
incoming ball instead of once a point. And an early swing on a low ball
digs it out as a capped half-volley instead of whiffing. v366.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver wants to hand over a log of why he missed balls. It existed behind
a scoreboard tap but was gated on G.mode === 'tennis', so the Climb, the
cup and training (which run as 'splatter') logged nothing. It now writes
in every rally mode: hits with shot, tap age and any quality cap, misses
with the new let-it-bounce reason, and a WON/LOST line naming why each
point went. Tapping the open log copies all 200 entries with a header.
Its first catch: the gold ring went gold at a distance, which is too
early for the slow balls steps 1-3 brought in. It is now timed off the
ball's real path to his reach (against where his run is taking him):
gold means touch now. ringTime 0 restores the old ring. v365.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Step 2 of the rally rework: eight styles as dials on the opponent rows —
pusher, retriever, slicer, big hitter, baseliner, touch, net rusher,
all-court — read where the CPU chooses its shot (moonball, drop, lob,
spin), plans its approach and serves (serve and volley sprints in). The
walk-on names the style in one line so the player can plan against it.
A player lobbed at the net now backpedals and blocks, like the CPU.
Oliver on v363: the down-flick "always felt like a lob". The length is read
at contact and a thumb has usually travelled on; on the continuum even
50 px floated the ball. Below dropMax (90 px) it is now the drop, above it
the lob. Also un-flakes the machine-squeak test (seed 31337). v364.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Step 3 of the rally rework, Oliver's pick: in rally modes the down-flick
is soft, always, and its length is how far — a dying drop just over the
net at one end, an attacking lob over a net man at the other. One gesture,
one meaning; not the context-armed lob that was cut.
Ballistics from the cut lob (pace derived from the apex); backspin lives
on ball.spin and every bounce planner reads it, netplay sends it. Against
the CPU it was returned ~100% until the real-tennis reasons went in: soft
balls are read late (disguise), a net man reacts to a pass and backpedals
from a lob, and a lobbed or dug-out reply is a weak block. Four new tests;
v363.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver after step 1: much harder, stuck at the Steward, "trotz gutem
Timing nicht mehr bekommen". A tap only proves it is a tap when the
finger lifts, so the swing started 100-150 ms after he meant it; the old
volley window hid that, step 1's groundstrokes did not. A tap made on the
gold ring fell from q 0.82 to 0.09 (and a third were missed at 150 ms),
murky balls landed short and the opponent came in. The swing clock now
starts at the touch's age (rally modes only); flicks keep their crossing.
The opponents' legs had no ceiling: 7.3 m/s at the Runner, 15.7 at the
Champion against the player's ~6.2. Past legKnee (6 m/s) only 15% of the
growth survives, monotone, so the ladder order holds; champion ~7.5. v362.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Every match had collapsed into serve, both at the net, reflex volleys at
~0.7 s per shot. The rally ball landed on the service line by definition,
the match CPU stood on the bounce and volleyed 90-100% of everything, and
the auto-run chased the earliest contact.
Rally modes only (classic + every match; gore and the duel untouched):
rally balls land deep and mistiming only shortens them (no new long outs);
each shot latches the receiver's plan as it leaves the racket — from the
back he lets it bounce and meets it falling, up to 2.2 m behind the line,
a short ball pulls him in and he follows it to the net, nobody approaches
a man already there, and a volley below the tape is a weak block. Measured:
contacts 10.5-13.7 m from the net, back-court volleys 0-8%, 0.8-1.0 s per
baseline shot. Three new tests pin the shape; v361.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver: every match converges on serve, both at the net, reflex volleys,
won by a wrong-foot. Measured headless: rally balls land on the service
line by definition, the match CPU stands on the bounce point and volleys
90-100% of everything from opponent 6 up, and the auto-run always picks
the earliest contact. Diagnosis, research and a four-step plan go into
PROJECT.md (awaiting his go); tools/rally-sim.mjs is the gauge. Fallback
tag rally-baseline-v360 marks the shipped feel.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
All four synthesized in audio.js like every other weapon: a squeaking
castor, a court-wide crackle clock plus a throttled catch, a real gun
crack, and one shared boss voice (stomp per stride, wind-up breath,
bark, pain, death roar) pitched by body size. Closes OPEN 13 pending
the phone verdict. v355.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Every #net* hash opens the lobby since THE NETPLAY LOBBY; it does not host.
Cost a verification round this session.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two netplay-only finds from Oliver's two-phone session.
THE FRIEND'S STRIKE was silent: every other opponent is simulated locally
and cracks through gameplay's shared return path, but the friend's swing
runs on their phone alone and arrives as a 'shot' message that wrote the
ball and nothing else. netApplyShot now plays the same sample at the same
volume, pitched off the pace that was actually sent (strikeRate, read after
the ball is written). Both netplay modes, not just the death match.
THE REMATCH: the summary's only netplay door was THE CLUBHOUSE, so playing
the same friend again meant two trips through the lobby and a fresh code.
The relay cannot re-pair, so the rematch is the socket that is still open —
one 'again' frame and both phones reset the run under the decisions the room
already carries (same side, same mode, same court, host serves). netAgain
keeps G.net across restartRun(true) and replays netFresh, netStart's own
tail split out so pairing and rematch cannot drift into two courts. Applied,
never echoed; a 2 s window swallows the second frame when both tap at once;
a dead line refuses and falls through to the clubhouse.
Also: the dev server runs with SPLAT_AUTH= (server.py always said local dev
should), which the shared password had been 401-ing. audio.sfxTest is a new
test seam in netTest's shape. 146 tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A chimney of rising embers on a trophy read as a fire. Three points ON the
shield now, dark for most of a long cycle and flaring for a fraction of it,
with delays and durations that share no common multiple — so a glint lands
somewhere on the row every couple of seconds and never in the same rhythm.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver wanted to rank the level a league was taken at. The challenge held: xp
comes only from playing, so a board that rewards a low level rewards not
playing — it would pay you to avoid the three rooms the season leans on. It
also inverts every other number in the game, freezes after five entries, and
makes the player who played more look worse.
So the league ranks and the level decides between everyone who got equally far,
where "lower is better" reads naturally. BOARDS.u carries subLow; server
rank_key is the other half, and the same key decides whether a submission beats
the row already standing. The level is written once at the promotion — before
the league moves, because it is the level that WON the cup — mirrored like the
rest of the profile, and inscribed under the shield it belongs to. Earned
shields smoulder while they are on screen: five CSS embers each, no loop.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
It was the last place still breaking the wizard's own rule — a question screen
carries no memory of its own answer. Three names, three pip counts, nothing
else. `.last` has no users left, so the rule is gone from the stylesheet.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
LAST remembered what you played last time, which a gallery of six posters does
not need to do for you, and 18 RUNGS was a number about a mode on the screen
for choosing between modes. Both gone. The difficulty screen keeps its LAST —
there it is the only thing saying what you last set.
The dead sub-poster branch in buildSub went with them: nothing has fanned out
into sub-posters since the cup left the ZOMBIE TENNIS pocket.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
10 KB instead of 119 — the face carries only the characters this game sets, and
the command to redo it is in PROJECT.md. The header strip's titles take it at
23px: a strip at the top of a screen is signage, not an announcement, so it
stops leaning. Bangers keeps what it was always for — the primary button, the
ceremonies, and everything the canvas shouts. The poster wall's rooms go back
to acid beside it, with the scale carrying the hierarchy.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The entrance is no longer a one-off on the boot: dealStage re-arms the class at
the funnel every stage change already passes, so the title screen flies its
plaque and buttons in whenever you arrive at it. The sub-menus join in — their
header, content and footer arrive one after the other instead of the panel
dropping in as one slab — and the poster wall deals its three rooms rather than
its list, since a moving child inside a moving parent starts at twice the
offset and reads as a stutter.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The splash's elements fly in from the left on the boot, 70ms apart, on the same
easeOutBack overshoot the canvas modals have always used. It hangs off
:not(.busy), so taking the loading state off IS the trigger and it never plays
again — returning from a run should not make you wait for a flourish you have
seen. Reduced motion turns it off.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two things the phone found. The splash's loading state was applied by main.js —
but this is a module script, so the browser paints the markup, placeholders and
all, before it runs: LEVEL 1 stood there and then snapped to the real values.
The busy class ships in index.html now and main.js only takes it off; the
keyboard hints hide with it.
And #intro is the one scroller the menus share, so a scroll earned deep in the
stats screen outlived it: going back put the splash up scrolled, with its
buttons off screen. go() resets it, at the funnel every stage change passes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The tournament is the canonical path, so the game finally says so. The splash's
primary button names the next cup fixture and enters the draw; the poster wall
moved one tap down and deals three named rooms (the season, the training, out of
competition) with the cup at the top. Two profile fields remember every attempt
— rounds ever reached per league, and the body that put you out — so a lost cup
is a line on the board instead of a null event, and the training court offers
that body first, marked. The promotion names what waits in the new league.
Overlays consolidated in the same pass: three modal drawers became one box with
a masthead, hairline-separated rows and a real footer button (any tap still
dismisses), and the run-end summary wears the same box — headline, xp, mark, and
the fixture with ENTER THE DRAW beside PLAY AGAIN. The cup's own exit is a
ceremony now: OUT IN THE QUARTER-FINAL, your best standing beside it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver's read: the modes feel decoupled, the menus and end screens enforce no
story-line. Settled in discussion: the tournament is the canonical path and
everything else is Beiwerk, a cup attempt is one evening (no resume, no
seeding), classic stays a side room. The spine — the splash names the next
fixture, the club remembers your attempts, the side modes are described in cup
terms, every ending hands over, and the season opens inside the promotion.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
wuwiandClaude Opus 5.5