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>