Winning your 2nd splatter game (G.splatGames) — or triple-tapping the
umpire in splatter (forceZombies now calls startHorde) — launches a 12s
horde (TUNE.hordeLen). During a horde: the match ball is gone and taps do
nothing; the racket auto-fires pellets straight up-court at TUNE.mgRate
(6/s, ±4° spread, 26 m/s, flat, 1.2s life) and the thumb DRAG steers you
(auto-assist disabled). Zombies pour in at TUNE.hordeRate (2.5/s) from the
far baseline and the sides, ignoring zMax; the speed ramp still applies.
Pellets live in a new zombies.js `pellets` array, kill on contact (always
splatter-quality). splatter() gains a fanfare flag — pellet kills make
gore/piles/points but skip the multi-kill streak so a horde doesn't spam
MASSACRE. splatPoint() gains a quiet flag: during a horde the umpire only
calls a score every >2s (game-win lines always speak); the HUD score keeps
ticking. Horde ends → setupPoint() resumes serving, voice('quiet_dark');
leftover zombies stay for you to mop up. Eaten stays lethal during hordes
(a zombie reaching you ends it and clears the swarm). Pellets render as
2×2 yellow tracers with a ground shadow; serve prompt suppressed while
G.horde. window.T exposes pellets + forceZombies.
NOTE for Oliver: per spec every game won after the 2nd triggers a horde,
and games won by the machine gun mid-horde count too, so play gets very
horde-heavy after game 2 — flag if you want a cooldown or a knob.
Verified via window.T: cheat + 2nd-game both launch the horde (1st does
not); ~29 spawns over exactly 12s; pellets stream (7 in flight) and clear
a lane, building piles/gore; 4 points scored but the umpire speaks once
(rate-limited); horde ends cleanly back to pretoss; eaten still fires
mid-horde; regression ladder green — tennis 11/12, Phase 1 flick-serve,
Phase 2 DOUBLE→TRIPLE, Phase 4 MASSACRE ×4; no console errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ball boys deliver a bomb ball every TUNE.bombEvery (8) splatter kills, up
to TUNE.bombMax (3) in stock (G.bombs / G.killMeter in state). The next
serve auto-consumes one (hitServe, splatter-only) — no extra input, keeping
one-handed play. A bomb detonates on first zombie contact (regardless of
pace) or, if it misses everyone, on its first bounce: explode() splatters
everything within TUNE.bombRadius (2.5m), each kill feeding ball.kills so
the Phase-2 fanfare escalates naturally, and leaves a crater — big stain,
size-3 pile, 40 particles, 0.1s hitstop, boom(). New synth boom() in
audio.js. Bomb ball renders black with a flickering orange fuse; the HUD
shows stocked bombs as black/orange pips by the YOU line. Both explode
sites set phase='over' so the serve loop doesn't stall on the killed ball.
Alternative delivery ideas Oliver floated but not built: umpire throws it,
or court pickup.
Verified via window.T: 8th kill earns a bomb (meter resets); a serve
consumes one and renders #111 black + orange fuse; a pow-0 bomb amid 4
clustered zombies kills all 4 with 'MASSACRE ×4', boom, hitstop 0.1,
crater stain (r1.4) + size-4 pile; a bomb that misses still craters on
first bounce; bombs never leak into tennis (mode guard); 3 HUD pips; no
console errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Kills now grow 3D-ish gore mounds, not just flat stains. zombies.js gains
a piles array {x,z,size,seed}: a kill within 0.6m of a pile grows it
(size +1, cap 4), else starts a new one (cap 30, oldest shifts out).
Ball boys shave overlapping piles at size -= dt*0.25 — far slower than
stain mopping (dt*1.6) — so net growth wins over a long match. Splatter
particles bumped 14→24, ~1/3 dark and longer-lived (settling gore),
render reads pt.dark for colour.
render.js draws each pile as seeded pixel-art blobs (mulberry32 from
p.seed): N=6+size*5 blobs, offset within size*0.28m, lifted up to
size*0.14m so the pile has visible height, weighted gore colours + ~10%
bone flecks. Blobs are built once and rebuilt only when the pile GROWS
(builtSize guard) — never on the per-frame mop-shrink — and each pile
costs a single proj() call (blob screen positions offset from the base).
Piles draw split far/near of the net like zombies so height occludes
right. window.T exposes render/piles/gore/parts for verification.
Verified via window.T: clustered kills build tall dense mounds while
singles stay small (screenshot), avg render 0.61ms with 10 piles, 0 blob
rebuilds across 120 frames, mop shrinks a size-4 pile at exactly 0.25/s,
no console errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A single shot that splatters ≥2 zombies now escalates: DOUBLE KILL /
TRIPLE KILL / MASSACRE ×N flash, louder crowd, and a new umpire line
(double_kill / triple_kill / unbelievable m4a, recorded say -v Daniel).
ball.kills tracks the streak, reset on every fresh shot (doHit + hitServe).
zombies.js imports cheer (now exported from gameplay). The splatter pace
cut is now TUNE.zPierce (0.75, was hardcoded 0.5) so a hot ball plows
through a lined-up lane instead of stalling on the first kill.
Verified via window.T: a low ball down a one-side lane kills 3→TRIPLE and
5→MASSACRE ×5 with escalating flash, streak resets on the next serve, the
three new lines serve 200 and match the existing m4a format, no crash when
the ball dies mid-streak, no console errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Input during the 'over' beat is no longer swallowed: a tap/flick while
G.phase==='over' (splatter only) resets inline and falls through to the
serve logic, so the finger is the only cadence limit. Spent balls
(lastHit 'X' after a stagger bounce) and hopeless balls (out of the
z/x bounds) are retired immediately instead of lingering until they roll
out. New TUNE.splatterOverT (0.1) replaces the hardcoded 0.25 over-timer.
The out-of-bounds z-bounds gate on travel direction so a quick-serve born
behind the baseline (P.z up to 26, heading vz<0 to the far court) isn't
killed on frame one.
Verified via window.T: flick/tap during 'over' serves same frame; spent
ball dies the frame it bounces; serve->serve latency 0 frames with
immediate flicks; tennis 'over' unchanged (2.2s pause, tap ignored);
tennis CPU still returns 11/12 serves; no console errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Five phases, each independently shippable with verify recipes: tighter
shooting loop, multi-kill umpire fanfare, procedural gore piles, bomb
balls delivered by ball boys, horde waves with machine-gun racket.
Racket zombies deferred to a design checkpoint (Phase 6, not first cut).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Field data (miss log) showed the dominant unfair miss: the assist parks
you on the landing spot, the ball spends the whole swing window below
minY rising off the bounce at your feet, and becomes hittable one frame
after the window closes. Root fix: the below-ankles rejection now only
applies to a DROPPING ball — rising post-bounce balls can be scooped at
any height (a half-volley). Feet-bounce taps go from ~0 to 19/30 winning
frames; 30 simulated real points now log 50 hits, 0 whiffs.
Also: swing-log snapshots record the same swing-timer value trySwing
tests (removes the one-frame misclassification behind 'unclassified'),
and tapping the scoreboard toggles an on-screen dump of the last 9 log
entries so live situations can be screenshotted from the phone.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Whiffed swings sample the ball's approach each frame and classify the
miss at swing expiry: tap too early (with ms), tap too late, ball line
wide, too high/low, out of reach. Balls that die on your side without
a swing log as PASSED with closest-approach data. Ring buffer of 50 at
T.G.missLog; the latest miss reason flashes on the HUD for 3.5s
(TUNE.missHud to disable). CPU serve-return benchmark still 11/12.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
splatT now ticks while in splatter mode and scales spawn speed by
1 + min(1.5, splatT/70). A zombie within 0.7m of the player ends the
run: gore burst, 'game, set, massacre', dark EATEN. overlay with final
games and a tap-to-restart (gated 0.7s so death-spam doesn't skip it).
Zombies keep shambling on the end screen but no longer score. Also
verified the two prior unverified items: quick-serve cadence (0.25s
between balls, flick = instant aimed serve) and flick aiming across
the net (far/near lane selection works as designed). HANDOFF updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A ball passing pre-bounce moves at full pace with no bounce cue to time
against, so marker-behind volleys needed frame-tight taps. Pre-bounce
player contact now widens reach x1.4 and the swing window x1.8 (VOLLEY
in config.js). Also clear G.wasServe in doHit so a serve returned out
of the air doesn't fault-check the return, and launch.json uses
autoPort.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Done (unverified): faster serve cadence in splatter (overT 0.25, serve from
where you stand, flick = instant aimed quick serve), aim-anywhere targeting
relative to the player. Not done: zombie speed ramp (G.splatT exists but is
never incremented), eaten-on-touch death + restart screen. Full state and
plans in HANDOFF.md.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- doHit/hitServe in splatter mode lock onto zombies instead of tennis court
depths: your flick picks the lane and depth band, the shot targets the best
match anywhere on the court (including your own side) with a walking lead;
serves auto-track the most advanced shambler
- hidden shortcut: tap/click the umpire three times within 1.6s during tennis
mode to summon the transition immediately
Verified: near-side and far zombies killable, cheat triggers transition,
tennis mode targeting untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Win your first game and the applause cuts off mid-clap. The palette drains,
the umpire lowers his voice ('Quiet... please'), your opponent turns — torn
red polo, dragging his racket — and shamblers come over the billboard wall.
The scoreboard rewrites CPU to THEM. 'Play.'
- zombies.js: shamblers walk your way; quality shots splatter them (gore
decal + particle burst + wet synth splat), weak sitters only stagger them
back; one crossing your baseline is a point for THEM
- tennis scoring machinery keeps running untouched: fifteen, thirty, deuce,
and 'Game, set... massacre' on a game win, all in recorded umpire English
- ball boys mop the gore they pass (their destiny fulfilled)
- transition: palette lerp, scripted spawns incl. the turned opponent,
new recorded lines (quiet_dark, remain_seated, play, new_balls)
- moan ambience, drained splatter palette, all zombie params in TUNE
Verified: transition triggers on first game win, splat/stagger/baseline
scoring all correct, dead-ball flow feeds fresh serves, tennis mode
regression clean (6/6 returns, 6/6 points resolved).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
game.js (830 lines) -> 9 modules, native ES modules so still zero build step:
dom canvas handles (imports nothing; keeps cycles harmless)
config TUNE (live-tunable) + structural constants
state all mutable game state (G) + setupPoint/sendBoy
audio sfx synthesis, recorded umpire voice, reverb, speech fallback
input keyboard + touch, exports axes and takeFlickAim()
gameplay ballistics, swings, serve, rules, AI, update loop
render camera, viewport, sprites, crowd, all drawing
panel T tuning UI
main boot, loop, intro, window.T test hooks
Deduped into named constants: bounce tempo (was in 3 places), contact
height band, intercept zone depth, home positions, player bounds, toss
params, shot depths, pose hold time, sprite scale, actor heights. Also
extracted drawShadow/drawBall/expirePose from repeated code.
One intentional import cycle (input <-> gameplay), safe: both sides only
call functions at runtime, never during module evaluation.
Regression-verified in browser sims: point cycle, CPU returns 11/12,
assist contract 8/8, corner-winner gradient intact (0/12 perfect corners
returned, 10/12 center balls returned).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
predictLanding stepped the trajectory in 10ms chunks and returned the first
point past ground level — an overshoot of up to ~25cm that varied per frame,
which is what actually jittered (the earlier pixel-snap only addressed
sub-pixel shimmer). The landing point of a parabola has an exact solution;
computing it directly makes the prediction identical every frame.
Measured: max frame-to-frame movement 5.5mm, was ~25cm.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Hand-raised frame while the ball rises, pat-down frame from the apex on —
synced to the ball's direction instead of a height threshold. Includes
Oliver's hand-tuned ball offset.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- p_bounce/p_bounce2 re-extracted from Oliver's corrected _sheet_pbounce.png
(racket properly in the right hand)
- bounce ball offset 0.4 -> 0.32 so it sits under the reaching hand
- landing rings draw with integer-snapped center/radii and a solid 2px
stroke — the sub-pixel anti-aliasing shimmer read as flickering
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The sprite file was fine — drawChar mirrors sprites by P.facing, which
persisted from the last run direction, so the pre-serve bounce stance
randomly flipped (racket in the wrong hand, ball beside the wrong hand).
setupPoint now resets both players to the canonical righty stance.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- boy runs on a proper 4-phase cycle (stride, pass, mirrored stride, pass)
- server holds the crouched bounce stance through pretoss instead of
flickering to standing idle; hand-down/hand-up frames sync with the ball,
which now bounces floor-to-hand height
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- fake topspin: quality shots dive under extra effective gravity, so real pace
(up to 28 m/s) can clear the net AND land in — without it the net-clearance
loop silently slowed every shot to a coverable lob, which is why the CPU
returned everything regardless of aim
- no grass-scraping: balls below ankle height (0.24m) are past you, both sides
- CPU: 0.45s shot-read delay, 4.3 m/s legs, half-speed recovery between shots.
Verified gradient: perfect/good corner shots are winners, center balls and
weak shots still come back
- player aimed shots go wider (3.3m vs 2.7m)
- ball boy: nano-banana mirrored stride frames (was stride-vs-hop), height
1.2m, z-ordered against umpire and CPU (no more running over the chair)
- umpire voice through a synthesized convolver reverb — center-court PA echo
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- intercept() now picks a point the runner can actually reach in time
(travel-time feasibility), falling back to the deepest hittable point
- tapping no longer slows the auto-run: anticipating a shot doesn't lose it
- assist legs slightly superhuman (1.15x) so positioning is guaranteed
- ball boy run frames regenerated with contrasting stride/gather poses
(previous pair was near-identical, which read as no animation)
Verified: 10/10 CPU shots end inside the honest 1.3m contact radius with
zero manual movement.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- ball boy redesign: spawns at the sideline on point end, sprints across at
the ball's depth with a proper side-view run animation, scoops the ball
mid-run, despawns off the other side (no more net-post idling/sliding)
- hit feel: ball snaps to the racket at the contact frame so hits visually
connect; contact radius tightened 1.7 -> 1.3 (assist does the positioning,
the tap must be honest); missed swings now play an audible swish
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- white ring shows where the incoming ball will land; yellow/red ring shows
where your shot will land (red = going out) — Mario-Tennis-style feedback
- ball boys wait at the net posts, fetch every dead ball, and trot home
- canvas renders at 2x density, all sprites re-sliced at 112px; run/swing
sheets regenerated in the finer style
- assist: 0.35m deadzone + facing hysteresis kills the left/right flicker;
player reach 1.5 -> 1.7
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- 23 pre-recorded umpire lines (macOS say, en-GB Daniel) played via WebAudio,
works on mobile; speechSynthesis stays as fallback only
- umpire chair + two ball boys (generated sprites) dress the court
- court redrawn: doubles alleys, white perimeter border, clearly darker out area
- intro overlay with control symbols; first tap dismisses it and unlocks audio
- nginx now serves everything Cache-Control: no-cache so a reload always
revalidates and picks up new deploys
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Same predictive brain as the CPU: simulate the trajectory, run to where the
ball will be hittable (x and z), and drift back to home position after your
own shot. Full speed while chasing, 55% while recovering.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- new 5-pose sheets per character: idle weight-shift x2, ball-bounce crouch,
serve trophy pose (toss), overhead smash
- serve shows toss stance through the ball toss, smash frame on contact
- auto-assist: full player speed, adds depth tracking after the bounce,
and drives the run animation + facing like manual movement
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- doHit now trades pace for loft when contact is low, margin scales with
shot quality; AI prefers waist-high interception instead of ankle-height
- serve stance held through toss, run cycle with bob, receiver split-step,
server bounces the ball while waiting
- speechSynthesis unlocked inside first touch gesture for iOS
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The AI armed its swing at aiReach+0.4 but contact required aiReach, so it
always swung one guaranteed-whiff too early and the 0.4s cooldown consumed
the whole approach window. Also: predictive interception instead of ball-chasing,
shorter whiff recovery, slightly faster legs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
wuwiandClaude Opus 4.8