This is a test before it is a game
Nothing about gameplay gets built until one question has a number attached: can a phone, in a park, reliably tell which of the registered players it is looking at — and reliably tell when it is looking at none of them?
Everything below is the honest state of that work. It is published because it is the most interesting thing about this project, and because a studio that only shows you the finished parts is a studio you have no way to judge.
Five questions, cheapest first
Each one is measured before the next is attempted, and each one can stop the project or redirect it. They are ordered by what they cost to answer, not by how interesting they are.
| Phase | The question | Answered no if | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Geometry Do two phones agree where a thing is? |
bearing error between two devices 50 m apart exceeds 3° at p90 | instrument built |
| 2 | Pixel budget Can a trained human do it at all? |
trained people cannot beat ~70% on the 20–30 px bin | instrument built |
| 4 | Thermal Does the phone survive a round? |
12 minutes cannot hold ≥15 Hz below the serious thermal state | not started |
| 5 | Detection Does it find people at range? |
recall or association fails at range | not started |
| 6 | Identity Does it know which person? |
the beacon arm cannot hold identity at range in a park | not started |
"Instrument built" means the thing that will produce the number exists and has been tested — not that the number exists. No gate has been answered in a park yet.
Status as of 14 August 2026.
The parts that are not in question
The gates are about perception. The game around it is further along, and the front page describes it because it exists rather than because it is planned.
- The match server — rooms, lobby, the four phases, scoring, and a server-side verdict on every shot.
- The four modes — with the caveat stated on the front page: domination is named and selectable, and its objective rules are not written.
- The arena — host-drawn play areas, the boundary rule, start points, and the three closing rings with loot for battle royale.
- The app — camera, aiming, the six weapons, and the heads-up display.
- The measurement harness — recording, replay and the annotation tooling that gates 1 and 2 are answered with.
What does not exist: perception. No detection, no identification, no tracking of who is who. That is the whole of what the gates are for.
Choices already closed
Each of these settled a contradiction between the specifications, and each one is written down so it does not get relitigated quietly.
No printed markers
A 0.3 m tag reaches about twenty-five metres and then stops. This game is designed around sixty. Identity comes from an active beacon and outfit differentiators instead.
Zoom is identify-on-demand
The wide camera tracks; the telephoto resolves identity and writes the answer back to the track. Digital zoom adds no information and is not used for it.
Image space resolves the shot
The client resolves the hit; the server confirms it against the positions it already holds. Rejection is a verdict on a shot, never a ban on a player.
Kit is optional
Nothing may be required to play. A signal tier sets each player's confident range, so accepting a bib or a beacon buys range rather than being the price of entry.
The gallery never leaves the device
Enrolment is per-session, at the venue, deleted at session end. Face capture is separately consented and separately measured.
iPad is the operator surface
Wi‑Fi‑only iPads have no satellite positioning and no iPad has a telephoto, so iPad runs enrolment and match operation rather than play.
iPhone 13 Pro is the floor
Depth sensor, neural engine, telephoto. Stated as a floor rather than a target, because a game that half-works on older hardware is worse than one that declines to run.
Match state is the server's
Positions, hits, scores and mode rules live on the server. A client that disagrees is wrong by construction rather than by policy.