The LOG tab

How it was built.

Every entry comes from the repo's own history: its commits, its plans and its hand-off notes. Newest at the bottom, the way a road trip reads.

1. 09-25-202636 commits

   Day one: an engine that owns the truth

   The proof of concept was set up in one day, in parallel workstreams that shared one build brief.

   • A deterministic game core: seeded dice, one function that changes the game state, and no clock or randomness inside it, so the same inputs always give the same trip.
   • Shared checkpoints and personal situations as two different things, so one slow friend never blocks anyone else's game.
   • Server-side audiences: each phone gets a view built for that one player, so private clues and ghosts can never leak.
   • Hosting from a home PC with one command, a Docker setup, a database backup script and phone-sized browser tests.
2. 09-27-202676 commits

   The DOS look, the horde and the Oregon Trail turn

   The longest day. It started with a new look and ended with most of the game.

   • Every screen moved to a DOS / Organ Trail look: pure black, white type, outlined buttons, VT323 and Press Start 2P. The place paintings stayed painterly, because the C64 conversion looked worse.
   • Pick your ride: six vehicles, each changing the starting supplies.
   • The tabs ROAD, RADIO, LOG and CREW. Timers of 1, 3, 5 or 12 hours per stop. Join any time.
   • Jobs became mini-games: supply runs, fixing the car, siphoning gas, and Pong for slacking off.
   • The horde: a stop of its own and a top-down escape drive that everyone watches together.
   • Bites and secrets, fevers, crew votes, zombie teammates, graves with one carved line from each friend, a pet to keep alive and an old phone with Snake on it.
   • Towns with trading and an auto shop, speed and rations votes, and one random road event per leg, sickness included, as in the 1978 Oregon Trail.
   • The LEAVING story: the place stays still, the ride pulls away, and everyone reads what the stop led to.
   • Moments: an action choice rolls a die, and the roll and the result show on the card.
3. 09-28-202614 commits

   Teaching it, and hearing from players

   • A tap-through tutorial over the real road screen, and an opening story that types itself out.
   • A three-card briefing before anyone can start the horde run, and a five-minute lobby for it.
   • REPORT A BUG in the menu: it shows what gets sent, asks before sending phone details, and files the report on GitHub, where an automated first look reads it.
   • The build version shows in the menu, so every report says which version it came from.
4. 09-29-202617 commits

   Endings and the next ride

   • Three written endings (everyone home, some lost, nobody), with the crew and the fallen named.
   • One combined story at the end: the choices that mattered, then the road day by day, as it really happened.
   • The next ride: a rematch with the same crew, a free gear pick, and a lock-in box. LEAVE WITHOUT WAITING starts the new trip now; the rest can join later.
   • Invite tracking, with a BEST FRIEND achievement for bringing people in.
   • The permanent marker: friends get to draw on a player who sleeps through two stops.
   • A lore pass over Route 9, and one file holding every word the game says.
5. 09-30-202620 commits

   The living road

   • A lit road scene with real art: painted biome backdrops, a closer camera, brake lights, headlight beams and street lamps at night, a bridge and a tunnel.
   • The main menu became the engine itself: the ride driving forever through day and night.
   • Roadside stops the Oregon Trail way: fixed landmarks, rolled trouble. Real horde miles and road trouble.
   • A QR code for invites, a save-your-key reminder, and the trip as a home-screen app.
   • A hidden Easter egg ride for one particular journey name.
6. 10-01-20268 commits

   One engine, two games

   • Theme packs: a second setting runs on the same rules with its own stops, items, rides, words and art. Not a single rule changed.
   • The crew scene, a replay of the road, and sprite mini-games.
   • One player per trip per phone: opening the invite again goes back to your player.
7. 10-02-202617 commits

   The afterlife gets its own screen

   • A death card that says how you went down, then CROSS OVER. A ghost menu and tab bar of its own. HAUNT.
   • The ghost's new lines come in through static, like a bad signal finding its station.
   • The crew sees a fever, never a bite, and zombies never vote.
   • The horde at your own pace: everyone preps the car, the most aware player drives.
   • A nap warning one stop before the road decides for you, and both nap lines ping the phone.
8. 10-04-2026to 10-11-2026

   Fixes from real play

   • New players' arrival story shows on the ROAD tab as NEW ON THE ROAD. A death pings every living player.
   • No more "No signal" on the first failed fetch; it retries first. The CATCHING UP card names crewmates who are asleep.
   • Friends can join with any name of 1 to 24 characters, punctuation and all, after joining failed for about half of all names.
9. 10-14-20264 commits

   Jobs that fit who you are

   • Profession jobs and per-stop job lists, with one taker per job.
   • Jobs show their risk and really roll it, with the same number on the card and the dice.
   • The stop waits for everyone's job, not only their choice.
10. 10-15-202613 commits

    Easier to get in, nicer to watch

    • Fast joining: a friend who joins by link skips the crew vote and rides free, with a short intro of their own.
    • The horde became an easy tap game, one tap away, whose clock waits for your first tap.
    • Mile markers and town signs drawn in code, rain and a wet road, and the leg's road event under the mile counter.
11. 10-17-202612 commits

    Roadside finds and a better supply run

    • Roadside finds: the engine, the content, the view and the claim command.
    • The supply run: duck behind the car, pop up to shoot, and the supplies fly to you.
12. 10-23-2026milestones: 10-31

    Worth it, and three milestones

    The project went through the worth gate: friends use it and it is worth a lot to them, so the verdict is GO while the size of the next build is still being decided. The work now sits in three milestones: M1 · Friends try it, M2 · It lands, and LATER. The milestones page shows where each one stands.