QUALITY REVIEW PASS 24 · BROWSER PLAYTEST · 11 OCTOBER 2026
Lanterns of Dawn
Five forest trials. Read a guardian’s tell, return its star, and build Focus for your third sword cut.
Five quality improvements · 24
- Early sword taps queue one following strike; throws animate while running and recover smoothly.
- Walking legs keep their phase through combat. Boot geometry follows slopes; shrine approach stones conform to the terrain.
- Forward charge paths, melee sectors and recovery warnings make danger clearer. Beveled modeled stars replace flat polygons.
- Cooldown sectors, dashed rims and more compact phone HUD give feedback while keeping buttons enabled. Reduced motion removes expanding effects.
- Training now includes a harmless timed deflection before combat, without score or Focus farming.
Read the ranked review, tests and limitations · CPU measurements
Actual rig / offline motion preview
48 frames from the real simulation and animation rig. Simplified CPU lighting and supporting surface. This is an offline animation preview, not a WebGL gameplay recording or phone test.
Complete audio update · 23
Seven original arrangements now run 32–51 seconds, with stage variations, calmer passages and combat intensity. Fifty-one recorded CC0 effects replace electronic action tones: blade swishes, metal parries, leather/cloth movement, ground steps and impacts. Repeated actions rotate takes. Pause preserves music position, transitions crossfade, and rapid impacts are limited.
Music is compressed; effects remain lossless. All 60 assets pass technical checks, including loop boundaries and measured compression error. New-mix listening on a phone remains unverified. Sources: Vehicle / Jan Schupke and StarNinjas, CC0.
Mobile interface update · 19
Compact character lobby, one Play button, separate chapter sheet, larger sword action, labeled vector controls, compact HUD and optional fullscreen. Existing progress and rules are preserved. Chapter navigation, fullscreen success/failure, input handlers and real camera projections pass automated checks. Rendered Android UI and physical thumb comfort remain unverified.
What changed
- A safe, interactive opening lesson and replayable practice.
- Five guardians: aimed shots, fan volleys, a telegraphed charge, a low ring, and combined patterns.
- Buffered controls, interruption recovery, three recharging stars and a Focus-powered third cut.
- Seven longer original music loops, victory/defeat cues, 51 recorded effect variations, and separate volume controls.
- Saved progress/settings, reduced motion, battery saver, loading feedback and clearer mobile controls.
- Optimized original artwork: 29.5 MB of PNG textures becomes 3.9 MB of WebP textures.
Play
Use the left stick to move and drag the empty right side to turn the camera. Slash, Star, Jump and Dash are on the right. On desktop: WASD/arrows, J/K, Space, Shift/L, Q/E or drag. Esc/P pauses.
Defeat the guardian and enter the shrine. Orange ground tells signal an attack; green indicates a recovery opening. A timed sword cut deflects a star. Three deflections charge Focus; release it on your next third sword cut. Three throwing stars recharge automatically. Retry resets the current stage and its points.
Verification
| Area | Result |
|---|---|
| Early input queue, moving throws, boot/terrain clearance and safe deflection practice | Pass — actual simulation/rig checks; human animation acceptance pending |
| Core rules, death/retry, gates, scoring, collision and Focus | Pass — deterministic simulation checks |
| Five complete stages | Pass — scripted player, normal damage/health, no skipped enemies |
| Rig, assets, scene rebuilds, input handlers, pause and settings | Pass — actual assets with mocked graphics |
| Saves, corruption, migration and blocked storage | Pass — automated |
| Audio files, loop boundaries, mute, transitions and source limits | Pass — PCM and mocked audio-system checks; listening unverified |
| Real GPU visuals, rendered phone UI, FPS, memory, touch latency | Unverified — browser/device testing unavailable |
Actual rig / offline pose check
This contact sheet uses the real rig and runtime textures. Lighting is simplified; it is not a WebGL gameplay screenshot.
Original audio
Journey theme — deterministic composition using plucked tones, soft breath-like notes and low percussion.
Guardian theme
Download and reproduce
Download the runnable source package
Serve the included dist/ folder over HTTP. No build step or external CDN is required. The package includes source, optimized assets, audio, tests, specification, style guide and evidence. Run node tools/verify.mjs with Node 22+ and Python/Pillow/numpy. Original PNGs are retained separately in the dedicated source repository.
Performance evidence
The initial 3D dependency set is approximately 6.3 MB, plus a 5.81 MB bundled audio bank, before HTTP compression. Audio buffers start after interaction. WAV masters and the optional source download are not fetched during gameplay. These are file sizes, not measured phone loading times.
The current CPU-only benchmark under Node v24.19.0 measured 0.0041 ms median / 0.0092 ms p95 per simulation step over 15,000 steps; one actual rig animation/outfit update measured 0.0469 ms median / 0.1066 ms p95 over 2,000 samples. It excludes rendering, DOM and audio and does not establish device FPS. Battery Saver disables dynamic shadows and limits rendering resolution.
Credits
Base rig: NINJA CHARACTER by styloo, CC0 (verified on the author’s page on 11 October 2026). Three.js revision 180 and addons: MIT license. Existing project-generated environment/material art, authored geometry/animation, original composed music, and recorded CC0 foley from Vehicle / Jan Schupke and StarNinjas are documented in the source credits and inventory.
Privacy and support
Game progress and settings are stored in this browser. Game code includes no analytics, ads, accounts or payments. Static hosting receives normal file requests. To report a problem, send the owner the game URL, stage, device/browser and reproduction steps through the channel where this game was shared.