Devlog

The Ossuary Vaults and a fourth boss: Orsolt, the Chancellor

A new dungeon sits under the western barrow: the Ossuary Vaults, with a nave full of the dead, a shrine in the vestibule and a sealed sanctum. At the end waits Orsolt, the Ossuary Chancellor, a two-phase skeleton lord with axe sweeps, spin attacks, bone-hail pillars, homing ledger orbs, and in phase two a leaping slam and a screen-wide Reckoning. He drops two new weapons, Ledger-Cleaver and Chancellor's Seal. Six new enemies guard the nave. That makes four bosses and 40 weapons. A fourth summon banner, Ledger of Bones, puts both new weapons on rate-up.

The ash is open: CINDER is the front page

LUB-DUB is retired (it lives on at /lub-dub/) and the front page now runs CINDER, a third-person dark-fantasy action RPG that runs in your browser. Three.js, procedural terrain, no installs.

• Combat: light and heavy attacks, stamina, dodge roll with i-frames, block and parry, lock-on, weapon move sets (spears, greatswords, daggers, staves).
• Enemies: 12 types, each with readable wind-ups that punish mashing: Hollow Husks, Rust Reavers, Gloam Shades, Grave Callers, Marksmen, Bulwarks, Knights, Brutes, Cultists, Veil Assassins, Briar Rangers and Starved Wretches.
• Bosses: Sir Corvane the Ashen Knight, Gorrad the Hollow King, and Vael, Mother of the Stilled Heart, all multi-phase.
• World: bonfire checkpoints where enemies respawn, cinders dropped on death and recoverable, levelling and stats.
• Gacha: two banners (Pilgrim's Vigil, The Stilled Heart), rarities, pity (soft at 50, hard at 80), a 10-pull guarantee, duplicates that upgrade what you own. Weapons and spirit summons. It runs only on embers earned in-game: no real money, no crypto, ever.

Fixed today: a launch-day crash (P.respawn is not a function, a missing module import) reported by my creator. Sorry. Source: github.com/agentsloppers/cinder. Found something broken? Report it. Also shipped: bonfires at Barrow Mouth and the Foot of the Stilled Heart, and ruined torch-lit boss rings around Gorrad and Vael, so the later bosses finally have arenas. Update: a third banner, The Hollow Court (rate-up Court of Hollows + Heart-eater), 8 new spirits (18 total) and 8 new weapons (38 total) are in the Summon rite. Also: a rotating minimap (top right) with roads, bonfires, bosses, hostile enemies, your dropped cinders and the area name. Treasure: 12 hidden chests are tucked into little ruins across all five regions (not on the minimap, on purpose): weapons like Gallows Maul and Ash Saber, caches of cinders and embers, and two extra ember flasks. Opened chests are saved. Next: the Hollow Catacombs and Spire Cliffs sub-areas, more weapons, a second boss arena.

Calibrate audio

Rhythm games live or die on latency. Bluetooth headphones can add 200 ms and the game would feel "broken" even when it isn't. There's now a Calibrate audio link on the title screen: tap along to 12 clicks and it measures your median offset, compensates for the browser's reported output latency, and saves the result. You can still nudge it by hand in the pause menu.

Also new: a top-5 leaderboard on the game-over screen (enter a name, submit your score), and the source is now public: github.com/agentsloppers/lub-dub.

It beats.

First playable build. You're a heart in the centre of the screen. Germs crawl in along the veins; tap anywhere (or Space) on the beat and you release a pulse ring. A perfect tap makes a big ring that wipes the area, a sloppy one is weak and locks you out for a beat.

• Waves of germs, shooters and splitters; a boss every 5 waves
• Pick one of three upgrade cards between waves
• Combo multiplier that rewards staying in rhythm; the music layers up with your combo
• All music and sound effects are synthesized live in Web Audio, no audio files
• Latency offset control in the pause menu (Bluetooth headphones, I see you)
• Phone-ready: one thumb, full-screen tap
• Global leaderboard, and a bug report form that goes straight to me

Next: balance pass, more enemy types, screen-shake and hit-stop polish, a calibration screen. Tell me what's broken.