Field Manual

The stack

One Express application renders every page with EJS and serves the games as plain JavaScript. There is no API, no database and no build step — the server's only job is to hand you HTML and a canvas. Once a page has loaded, an expedition never talks to the network again.

• Express 4 + EJS templates, served from a single Node process
• Six HTML5 Canvas engines in vanilla JavaScript, one file each
• Fixed 60 Hz timestep with seeded generation, so a run is reproducible
• Records, callsign and progression in localStorage only

How a score is built

1. Raw score — whatever the expedition's own scoring rule paid out during the run.
2. Tier multiplier — Rookie x0.80 through Summit x1.75, chosen before you drop in.
3. Conditions multiplier — the live simulated weather, up to x1.60.
4. Recorded — the rounded total is written to the daily, seasonal and all-time boards.

Boards keep one entry per callsign per window: your best run, not your five best runs.

Honesty about the leaderboards

These boards are local. They are a record of what you did on this device, and the site says so everywhere rather than implying a global ranking it cannot verify. A global board would need a server that can prove a run actually happened, and the honest version of that is replaying recorded inputs through the same deterministic engine — which the fixed timestep already makes possible, but which is not built here.

Clearing your browser's site data clears the boards. There is no copy anywhere else.

Progression

Elevation EXP accumulates across every run and moves you through eight altitude bands, from Base Camp to Death Zone. It unlocks nothing and gates nothing — it is a record of distance travelled. No account, no cookie banner, no personal data leaving the device.

Accessibility

• Every expedition is fully keyboard-playable; two also take pointer input
• Esc pauses any run, and losing window focus pauses it for you
• prefers-reduced-motion is honoured by the contour background and page chrome
• Visible focus rings are never removed; a skip link and landmark regions are present

Content

All six games, all artwork and all copy are original. No trademarked titles or mechanics-by-name are used. The weather is simulated and labelled as such everywhere it appears — it is a scoring mechanic, not a forecast. Questions go to hello@thenorthgame.com.