Lab Notes
Six concise case studies about the choices behind the games and dashboards.
Daily games
Every date and difficulty produces a shared puzzle from a versioned seed. Before a puzzle is published, its complete state tree is solved to verify the intended route, eliminate accidental alternatives, and reject unfair openings.
Reliability
Each game downloads one daily bundle and caches every difficulty needed for that day. Button presses use the local bundle, so a slow server cannot interrupt a puzzle after it has loaded.
Privacy
Location choices are stored locally and sent only to the public data endpoint needed for the current request. The site does not build a central history of places a visitor checks.
Public data
The public dashboards expose useful nearby totals and tracks while keeping receiver administration, raw identifiers, and private infrastructure behind separate access controls.
Access
Every visual game state also exists as structured text. Keyboard controls, live announcements, focus states, non-color cues, reduced motion, and large touch targets are part of the interaction model.
Visual system
Reusable SVG symbols and paired art boards give the three games one aviation-instrument identity. Native vectors stay sharp while theme-aware CSS preserves contrast and meaning in both modes.