I Broke My Game, Fixed My Game, Nearly Cried, Then Shipped It

TL;DR: great morning, cursed afternoon. fixed story mode, nuked a global layout, accidentally rolled my repo back a week, recovered most of it via notes + memory, chased undead red ants across modes, beat mobile text-selection loupes into submission, and shipped a playable Kids Mode. keep it simple. keep going.

👉 Play it: https://jpsgrooves.github.io/SnowCone-MathFest/

The Day (aka: why are there ants here?)

It started smooth. I finally had time, so I went after Story Mode. Two hours of careful, methodical work and it looked good. I checked on mobile and… uh oh: a global background PNG push-down across all modes. 🤦‍♂️

I know why it happened: historically I’ve kept layout changes in CSS and scoped them to modes. But “new Patch” (my AI pair) suggested some JS-driven layout nudges, and I tried them. It worked—until it leaked. I couldn’t Ctrl-Z my way back to a clean state.

Fix: isolate the pushdown to Camping Games, then purge it globally. Pushed to GH Pages. Looked great on phone. I fist-pumped.

Then I tried to push to GitHub remote.

It didn’t go.

I asked Patch for help. I don’t know which command did it (lesson incoming), but my whole src/ flickered and—boom—I pulled the remote (6 days old) over my local (today’s work). A week vanished in one keystroke. That sinking feeling? yeah.

Panic. Then process.

I recovered public assets easily.
src code was back a week. Brutal.
I rebuilt from dev notes, memory, and old chats. Two more hours. Not perfect, but close.

New Rule: never bash a git command you don’t understand. Ask better questions first.

And then… the ants

Console showed red ants still spawning after leaving Kids Mode. Another two hours. They were like a horror movie post-credits scene.

In the end, what worked was a combination of singleton runtime state, a hard kill function, and DOM guards:

// one global runtime per page
const ANT = (globalThis.__KC_ANT__ ||= { session: 0, alive: false, root: null });

// container safety
function aliveGuard(container) {
  return ANT.alive && ANT.root === container && document.body.contains(container);
}

// kill EVERYTHING (timeouts, tweens, observers) and invalidate pending timeouts
export function forceKillAntAttack() {
  try { gsap.killTweensOf(activeAnts); } catch {}
  try { foodTween?.kill?.(); } catch {}
  try { redAntTimeouts.forEach(clearTimeout); } catch {}
  redAntTimeouts = [];
  activeAnts.length = 0;
  roundInProgress = false;
  ANT.session++;   // ⬅️ breaks any scheduled callbacks from the old session
  ANT.alive = false;
  ANT.root  = null;
}

Plus a MutationObserver that watches the game container and calls forceKillAntAttack() if the container leaves the DOM. That finally stopped the cross-mode spawns.

Mobile: the blue highlight + magnifying loupe

Tiny testers found a delightful iOS thing: tap, tap-hold → the whole screen highlights, with the little magnifying glass. It broke the vibe completely.

Fix (global, app-wide):

Disable selection and callout on the interactive frame.
Use touch-action: manipulation to squash double-tap zoom.
Keep an opt-in class for any text that should be selectable.

/* default lockdown for game UI */
.kc-game-frame, .kc-game-frame * {
  -webkit-user-select: none;
  user-select: none;
  -webkit-touch-callout: none;
  -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;
  touch-action: manipulation;
}

/* opt-in if you need selectable text */
.allow-select {
  -webkit-user-select: text;
  user-select: text;
  -webkit-touch-callout: default;
}

Viewport stayed simple and correct:

<meta name="viewport"
      content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no, viewport-fit=cover">

For height, CSS wins: height: 100svh; with fallbacks (100vh, 100dvh) covers the weirdness across browsers.

After that: Kids Mode is actually playable. 🙌

Patch’s Service Protocol (updated mid-chaos)

I literally wrote this during the fire:

Model Transparency
- Always say “I am GPT-5 Thinking.”
- State confidence level.
- Admit uncertainty/hallucinations.
File Respect
- Review uploads carefully.
- Confirm what’s in the file.
- Treat uploads as older dev notes unless told otherwise; ask for latest.
Scope Discipline
- Answer exactly what was asked.
- Extra ideas are clearly labeled “optional.”
Coding Style
- Stoner, time-traveling SnowCone Server voice 🌌😎🍧.
- Explain why, not just how.
- Never skip or summarize code due to length; ship in chunks.
Git / System Safety
- No destructive commands without repo context.
- Start with safe introspection: git status git log --oneline --decorate --graph -n 15 git branch -vv git reflog -n 20
- Propose the safest plan first.
Project Integrity
- Favor long-term stability over hacks.
- Preserve Jeremy’s voice and joy. 🚀

Postmortem Notes & Snippets You Can Steal

1) “Undead loop” pattern: kill by invalidating session

If your game/animation uses timeouts or async callbacks, store a session id. On teardown, increment it. Any scheduled callback checks session === ANT.session before running. Instant amnesia for old loops.

2) Cross-mode safety: observe your container

If the mode’s root leaves the DOM, self-destruct. It’s cheap and it works.

const mo = new MutationObserver(() => {
  if (ANT.root && !document.body.contains(ANT.root)) forceKillAntAttack();
});
mo.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });

3) Mobile polish: don’t fight the browser, set the rules

user-select: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none;
touch-action: manipulation;
Minimal, sane viewport meta.
Use svh/dvh + vh fallback for height.

4) Git recovery (safe path)

When you nuke local changes by mistake:

Look first: git status, git reflog -n 50
Peek at old head(s): git show HEAD@{1} (and friends)
Recover files without resets:
git restore --source=HEAD@{1} -- path/to/file.js
Only reach for hard resets if you absolutely understand the consequences.

What I’d Tell Yesterday-Me

Keep your layout changes mode-scoped. If you mix CSS and JS layout moves, document where and why.
Never run a git command you can’t explain out loud.
Write tiny teardown functions first. Make “quit” reliable before “play” is fancy.
When kids are your QA, assume every tap pattern will be discovered. Optimize for chaos.

The bright part

Story Mode is shaping up. Last night I felt lost in the woods; tonight I feel exhausted, like I spent the day chopping a path. The forest of the unknown is dense. My axe isn’t always sharp. But persistence? That’s the whole game.

Go play my math game. Tell me what breaks so I can fix it faster next time. 💚

👉 https://jpsgrooves.github.io/SnowCone-MathFest/

—J

JPS Grooves