From e340919b8fa2c63ae41e52592b590d775c3a1bd3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Wagoner Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:01:39 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Send word: a way to reach the keeper The about panel gets wizwar's contact paragraph (mail, Bluesky, Mastodon, the source), and the colophons, the guide and the rules page each carry a one-line way to report a rule read wrong. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0141G6xqLeNRYEtviLWSB5Up --- src/lib/components/Hall.svelte | 15 +++++++++++++++ src/routes/guide/+page.svelte | 2 +- src/routes/join/[code]/+page.svelte | 2 +- src/routes/play/+page.svelte | 2 +- src/routes/rules/+page.svelte | 11 +++++++++++ 5 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/lib/components/Hall.svelte b/src/lib/components/Hall.svelte index dcd9cc7..4f03b31 100644 --- a/src/lib/components/Hall.svelte +++ b/src/lib/components/Hall.svelte @@ -196,6 +196,9 @@

Waving Hands is Richard Bartle's game from 1977, played with pencil, paper and two hands. It was later known as Spellbinder and Spellcaster, and Andrew Plotkin's Spellcast brought it to university X terminals in 1993, which is where the maker of this page first met it.

This version keeps the game as written: all forty spells, the same simultaneous resolution, the same ledger of letters. The rules text it follows is the fanzine transcription, kept in full on the rules page. The bot reads your gestures as you would read its; the hand silhouettes on the buttons are adapted from Plotkin's bitmaps, with his notice retained.

It is free and keeps no accounts. A duel against the bot lives in your own browser. A duel between people lives on a small server as an append-only ledger of moves, so it can be replayed from its first gesture, and each wizard is shown only what the rules let them see.

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Send word

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A rule read wrong, a bug, a duel you would like to tell of: write to eric@ericwagoner.com, @kestrelsnest.social on Bluesky, or @eric@toots.kestrelsnest.social on Mastodon. The keeper of this hall roosts at kestrelsnest.social, and the source is at git.kestrelsnest.social.

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Waving Hands is Richard Bartle's, 1977. This page was made by Eric and a very enthusiastic AI, 2026.

@@ -478,6 +481,18 @@ color: var(--frost); } + .about-body h3 { + font-size: 1rem; + font-style: italic; + margin: 0.9rem 0 0.2rem; + color: var(--bone); + } + + .about-body .made { + font-size: 0.85rem; + color: var(--bone-faint); + } + .about-body { max-width: 44em; color: var(--bone-dim); diff --git a/src/routes/guide/+page.svelte b/src/routes/guide/+page.svelte index 9fa1bbc..d12952e 100644 --- a/src/routes/guide/+page.svelte +++ b/src/routes/guide/+page.svelte @@ -108,7 +108,7 @@

A first duel

Open with a wave on each hand. From W-W you may turn either hand into a counter-spell (W-W-S), a protection from evil (W-W-P) or resist heat (W-W-F-P), and nobody can hurt you on the first turn. Watch the warnings: when a missile is one gesture away, a palm costs you one hand for one turn; when a fireball is one gesture away, only a counter-spell, a resistance, or a counter of your own will do.

Then choose a spell from the sheet and pin it to a hand, and keep the other hand for answering. Cause light wounds is three gestures, a fireball five, and summoning a goblin three; a goblin that lives for four turns has done a fireball's work. Read the rival's ledger every turn as they read yours. Both of you are bluffing, and the whole page is the paper.

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The full rules are on the rules page, with Bartle's text.

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The full rules are on the rules page, with Bartle's text. If a rule here reads wrong to you, or the page misbehaves, send word; the hall's about this game has the other ways to reach the keeper.

diff --git a/src/routes/join/[code]/+page.svelte b/src/routes/join/[code]/+page.svelte index 00db125..d0df0dc 100644 --- a/src/routes/join/[code]/+page.svelte +++ b/src/routes/join/[code]/+page.svelte @@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ {/if}
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After Richard Bartle's Waving Hands (1977), also known as Spellbinder and Spellcaster. Read the full rules.

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After Richard Bartle's Waving Hands (1977), also known as Spellbinder and Spellcaster. Read the full rules. A rule read wrong or a bug found: send word.