# TGL Cell Arena — LLM-friendly summary

URL: https://tglgames.com/cell-arena/
Genre: Single-player browser cell-eating arena ("agar-style") · arcade · survival
Author: mgwalk · Free, no install, no signup.

## What it is

You control a colored cell on a 4 000 × 4 000 logical-unit arena. Move the
mouse (or touch) to steer — your cell follows the cursor relative to the
center of the screen. Eat colored food pellets (+1 mass each) and AI cells
smaller than yours (+their mass). Avoid AI cells bigger than yours: if they
catch you, the run ends. Bigger cells move slower, so growth is always a
tradeoff between dominance and agility.

## Scoring

    score = floor(max_mass) + floor(time_alive_seconds) + kills × 50

`max_mass` is your peak mass during the run — losing mass at the end does
not erase it. `kills` counts AI cells you consumed (you must be ≥2% larger
than them to eat). The leaderboard ranks by `score`.

## Controls

- Mouse / touch: steer toward cursor
- Esc: quit current run

## Anti-cheat

Sanity-cap validator (NOT bit-perfect replay — float positions and continuous
mouse input defeat that). On submit, `api/games/cell-arena.php` checks:

- Score formula reproduces from `max_mass`, `duration_ms`, `kills` (±5% rounding tolerance)
- `food_eaten` ≤ seeded food budget (`FOOD_TARGET_COUNT` + duration_seconds × 8)
- `bots_eaten` ≤ seeded bot budget (`BOT_TARGET_COUNT` + duration ÷ `BOT_RESPAWN_MS`)
- `max_mass` ≤ envelope from food + bots eaten
- `distance_units` ÷ duration ≤ `MAX_SPEED_UPS` × 1.10 tolerance
- HMAC-signed run tokens, single-use, server-issued seed

Soft-flag thresholds (sustained kill rate > 0.5/sec or food rate > 6.5/sec
across a 60s+ run) park the run as `validated='pending'` for admin review.

## Constants (must stay in lockstep PHP ↔ JS)

    RULES_VERSION       = 1
    ARENA_W = ARENA_H   = 4 000 units
    START_MASS          = 25
    FOOD_VALUE          = 1
    FOOD_TARGET_COUNT   = 600
    BOT_TARGET_COUNT    = 12
    BOT_RESPAWN_MS      = 4 000
    MAX_SPEED_UPS       = 320 units/sec (at min mass)
    POINTS_PER_KILL     = 50
    EAT_SIZE_RATIO      = 1.02  (need to be ≥2% bigger to eat)

Bump `RULES_VERSION` whenever any of these change so old rows stay
interpretable.

## Files

- `cell-arena/index.html` — the entire game (single self-contained file, tier 1)
- `cell-arena/about/index.html` — about page with FAQ + JSON-LD
- `cell-arena/leaders/index.html` + `runs.js` — full leaderboard sub-page
- `cell-arena/replay/index.html` — input-log visualizer (player path animation)
- `api/games/cell-arena.php` — `CellArenaBoundsChecker` validator
- `api/endpoints/cell_arena_run.php` — `GET /api/cell-arena/run?id=` for replay
- `docs/cell-arena.md` — design doc

## Privacy

No tracking pixels, no analytics SDK, no third-party scripts, no payments.
Raw IP, user-agent, and full request bodies are logged for ops/security
review (project-wide stance) — never sold or shared.