Playtest Build — 26 August 2026

Everything the last round of feedback turned up is in this build, plus three new
things that have never been playtested. Those three are the most likely source of
new bugs, so they're worth poking at deliberately.

New

The ship's bell. Mounted on deck. Sound it three times within 15 seconds
and the day runs on toward the storm — useful when the board is all storm work and
you're stuck waiting for weather. There's a three-second lock between rings, so it
takes intent. The count is crew-wide: three different people ringing once each
works. The toll carries a long way, so it doubles as a "get back to the ship" signal.

Unarmed push. Left-click with nothing in your hands and you shove whoever is in
front of you. Purely horizontal — going over the rail is a matter of running out of
deck. Please use this responsibly, or don't.

Dolphins and whales. Pods now run alongside the ship in open water: dolphins
porpoising off the beam, whales surfacing, blowing, and sounding with their flukes
up. There's also whale song you'll only hear underwater. They leave if you drop
anchor or stand in toward an island.
This has never triggered naturally in a real session — only forced in the editor.
If you're sailing open water and see nothing over a few days, that's worth reporting.

Fixed

• Job structures and NPCs no longer vanish when you hand in. The weigh scale, the
  cipher lock, the shrine, the graves, the dock hand and the rest used to blink out of
  existence while you were stood in front of them. They now stay until the day rolls.
• The dock hand no longer appears in the wrong place, or as a duplicate.
• The crew list and the death lobby now agree on player order, and it's the same
  order on everyone's screen.
• The satchel now shows which debt you're on next to the day — since every cycle
  is three days, "Day 2 of 3" alone couldn't tell you how deep in you were.
• Gulls no longer fly down through the ship on a guest's screen.
• The main mast collider no longer blocks the crow's nest. The lookout was being
  walled in by an invisible pole.
• The sun no longer steps across the sky on a guest while the day is running on.
• Being shoved no longer plays the deck-heave thump, and the impact sound only
  fires when a push actually connects.

Still chasing — please help

Five things from last round couldn't be pinned down at a desk. The logging for them
is already in this build, so they just need a session that trips them. If any of
these happen, send your Player.log before relaunching (it's overwritten each
launch): AppData/LocalLow/LEAL Games/Bilge Rats/Player.log

• Voice cutting out one way — hearing someone who can't hear you, or vice versa.
  Needs logs from everyone in the session, not just whoever noticed.
• Getting knocked upward out of nowhere in a swell.
• A figure standing in the open ocean. Four explanations ruled out so far.
• Flickering in the tavern (Abrie). Press F1 in the tavern and toggle "Depth fix",
  then say whether it changes anything. Either answer closes it.
• Anything moving that shouldn't be while you're stopped.

What's most useful to report

• Did anyone else see it? "I saw it and they didn't" is the single most useful
  thing you can tell us — it points straight at a sync bug.
• Were you host or guest?
• Once, sometimes, or every time?

Don't filter. A report that just says "the anchor did something weird once, no idea
what" is worth writing down.