Back online...

UPDATE: 08/08/2023
Scoring issues : Working on a fix
Unfortunately, while we appear to have remedied the game save problems, I have inadvertently killed the in game scoring.
It's late at night here now so my developer won't be around until the morning.
As such I don't have the skills to fix what I have broken right now.

Apologies again. I appreciate that for some of you this must be getting a bit frustrating.
We will get things back up and running as soon as possible.
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--- Original message below ---
This is just to confirm what some of you have already discovered.
The website was restored a couple of hours ago after some necessary maintenance.

I've mentioned what we have discovered in an existing post, but here's a quick summary.
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We've been through every chapter and added new coding scripts at the game load in, start points, end points and save points to filter the cookies and variables more effectively.
This should keep any new saves below the 150 cookie limit imposed by Firefox browser.
The code is designed to recognise and only keep the cookies which are relevant to the game save and subsequent playthrough.

We still recommend using Firefox as it is still the only browser we know that handles cookies correctly when playing and saving the Academy game.

In other words, don't use Chrome or Edge!
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We've also added in some additional transition pages at the load in and game save points.
This is to slow the load/save process down to ensure that data is effectively passed between the website and the database.
The pages should also add a bit of a visual reference to which chapter you have saved and which one you have unlocked.
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Legacy issues
In retrospect, the browser cookie limit has clearly been the cause of so many of the issues that many of you have been experiencing with inaccurate achievement displays, missing saves and 'null' instead of your player name.
Once the 150 cookie limit is reached, any new cookies start replacing older ones.
If you play through multiple chapters in one session then the problem is multiplied and many more cookies would be missed.

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What you need to do
Because browsers, even Firefox, can hold onto your cookies we recommend clearing your cache before playing again.
This should remove any old file references and give you a nice clean browser to start the game with.

This won't delete any saves or bonus scenes that you have unlocked, it will just make sure the website is using the most up to date code.

I will say also that any old saves with inaccurate or duplicated information may not be resolved with this update.
We are however working on some tools to run through the database and clean up/correct any 'corrupted' game saves.
This will take some time to implement so if you have had duplicated, missing or inaccurate game saves then this update will not resolve that.

It should however make sure that any new saves are pared down and accurate.
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We will be monitoring site performance over the next few days, and fully anticipate that there could be some issues with existing game saves.

Please contact me via direct message right here if you are experiencing issues and I will try as best I can to resolve things for you all.

dsp3000