FAIRNESS OF PLAY

1.Purpose

This document explains how Deku Studios contests work, how outcomes are determined, and what measures we take to ensure every contest is fair. We believe transparency is essential to Player trust, and we want you to understand exactly how our contests operate before you play.

These Fairness of Play Disclosures are incorporated into and form part of the Terms of Service. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings given in the Terms of Service.

2.Core Fairness Principles

Every contest on the Deku Studios Platform is built on four principles:

Skill determines outcomes. Contest results are determined by the skill of the participants. There are no chance-based mechanics that affect scoring or contest placement.

All participants start equal. Every participant in a contest receives identical starting conditions. No participant has a random advantage over any other.

Scoring is deterministic. Scores are calculated server-side using fixed rules that are applied uniformly. There are no hidden modifiers, random bonuses, or variable multipliers.

Results are verifiable. All gameplay data is recorded server-side. Contest results can be audited and verified.

3.Game-Specific Disclosures: Glyphs

3.1Game Description

Glyphs is a competitive word-finding contest. Players are presented with a 5×5 grid of letters and have two (2) minutes to find as many valid words as possible by tracing paths through adjacent letters. Words are formed by swiping across horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent tiles. Each tile may be used only once per word. The minimum word length is three (3) letters.

3.2How the Grid Is Generated

Each contest uses a single seed value to generate the letter grid. The seed determines the exact placement of all twenty-five (25) letters. Every participant in the same contest receives the identical grid generated from the same seed.

The grid-generation process works as follows:

1. A seed value is generated for the contest when it is created.
2. The seed is used to determine letter placement according to a weighted distribution based on English-letter frequency (similar to standard letter distributions used in word games).
3. The generated grid is validated to ensure it contains a minimum number of findable words (at least forty (40) valid words of three (3) or more letters). Grids that do not meet this threshold are discarded and regenerated with a new seed.
4. The validated grid is stored server-side and served to each participant when the participant begins gameplay.

The seed is not disclosed to participants before or during gameplay.

3.3Word Validation

Words are validated against a comprehensive English dictionary. Proper nouns, abbreviations, and slang are excluded.

Validation occurs at two levels:

• Client-side (instant feedback): A compact word list is embedded in the contest client to provide immediate visual feedback (green flash for valid, red flash for invalid) when you complete a swipe. This is for user experience only and is not authoritative.
• Server-side (authoritative): All submitted words are validated server-side against the full dictionary and the contest grid. The server confirms that each word exists in the dictionary, follows a valid adjacency path on the grid, meets the minimum length requirement, and has not already been submitted by the same Player. Server-side validation is the sole authority for scoring.

3.4Scoring Rules

In Glyphs, each valid word is awarded a base score determined solely by its length:

A participant's Final Score is the arithmetic sum of the base scores for every valid word the participant submits within the two-minute play window. The same word may not be scored more than once by a single participant. There are no random multipliers, streak bonuses, power-ups, or other mechanics that introduce variability beyond the participant's own word-finding performance. Two or more participants in the same contest may independently find and score the same word; scoring is per-participant and is not reduced by another participant's earlier discovery of the same word.

3.5Tie-Breaking Rules

In the event of a tied total score, ties are resolved using the following sequential tiebreakers:

1. Longest word found. The participant who found the longest single word wins the tie.
2. Total number of words found. The participant who found more total words wins the tie.

Tiebreakers are applied in order. If a tiebreaker resolves the tie, subsequent tiebreakers are not considered. If no tiebreaker resolves the tie, the tied participants receive the same placement and split the combined prize money for their positions equally. No coin flip, random drawing, dice roll, random-number-generator selection, or other chance-based mechanism is used at any stage of tiebreaker resolution.

4.Game-Specific Disclosures: Volt Dash

4.1Game Description

Volt Dash is a competitive single-tap auto-runner contest. Each participant controls VOLT, a courier character navigating a neon cyberpunk city through procedurally assembled single-tap platformer levels. The character automatically runs forward at a constant speed; tapping while grounded performs a jump with height scaled to tap duration, and tapping near a wall performs a wall-jump that launches VOLT away from the surface at a fixed upward angle. Levels are stitched together from hand-crafted chunks across five biomes (Rooftops, Alleyways, Subway, Skybridge, and Data Center), each presenting distinct hazards including gaps, spike walls, laser gates, hover drones, and collapsing platforms. Contact with any hazard ends the current attempt and costs one (1) of three (3) lives. Data chips are placed throughout each level as bonus pickups, deliberately positioned off the optimal speed line to create risk-reward tension. A Volt Dash tournament session lasts two (2) minutes with three (3) attempts per participant.

4.2How the Level Is Generated

Each contest uses a single seed value to generate the level. All participants in a given contest compete on the identical, deterministically seeded level, targeting approximately sixty (60) seconds of play per successful run. The full state of each contest's level is reproducible from the tournament seed; the server can independently reconstruct the level at any time for verification. No randomness occurs during gameplay — chunk sequence, obstacle timing, pickup placement, and biome progression are identical for every participant.

4.3Scoring Rules

Scoring is deterministic and is a pure function of the participant's own gameplay inputs. A participant's contest score is computed server-side from a formula that rewards in-level progression, pickups collected, lives retained at session end, and faster completion. The specific scoring formula and component weightings may be refined as the Volt Dash title matures and will be displayed within the contest interface at the time of contest entry. There are no random multipliers, bonus draws, or chance-based scoring mechanics.

4.4Tie-Breaking Rules

In the event of a tied total score, the tied participants receive the same placement and split the combined prize money for their positions equally. The Volt Dash scoring formula incorporates multiple performance signals and outputs scores at high numerical resolution, so exact ties are expected to be rare. No coin flip, random drawing, dice roll, random-number-generator selection, or other chance-based mechanism is used at any stage of tiebreaker resolution.

4.5Anti-Cheat (Volt Dash)

Volt Dash sessions are subject to server-side input-replay verification against the reconstructed level, statistical anomaly detection, and Apple device attestation. The server replays the recorded input stream and confirms the resulting level-state outcomes are consistent with genuine human input.

5.Game-Specific Disclosures: Overgrowth

5.1Game Description

Overgrowth is a competitive swipe-based chain-breaker contest. Each participant guides a multi-segment plant that grows upward out of a pot, steering the plant head left and right with a swipe gesture. As the plant extends, it encounters seeds that add to its length and tree-ring wood blocks that must be broken through. Each block displays a numeric ring count; the plant must have at least that many segments to pass, and each segment sacrificed against a block decrements both the block's ring count and the plant's length by one. Blocks the plant cannot break cause a life loss. An Overgrowth tournament session lasts two (2) minutes with three (3) attempts per participant.

5.2How the Configuration Is Generated

Each contest uses a single seed value to generate the level configuration. All participants in a given contest compete on the identical, deterministically seeded configuration. Block positions, ring counts, seed and pickup placements, and level depth are identical for every participant, and no randomness occurs during gameplay. The full state of each contest's configuration is reproducible from the tournament seed; the server can independently reconstruct the level at any time for verification.

5.3Scoring Rules

Scoring is deterministic and is a pure function of the participant's own gameplay inputs. A participant's contest score is computed server-side from a formula that rewards level penetration, in-level pickups, lives retained at session end, and uninterrupted block-break combos. The specific scoring formula and component weightings may be refined as the Overgrowth title matures and will be displayed within the contest interface at the time of contest entry. There are no random multipliers, bonus draws, or chance-based scoring mechanics.

5.4Tie-Breaking Rules

In the event of a tied total score, the tied participants receive the same placement and split the combined prize money for their positions equally. The Overgrowth scoring formula incorporates multiple performance signals and outputs scores at high numerical resolution, so exact ties are expected to be rare. No coin flip, random drawing, dice roll, random-number-generator selection, or other chance-based mechanism is used at any stage of tiebreaker resolution.

5.5Anti-Cheat (Overgrowth)

Overgrowth sessions are subject to the same input-replay verification, statistical anomaly detection, and Apple device attestation framework as Volt Dash.

6.Game-Specific Disclosures: Nines

6.1Game Description

Nines is a competitive sudoku contest. Each participant is served the identical seeded 9×9 sudoku puzzle and races to complete it by placing the digits 1 through 9 in the grid such that every row, every column, and every 3×3 box contains each digit exactly once. The puzzle is presented with a subset of cells pre-filled (the "givens"); the participant fills the remaining cells using logical deduction. Participants tap a cell to select it and tap a digit on a number pad to enter that digit. A pencil-mark mode allows participants to record candidate digits within a cell without committing. Mistakes are tracked but never auto-corrected, and the contest provides no hint or auto-solve aid in tournament mode.

A Nines tournament session is a single sustained attempt, with per-participant time limits scaled to difficulty (ten (10) minutes for Easy, fifteen (15) minutes for Medium, twenty (20) minutes for Hard, thirty (30) minutes for Expert).

6.2How the Puzzle Is Generated

Each contest uses a single seed value to generate the sudoku puzzle. All participants in a given contest compete on the identical seeded puzzle, which has exactly one solution. Difficulty is rated by the hardest technique required to solve each puzzle (naked singles, hidden singles, naked and hidden pairs, pointing pairs, box-line reduction, X-wing, swordfish, and advanced chains, depending on difficulty), validated at generation time. Deku Studios maintains a curated in-house puzzle pool that is not republished outside Nines.

6.3Scoring Rules

A Nines score is computed server-side as the sum of four components:

• Per-cell scoring: forty (40) points for each cell the participant fills correctly.
• Per-cell penalty: twenty (20) points deducted for each cell the participant fills incorrectly, with the cumulative score floored at zero.
• Completion bonus: three thousand (3,000) points if the participant fully completes the puzzle within the time limit.
• Time bonus: twenty (20) points for each full second of time remaining when the puzzle is completed (computed at millisecond resolution, yielding one (1) point per fifty (50) milliseconds of remaining time).

Participants who do not complete the puzzle within their time limit receive the per-cell scoring only (no completion bonus and no time bonus). There are no random multipliers, bonus draws, or chance-based scoring mechanics.

6.4Tie-Breaking Rules

Because the Nines scoring formula incorporates a per-second time bonus into the participant's total score, participants who complete the puzzle faster consistently outscore slower completers, and exact score ties are correspondingly rare. In the event of a tied total score, the tied participants receive the same placement and split the combined prize money for their positions equally. No coin flip, random drawing, dice roll, random-number-generator selection, or other chance-based mechanism is used at any stage of tiebreaker resolution.

6.5Anti-Cheat (Nines)

Nines sessions are subject to server-side input-replay verification against the seeded puzzle, minimum-plausible per-cell fill-time gating, cell-fill order behavioral analysis against known solver-tool output patterns, cross-player collusion detection within each tournament cohort, and Apple device attestation. The use of a curated, non-republished in-house puzzle pool reduces the effectiveness of external solver tools.

7.Contest Structure and Economics

7.1How Contests Work

1. Entry. You select an entry-fee tier and join a contest. Your entry fee is deducted from your wallet.
2. Matchmaking. You are placed into the most recent open contest at your chosen tier that has available slots. If no open contest exists, a new one is created.
3. Gameplay. You play your session immediately. You do not wait for other participants before playing.
4. Contest window. Other participants may join and play the same contest within the applicable tournament window (fifteen (15) minutes for Glyphs, Volt Dash, and Overgrowth; thirty (30) minutes, or forty-five (45) minutes for Expert tier, for Nines) from when the first participant joined.
5. Adjudication. When the contest window expires or all participants have completed their gameplay, the system computes final scores, ranks participants, and distributes prizes.
6. Results. You see the final leaderboard, your rank, your prize (if any), and a breakdown of your scoring.

7.2Platform Fee

A portion of the total entry fees is retained by Deku Studios as a platform fee. The current platform fee is between fifteen percent (15%) and twenty percent (20%) of total entry fees collected for a contest. The remainder forms the prize pool.

Example (10 participants, $5 entry fee, 17% platform fee):

7.3Prize Distribution

Prizes are distributed to the top three finishers in each contest:

When fewer than the maximum number of participants join a contest, the prize pool is proportionally smaller (fewer entry fees collected), but the distribution percentages remain the same.

If a contest does not reach the minimum number of participants (currently three (3)), the contest is cancelled and all entry fees are refunded in full.

7.4Pre-Contest Disclosure

Before you enter any contest, the following information is displayed: entry-fee amount, maximum number of participants, prize-pool amount (entry fees less the platform fee), and the prize-distribution schedule. You can review all of this information before committing your entry fee.

7.5Completing Your Game

To be eligible for a prize, your gameplay must be successfully transmitted to and recorded by Deku Studios servers. The Platform is designed to save your progress as you play, with valid submissions and inputs sent to our servers in real time.

• Recoverable interruptions. If you return to the Platform within the contest play window and your prior gameplay data was successfully received by our servers, your session will resume from your last server-confirmed state. You may continue playing through the end of the play window.
• Lost or corrupted data. If gameplay data is not successfully transmitted to our servers, that data may be lost or corrupted. Submissions, points, or inputs that were not received by our servers will not be counted toward your score.
• Unrecovered exits. If you exit a contest in progress and do not return within the contest play window, or if your final score cannot be reliably reconstructed from server-received data, your game will be deemed forfeited. A forfeited game results in a final score of zero (0) for that contest, and your entry fee will not be refunded.

Refunds for technical issues attributable to the Platform itself (such as a server outage or a verified Platform-side application crash) are addressed in Section 5.9 of the Terms of Service and adjudicated under the Complaint & Dispute Resolution Policy.

8.Anti-Cheat and Integrity Measures

8.1What We Monitor

To maintain fair competition, we monitor gameplay data for anomalies. Monitored signals include submissions per minute, input timing and patterns, score distribution relative to historical performance, device and network characteristics, and game-specific signals (such as cell-fill order in Nines and frame-accurate jump-tap distribution in Volt Dash).

8.2Input-Replay Recording

Your touch inputs during gameplay (positions, swipe paths, taps, and timestamps) may be recorded for anti-cheat-review purposes. These recordings allow our trust-and-safety team to visually replay a session and assess whether inputs are consistent with human play. Input-replay data is stored securely and used only for integrity purposes.

8.3Enforcement

If our systems detect anomalous activity, the session is flagged for human review. We do not take adverse action (account suspension, prize forfeiture, or contest voiding) based solely on automated detection. All enforcement actions are reviewed by a member of our team. For details on enforcement actions and the appeals process, see the Acceptable Use Policy and the Complaint & Dispute Resolution Policy.

8.4Seeded Randomness and Fair Play

Because all participants receive the same seeded content (grid, level, configuration, or puzzle), the only variable in a contest is the skill of the participants. There is no mechanism by which the Platform can favor one participant over another. The seed is determined before any participant joins, and the same content is served to every participant without modification.

9.Server Authority and Data Integrity

9.1Server-Side Adjudication

All contest adjudication occurs server-side. The client application (your device) sends your gameplay data to the server, and the server independently validates your submissions, calculates your score, and determines contest results. The client cannot fabricate or alter results.

9.2Data Retention

All contest data — including seeds, submissions, scores, input-replay data (when recorded), and results — is retained for a minimum of seven (7) years for regulatory compliance, dispute resolution, and audit purposes. See the Privacy Policy for full retention details.

9.3Result Finality

Contest results are final once posted, subject only to review for suspected cheating, verified technical errors, or formal dispute under the Complaint & Dispute Resolution Policy. If a review results in a change to contest results (for example, disqualification of a participant found to be cheating), affected participants will be notified and prizes will be adjusted.

10.Dispute Resolution

If you believe a contest result is incorrect or that another participant engaged in unfair play, you may submit a match dispute through the Platform's in-app dispute process (Profile > Help & Support > Dispute a Match) within forty-eight (48) hours of match completion. Please include the contest identifier, a description of your concern, and any supporting information. We will investigate and respond within three (3) business days.

For full dispute procedures, see the Complaint & Dispute Resolution Policy.

11.Future Games

As Deku Studios adds new games to the Platform, this document will be updated with game-specific disclosures for each title. Each new game will include a description of gameplay mechanics, an explanation of how starting conditions are generated and shared, the complete scoring rules, tie-breaking procedures, and any game-specific fairness measures. Updated disclosures will be published before any new game is made available for cash-entry contests.

12.Contact

If you have questions about how our games or contests work, please contact us:

Support: support@deku.net

Fair Play: fairplay@deku.net

Legal: legal@deku.net

Mail: Deku Studios LLC, 418 Broadway #11209, Albany, NY 12207

Website: https://deku.net