Where's Epstein?

Where's Epstein? is a browser hidden-object collection inspired by Where's Waldo style games. Players search crowded scenes for different meme-famous people across story, bonus, advanced, special, mirrored, and Upside Down routes.

Frontend structure

• index.html Main document shell, metadata, SEO, body dataset defaults, and fragment mount points
• fragments/screens.html Home, level select, settings, and gameplay screen markup
• fragments/ui-shell.html Shared page arrows, overlays, changelog shell, and toast UI
• styles/main.css Layout, themes, HUD, page identity, and responsive rules
• styles/effects.css Motion, hover states, layered home animation, and visual polish
• scripts/ui-shell.js Loads the screen and UI fragments before the game starts

What the game includes

• Story route with normal level progression
• Bonus levels with separate unlock logic
• Advanced levels with two-target scenes
• Advanced bonus levels
• Extras page with speedrun routes, mirror mode, Upside Down mode, and special-level slots
• In-level magnifier tool
• Local save data for score, stars, progress, and settings
• Theme, motion, magnifier, and preload settings

Tech stack

• index.html Main app structure, screens, overlays, buttons, and required DOM ids.
• styles/main.css Layout, themes, menu structure, play HUD, start-screen layering, and responsive styling.
• styles/effects.css Animation timing, hover states, button entrance effects, cloud and decor motion, and easter-egg visuals.
• scripts/app.js Boot entry point.
• scripts/game.js Main game controller, progression, scoring, input, overlays, caching, speedrun logic, and settings.
• scripts/home-ui.js Start-screen placement math, home button alignment, sheen timing, and editor/debug rendering.
• scripts/game-renderer.js Preview rendering, hitbox rendering, and UI sync for found targets.
• scripts/levels.js Level data, names, asset paths, start-screen layout data, and target hitboxes.
• scripts/storage.js Local storage schema, settings save/load, level results, and speedrun stats.

Assets and structure

• Main backgrounds: Assets/Bakgrounds/
• Bonus backgrounds: Assets/Bakgrounds/
• Advanced backgrounds: Assets/Bakgrounds/advanced/
• Special backgrounds: Assets/Bakgrounds/Special/
• Main target previews: Assets/Waldos/
• Advanced target previews: Assets/Waldos/advanced/
• Special target previews: Assets/Waldos/Special/
• Start-screen UI art: Assets/ui/
• Social/share image: Assets/thumb.png

Editing hitboxes

All target hitboxes use original image pixel coordinates from the source art.

Rectangle example:

hitbox: { type: "rect", x1: 300, y1: 220, x2: 390, y2: 370 }

Circle example:

hitbox: { type: "circle", x: 640, y: 380, radius: 60 }

The game normalizes reversed rectangle corners automatically, so either order still works.

Start-screen layout editing

The start screen uses two exported data blocks from scripts/levels.js:

• START_SCREEN_BUTTONS
• START_SCREEN_LAYERS

These values are original-image coordinates, not browser pixels.

When cheat tools are enabled, the home editor can:

• move layers
• resize layers
• rotate layers
• hide or show editor boxes
• lock individual items
• export the selected item or the whole start-screen layout block

Performance notes

• Loaded images stay cached in memory through the game session
• Home boot preloads start-screen assets before the intro begins
• Early gameplay preloads upcoming level art and preview images
• Speedrun preloading warms a wider pool based on the preload setting
• The project is tuned with lower-power devices like Chromebooks in mind

Important gameplay notes

• Mirror and Upside Down variants do not overwrite standard progress
• Level Clearance is an unlock-only cheat mode intended for authored-level testing
• Full cheat tools still separate cheated runs from normal runs
• Missing art produces readable fallback messages instead of silently failing

Credits

• Game by StaticQuasar931
• Start-screen UI help and art-layer work by Cheese_Cat