help

how do I play?

Walk — or tap scan — until the compass finds a presence, then close the distance. The device names what it is and asks for a rite: stay silent, hold still, knock three times, trace a ward in the air. Complete the rite to banish it. Or turn and run.

what do I need to play?

A phone, a pair of headphones, and somewhere you can walk. It works best outdoors after dark — alone, sound up, and with your full attention on it. You can also play stationary — the scan button summons a presence on demand.

does this need GPS?

It uses GPS when available to place encounters in your real environment, but there's a no-GPS fallback: the approach button moves you closer to the signal without needing real movement. The experience is complete either way.

why do I need to grant sensor permissions?

Rituals use the compass (direction), motion sensor (stillness), and sometimes the mic or camera (silence, cover the lens). You can skip sensor permissions during onboarding; everything falls back to press-and-hold rituals.

the ritual button won't advance. what am I doing wrong?

Sensor rituals are tap to begin, not press and hold. Once the meter starts filling, the physical motion is what matters — stand still for stillness, stay silent for silence, etc. The legend under the button tells you what the meter is measuring.

what does ◎ nv mean?

Night vision. It cycles auto → on → off. Auto activates in the dark or against a high-danger entity. When it's on, the camera gets a green thermal tint + scanlines. It drains battery faster.

I lost the encounter. what happens?

If you flee, the field log records the miss and the entity may return nearer your last known location. If you hit contact and the thirty-second timer runs out, the entity is recorded as having consumed the encounter — a bigger hit to your dread tier. Either way: you can scan again.

the app drains my battery fast.

GPS + camera + shaders are expensive on mobile. Low-power mode auto-engages when your battery drops to 20% (Chrome / Edge / Android only — Safari and Firefox don't expose the battery API). It releases when you climb back to 30% or plug in. You can pin it full or low at /diagnostics, which also shows live drain rate + which subsystems are currently suppressed.

what does low-power mode actually turn off?

The biggest battery costs: the WebGL camera shader, the audio bit-crush parallel send, the binaural beat layer, the subliminal flash overlay, the brightness anomaly, and the idle compass-needle drift. The encounter loop itself — narrator, spatial HRTF, heartbeat, entity voice, identify, banish, journal — keeps running unchanged. Roughly 70-80% of the experience at 50% of the cost.

visual effects look too intense / not intense enough.

Profile → field settings → effects override has a manual override. Tap to cycle auto / high / mid / low. Auto uses your device tier; override is there for when the auto detection got it wrong.

is this a real ghost hunting app?

No. Follow is a horror game. No real entities were summoned, detected, or placated in the making of this software. The GPS arc + the sensor meters are fiction-framed gameplay, not supernatural evidence.

how many entities are there?

Currently 60 folklore entities — rooted in Irish myth, with kin from the wider Gaelic and Celtic world (Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man). Some are seasonal (samhain / imbolc / beltane / lughnasadh) — you only see them during their festival window. Eight are mythic — the oldest things in the file — and only find you once you reach rank 10, banish ten different kinds, or descend.

what's the veil?

A one-time supporter unlock. It opens the whole catalogue — all sixty, where the free file meets fifteen — and it lifts the cap on the reveals that wear your own face. It also puts a supporter line under your name. It does NOT gate the writing: every ritual, the full narrator quality and all the folklore are free for everyone.

who is áine?

Áine keeps the file on you. She introduces herself when you begin; the note under your name, the letters on your profile and the long arc are hers.

what is “the line”?

The way the presences reach you. When it is quiet, nothing is near. When it wakes, something is.

what is rank, and what is descending?

Your rank climbs from 1 to 50 as you meet and banish things. At 50 you can descend: your rank starts again at 1, and the names you have met stay with you.

what is named ground?

Banish five things within a hundred metres of each other and that ground takes a name in your file. Tap it to open the map there.

what are the marks against your name?

The things your file records you doing — some small, some rare. Open a folder on your profile to see what each one is for.

can I get hurt playing this?

Yes, if you walk into traffic. Look up from the screen. Don't trespass. Don't play in dangerous weather or on terrain you don't know. The atmosphere is worth nothing if you're in A&E.

i'm feeling really anxious. should I stop?

Yes, immediately. This is a horror game — it's supposed to be unsettling, not distressing. Put the phone in your pocket, walk back inside, drink water. None of the encounters are real. Dread drains away on its own — about four points an hour once you stop — and banishing brings it down faster. Nothing needs clearing.

where does my data go?

See the privacy policy. Short version: session ID + field log + unlocks on our server; photos + evp recordings on your device only; no cross-site cookies; no ad networks.

how do I delete everything?

Profile → field settings → delete all data. Hold the button for five seconds: server-side rows wiped, localStorage cleared, IndexedDB erased, then back to the landing page. If the server copy can't be erased you stay on the page and are told so, rather than being sent away as though it had worked.

a portrait came out wrong — how do I report it?

the portraits are made from your own photograph by an image model, and sometimes a model makes something it should not. open profile → field settings, find ai portraits of you, and tap report a portrait. say what was wrong with it and send. it is read.
the same row deletes every portrait and the photo they were built from, if you would rather they were simply gone. the picture itself never leaves your phone — a report carries which creature it was and what was wrong, nothing else.

who do I email about a bug or refund?

hello@dreadworks.io. One person reads it. Replies usually within a day, often faster. Refund requests inside Stripe's 30-day window are honoured no-questions-asked.

press, partnership, or licensing enquiry?

Same address — hello@dreadworks.io. Put PRESS / PARTNER / LICENSE in the subject so it lands in the right inbox folder.