help

what do I need to play?

A phone, a pair of headphones, and somewhere you can walk. The tracker works best outdoors, after dark, with at least fifteen minutes to spare. 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 journal 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 → visual effects 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 curated 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. Seven are mythic and only appear to players who have descended past prestige once.

what's the veil?

A one-time supporter unlock. It adds a reddened compass skin, extended evidence retention, a few cosmetic extras, and a flame badge on your profile. It does NOT gate narrative content — every entity, every ritual, and the full narrator quality are free for everyone.

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; the dread meter is reset by clearing site data from profile.

where does my data go?

See the privacy policy. Short version: session ID + journal + 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. Two taps and it's gone: server-side rows wiped, localStorage cleared, IndexedDB erased. Routes back to landing clean.

who do I email about a bug or refund?

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

press, partnership, or licensing enquiry?

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