Nuts and Bolts Web Design · Cul-de-Sac Crew update 85p-36 and 85p-37

Cul-de-Sac Crew is my game. It’s a top down roguelite bullet heaven where you build your Crew, chase off troublemakers and Take the Block Back. This round of work had two sides. One was the game itself: how you move through the story. The other was everything around the game that most players never see: privacy, consent, search and the plumbing that has to be right before a family game can run ads anywhere.

Both halves matter. Here’s what got done.

Part 1: The game (update 85p-36)

Stages 1 to 4 are open from the start

Until now, you had to clear each stage before the next one opened. That kept the story in order, but it also meant somebody who just wanted to see the Haunted Mansion had to earn their way there first. Now Maple Court, the Haunted Mansion, the Corn Maze and the Parking Lot are all open the moment you hit Choose Your Stage.

Clearing a stage still unlocks its crew member, in any order. Maple Mart, the finale, opens once all four are cleared. Just in time for Halloween, you can go straight to the Haunted Mansion.

Keeping the story order easy to follow

Opening everything up only works if people can still tell where the story wants them to go. So the stage select does the guiding now:

• Every stage card is numbered 1 to 5.
• Your next stage in the story says ▶ NEXT UP, and the cursor starts on it.
• Anything ahead of your progress says TOUGH STAGE in red.

Pick a tough stage and the game gives you a heads up first. The big green button takes you to your next stage in order. The gray button lets you play the one you picked anyway. Esc or the B button backs out. Nobody gets locked out, and nobody gets surprised.

During a run ahead of your progress, the stage line at the top of the screen tags it as TOUGH STAGE too.

Cutting the chatter on screen

The game used to pop a lot of little callouts on screen: score bonuses, heal numbers, enemy news. With a full screen of action, it got hard to read. I cut it down for readability and accessibility. In a 4 minute test run, the callouts dropped from 601 to 50, and from as many as 36 on screen at once down to 3 at most.

Here’s how it works now:

• Callouts that repeated what the XP bar, health bar and effects already show are gone.
• Enemy and event news shows the first time per run only.
• Everything else is capped at 3 on screen, and the same line won’t repeat for 20 seconds.
• The important stuff always shows: level up picks, Respect gains, jackpots, claim prompts and growth spurts.
• Damage numbers, speech bubbles, boss lines and banners didn’t change. Practice keeps every callout, because it’s there to teach.

Eight new lines were added and translated into all 16 languages the game supports. The update shipped for the browser version at play.culdesaccrew.com and the Windows, Mac and Linux versions on itch.io.

Part 2: Privacy, consent and search

Cul-de-Sac Crew is a family game for all ages, including kids under 13. That changes how everything around it has to be built. Here’s the setup now in place.

Consent messages for Europe and the US

Visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland now get a consent message before any advertising or analytics cookies are used. They can accept, decline with one click, or manage their options. The message runs in English plus every language Google supports for it that matches the site.

Visitors in US states with consumer privacy laws get a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link, in English and Latin American Spanish. That covers all 20 states with these laws right now, Delaware included, and new states get added automatically.

On top of that, Google Analytics on culdesaccrew.com now starts with consent denied for European visitors until they choose. Personalized ads are turned off everywhere, for everyone. That matches the promise in the privacy policy.

Child directed by default

Every ad request the game will ever make is tagged for child treatment:

• On the web, the game page’s ad code carries the child directed and under age of consent tags Google documents for browser games.
• In the mobile version, now in testing, every request is child directed, tagged under the age of consent and capped at a G rating.
• The site itself is marked child directed in Google Search Console.

Ads in Cul-de-Sac Crew are rewarded only. You choose to watch one for a revive. The paid desktop versions have no ads at all, and the main website never will.

Updated Privacy Policy and Terms

The NABWD Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions were updated:

• Privacy Policy: a new section explains the consent message for Europe, the UK and Switzerland, and a new section covers US state privacy rights and the opt out link.
• Terms & Conditions: a new section covers Save Codes. The game lets you copy or download a Save Code to move your progress between devices. Keep it private, because anyone with it can load your progress. We never store Save Codes, so we can’t recover a lost one.

Gameplay telemetry stays anonymous. No cookies, no stored IP addresses, no names and no account IDs.

Search Console and the game page

• I added a Domain property for culdesaccrew.com in Google Search Console. It covers the main site and every subdomain, including play.culdesaccrew.com.
• The game page at play.culdesaccrew.com got a proper title, description, share previews and structured search data, so it shows up right in search and looks right when someone shares the link.
• The game page has its own sitemap.
• Both sites use a robots.txt that welcomes search engines and blocks AI training bots.

Why this matters

I’ve been building websites for clients for over 20 years, and I tell them the same thing every time: privacy isn’t the fun part, but it’s the part that protects you. A kids game raises the bar. Parents trust you with their children’s screen time, and the law expects you to earn that.

None of this changes how the game plays. It’s the foundation that lets Cul-de-Sac Crew grow the right way.

Play free in your browser: play.culdesaccrew.com
Windows, Mac and Linux: on itch.io, 30% off for the Halloween sale.

Have fun, and take back the block!