Fact Checking Policy

The two categories

An ocean-themed games site makes two very different kinds of factual statement, and conflating them is how misinformation gets published by accident.

Every page that risks blurring the two carries an explicit note. Game pages address it directly in their FAQ sections — for example, whether the jellyfish in a game behave like real jellyfish. The answer is always no, and the page says so.

How game claims are verified

Numbers describing our games are read from the source code, not estimated from play. When a guide states a spawn interval, a difficulty tier threshold, a multiplier cap or a resource cost, that figure is taken from the relevant file in js/games/.

This means game claims are checkable by anyone: the JavaScript is served unminified from this domain and can be read in any browser's developer tools. If a number in a guide does not match the code, one of the two is wrong and we want to know.

When a game is retuned, every guide quoting an affected number is updated in the same change. That is why the guides and the games are maintained together rather than treated as separate products.

How real-world claims are verified

Claims about oceans, marine animals, depths, pressure or diving are sourced to organisations that publish primary or well-reviewed material. In practice that means:

• Government marine science agencies, such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA);
• Museums and public science institutions, such as the Smithsonian;
• Universities and recognised research institutes, such as MBARI;
• Established technical documentation, such as MDN Web Docs and W3C specifications, for claims about browsers and the web platform.

Where such a claim appears, the source is listed in a references section at the foot of the article and linked directly. If a claim cannot be traced to a source of that quality, it is removed — not softened with "some say" or "it is believed".

What is never invented

• Marine statistics. No made-up figures for species counts, populations, ocean coverage or conservation status.
• Animal facts and behaviour. Game creature behaviour is designed for gameplay and is never presented as biology.
• Ocean depths and measurements. Any real figure is sourced; in-game depth readings are labelled as game values.
• Conservation claims. This site makes no claim to support, partner with or donate to any conservation organisation, because it does not.
• Player statistics. No visitor numbers, play counts or "millions of players" claims. The "popular games" ordering on this site reflects page popularity in our own records and is described as such, not dressed up as a global ranking.
• Credentials. No scientific degrees, diving certifications, awards or institutional positions are claimed for anyone writing here.

Uncertainty

Where the evidence is genuinely unsettled — much of the deep ocean is poorly surveyed, and estimates change — the article says so and attributes the estimate to whoever made it, rather than picking a number and stating it flatly. "NOAA estimates that more than 80% of the ocean is unmapped and unexplored" is a sourced statement about an estimate. "Scientists have explored 5% of the ocean" is a number without an owner, and is not how this site writes.

Corrections process

1. Report the error to editor@underwaterarcade.xyz with the page URL.
2. The claim is re-checked against its source, or against the game code.
3. If it is wrong, it is corrected and the page's update date changes.
4. If the correction changes the substance of the page, a note is added to the page recording what changed.
5. If a claim cannot be verified either way, it is removed rather than left standing.

Factual corrections take priority over new content. A site that publishes faster than it corrects is not a site worth reading.