diff --git a/dungeonGenerator.js b/dungeonGenerator.js
index 2b72952..b3b192a 100644
--- a/dungeonGenerator.js
+++ b/dungeonGenerator.js
@@ -5,9 +5,8 @@ async function sleep(ms) {
   return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
 }
 
-async function callOllama(prompt, model = "gemma3:4b", retries = 3) {
-  let attempt = 0;
-  while (attempt < retries) {
+async function callOllama(prompt, model = "gemma3:4b", retries = 6) {
+  for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= retries; attempt++) {
     try {
       const response = await fetch(OLLAMA_API_URL, {
         method: "POST",
@@ -31,14 +30,18 @@ async function callOllama(prompt, model = "gemma3:4b", retries = 3) {
       return text;
 
     } catch (err) {
-      attempt++;
       console.warn(`⚠️ Ollama call failed (attempt ${attempt}/${retries}): ${err.message}`);
-      if (attempt >= retries) throw err;
-      await sleep(1000 * attempt); // exponential backoff
+      if (attempt === retries) throw err;
+
+      // Exponential backoff with jitter
+      const delay = Math.pow(2, attempt) * 1000; // 2^attempt seconds
+      const jitter = Math.random() * 1000; // up to 1 second extra
+      await sleep(delay + jitter);
     }
   }
 }
 
+
 /**
  * Three-pass dungeon generation with full resiliency and JSON retry
  */
@@ -105,11 +108,11 @@ Dungeon description:
 ${refined}
 `;
 
-  const maxJsonRetries = 3;
+  const maxJsonRetries = 5;
   for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= maxJsonRetries; attempt++) {
     try {
       console.log(`📦 JSON pass (attempt ${attempt}/${maxJsonRetries})...`);
-      jsonText = await callOllama(jsonPrompt);
+      jsonText = await callOllama(jsonPrompt, "gemma3:4b", 6);
       const cleaned = jsonText.replace(/```json|```/g, "").trim();
       const result = JSON.parse(cleaned);
       console.log("🎉 Dungeon generation complete!");