VibesQuest - My Fishing Game with an Ambient Sound Mixer

[Onio]

Hello! Finally something I want to share with you guys. I've been so quiet here 

I've been working on this fishing chatroom ambient webgame called VibesQuest! 



When you open it, it starts off pretty simple! You have a little display with a stick figure and you can cast your reel to fish. As you earn more fish, you can unlock modules. Each module has its ambient soundtrack which loops, its own name and volume slider that appears when you hover over it. As you unlock to modules to explore the world, the ambient sounds keep layering, so get comfortable with adjusting the volume settings to customize your perfect background sound! 



Different modules sometimes have different features. The first module you'll unlock is the campfire module. Here you can pick up your backpack, which serves as your inventory, as well as your first item - the game manual, which has useful info inside of it, as well as a wipe progress link at the bottom of the credits page in case you ever want to start over.



The chatroom module opens up a little chatbox, within it you can use commands like !fish and !streak to share how many fish you've caught and your best fishing streak. Some of the game world functions are integrated with the chatroom, but you absolutely do not need to use it. In fact, every time you open the website, there will be a splash page covering the chat in-case you'd like to ignore it!




At the very end of all the tiles is the shop. The shop has various items you can purchase with the fish you've earned. These items will be useful in the future as I expand the game!



I'd really like to share a screenshot of all the modules unlocked, because I think it looks really cool! But I don't want to spoil anything 

All progress saves to localstorage in your web browser, so no account signup is needed. 

Feel free to try it out! 

[CosmicRot]

This is extremely cool! I have a group of friends who LOVE fishing games so I def hope they'll check this out   

[BlazingCobaltX]

This is sooo cool I'm always surprised by what people are able to do with their websites. This looks fun AND pretty optimised. I never had much interest in fishing chatrooms but the ambient element of this attracts me, so I'm definitely gonna use this a few times.

[P_quod]

Wow this is great ! Thank you for this project (even if it definitely strenghtened my morning procrastination and was an extremely good excuse to not do what I had to do). I love the graphics and all the modules system, and I love how you kept everything simple and very accessible. I'll definitely share Vibesquest with a couple of friends who are into fishing games, might be a great place to chitchat and chill together!

EDIT: Oh, and I'm very fond of the Vibesquest button in your signature!

[greenspace]

this is amazing!!!1! i love the feeling of exploration and presence, the ambient rewards of music and scenery for progressing are so up my alley! i'm always thinking about how to give a feeling of navigating around my websites with art, music, and exploration as kind of intrinsic rewards. a central game is such a good way to pace and engage with these elements! (i'm thinking about some type of rhythm game for interacting with npcs as a type of progression) love to see it :3

[Onio]

Thank you, everyone!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I just gave it a new update today! Probably the biggest single update so far, I added a fishing compendium!

A new book has arrived in the Woodland Crickets module. It's the fishing compendium!



When you click it, it should pick it up and put it into your backpack.



It's a free compendium, but the categories inside cost fish. It's meant to be balanced between a little bit of a grind to work up towards without being significantly out of reach. If you're going to try to unlock this, I suggest going to the shop and buying a fishing trap first, as that will make collecting fish much easier!



When you finally unlock the Basic Lake Fish category, check the checkmark box next to the category button. This checkmark tells the game that you're targeting this category of fish, and you'll be able to begin catching them. There's about a 5% chance of catching one of these fish while fishing.



Some fish need certain extra conditions met in order to be caught. Perhaps a secret bait must be used? When you open the fishing category, you'll see these empty fish slots!



Begin catching fish to unlock them and see what their fishing bonuses are!!



There were a handful of other smaller updates I did at the same time, you can read more about them on the updates page of the in-game manual. Thanks and take care everyone!

[ewomack]

Hello, I really like the ambient sound in this game. Very relaxing. They way they layer is also interesting. I played the desktop version and not the mobile version. I apparently stole an eagle's egg (something I wouldn't normally do).

I'm curious what you used to create it? Did you code it yourself?

[WynnDawnstrider]

This looks really cool! But for some reason, even though I'm on desktop, it keeps defaulting me to the mobile version and there doesn't seem to be any way to switch?

[Onio]

Another update... As you unlock fish from the compendium, you get access to fish profile pictures!! You just click that fish in the compendium and it sets your chat flair!

This looks really cool! But for some reason, even though I'm on desktop, it keeps defaulting me to the mobile version and there doesn't seem to be any way to switch?

Oof, someone else had this issue too! I decided to remove the code that detects touch control and redirects to mobile. I forgot that some computers, like laptops, have touch screen... 

Hello, I really like the ambient sound in this game. Very relaxing. They way they layer is also interesting. I played the desktop version and not the mobile version. I apparently stole an eagle's egg (something I wouldn't normally do).

I'm curious what you used to create it? Did you code it yourself?

I'm not afraid to say that I didn't know a lick of javascript and went to AI for this project for that reason, to see just how far I could go with it. It's coded entirely with CSS, HTML, and javascript, and uses jquery and jquery UI to make the chat pop in and out. I think someone who knows javascript could have gotten this done a lot fast than I did, this is about 3 weeks of work going back and forth with free AI bots trying to get it coded exactly the way I want. I will say though, without them, I wouldn't have realized my vision for this little webgame, and now I'm far more familiar with how Javascript works.

The sounds are all from Pixabay, and the graphics are all drawn by myself in Photoshop.

[AY38910]

WHY DID ALL MY PROGRESS GET DELETED WHEN I REFRESHED??? I NEVER DELETED ANY COOKIES NOR HIT THE RESET LINK!!
Is it because of the new domain?? :(

[WynnDawnstrider]

Ah thanks for fixing the mobile redirect issue, funnily enough my last laptop had a touch screen but this one doesn't!

It is a pretty big disappointment though to hear the site was built off of AI, while coding is one of it's better uses it's still largely built off of the theft of other people's work and wastes a ton of energy. So hopefully you'll be able to learn what you need and not have to use it in the future...

[Onio]

WHY DID ALL MY PROGRESS GET DELETED WHEN I REFRESHED??? I NEVER DELETED ANY COOKIES NOR HIT THE RESET LINK!!
Is it because of the new domain?? :(

I ended up getting a TLD for the project and localstorage doesn't recognize it :,)

Ah thanks for fixing the mobile redirect issue, funnily enough my last laptop had a touch screen but this one doesn't!

It is a pretty big disappointment though to hear the site was built off of AI, while coding is one of it's better uses it's still largely built off of the theft of other people's work and wastes a ton of energy. So hopefully you'll be able to learn what you need and not have to use it in the future...

I didn't think about the energy costs, that's a really important and serious point to consider that I hadn't thought about. I think I can continue learning on my without it at this point.

As far as relying on others' work, I understand the sentiment. That's how I feel about AI artwork and music. I've had my artwork ripped off, recreated in a different medium and sold for money, used for free on commercial sites without my awareness, and even sold as tattoos for profit without my awareness nor consent in the past, I know the sting of art theft. I guess I've just never felt that way about AI writing the code, code felt more like math and AI like a calculator, in my mind I figured there were only so many ways and finite paths for achieving anything through code, and there is so much written material and tutorials on how to code anything, that it didn't seem like a creative infringement or copyright issue for AI to write its own variation - it's not a carbon copy of anyone else's work, after all, but rather a translation of my ideas into generic code. I did also have help and input from others who knew the language, I was open with them about the use of A.I. as well and they didn't mind it. One of them was rather enthusiastic about my usage of A.I. and assured me that my project was still an original human work, given that I was creating the artwork, testing and directing how the game felt and played, determining the logic for the behavior of the game, determining how every detail should look and feel, coming up with the rules for how each feature should work, and A.I.'s role was to translate my very specific vision for what I want into code.

The above is how I initially perceived my use of A.I. for code.

However, after the past couple weeks of progress and learning more about Javascript and seeing others' example code, I was reminded how lenient and expressive the language can be. It has its rules, but so does every language with grammar and punctuation, and yet novels and poetry are certainly creative and expressive works. Perhaps it's not as robotic as I assumed. My mind is certainly open to changing stance on the topic, especially if it really is an unethical practice, and given the energy consumption cost and the impact on our environment (I'll be looking more into this now) and knowing what its like to have my own professional work stolen and profited from, I'm interested in taking other avenues forward.

I appreciate the feedback and your honest opinion, and it has given me something to think about!

[WynnDawnstrider]

Yeah and that's why I'm being polite about it! If it was built in a more ethical way, it COULD be a really useful tool for a lot of things, and coding is definitely one of the better uses for it. It's just that every use of it shows to all these big companies trying to overuse and abuse it how profitable it can be in complete disregard to any of it's negative aspects. So idk it just always leaves a bad taste in my mouth personally.

Honestly when it comes to coding I feel like it would all be a lot easier if people would explain their answers to questions without assuming you know absolutely everything! So I definitely totally understand the temptation and desire to use it! But I'm definitely glad to hear you won't be using it as much going forward and I really am interested to see where this game goes next!

[Onio]

Yeah and that's why I'm being polite about it! If it was built in a more ethical way, it COULD be a really useful tool for a lot of things, and coding is definitely one of the better uses for it. It's just that every use of it shows to all these big companies trying to overuse and abuse it how profitable it can be in complete disregard to any of it's negative aspects. So idk it just always leaves a bad taste in my mouth personally.

Honestly when it comes to coding I feel like it would all be a lot easier if people would explain their answers to questions without assuming you know absolutely everything! So I definitely totally understand the temptation and desire to use it! But I'm definitely glad to hear you won't be using it as much going forward and I really am interested to see where this game goes next!

Thanks again, Wynn! And for your understanding approach to the matter and gentle nudge in the right direction.