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dylanhouli 7 hours ago [-]
Cool idea but as some others have said the website was running quite slow for me. I noticed it at first when hovering over the 'enter' button (so before even loading the pond) because the hover animation on the button kicked in really late feeling.
Then actually entering took a few seconds and it was quite laggy looking at all the fish.
Once those things are fixed I think the idea is neat. It would be cool to be able to interact with the pond in some way (click lily pads, drop food in the water, click the water to make it splash) but that might not be what you're going for with this
hxii 3 hours ago [-]
Thank you for the feedback!
During my work on it I’ve been testing it on both my Linux box as well as my MacBook and haven’t encountered lag. I’m not meaning to say “it works on my machine” by this, but simply that I couldn’t have caught this before.
I will definitely address the lag issue, and find a more “graceful” way for koi to enter and leave the pond.
About interactivity – I was thinking about this both during the development as well as just when I had the idea and the intention was always to not have any, simply because in my own experience we are always doing “something”, and this was a way to get a little bit of the opposite – to do nothing.
But I can see how some micro-interactions could be useful. A sort of a “popping bubblewrap” action.
JKCalhoun 2 hours ago [-]
Exactly how I have found vibe-coding to be. I make things with LLMs help that I otherwise wouldn't be bothered to. I've vibe-coded perhaps a half dozen tools for my personal use and am happier for it.
Keep going.
DiabloD3 21 minutes ago [-]
You didn't make anything at all, though.
Also, please talk to a lawyer before slapping a Copyright on anything you didn't make. Machine-made products cannot be Copyrighted in the US and most Berne Convention countries, and you cannot own the output of an LLM, nor can you legally shield yourself from the consequences.
hatthew 7 hours ago [-]
It's running at 3fps or something like that. Is that a me problem or a "lots of traffic" problem?
40four 4 hours ago [-]
I haven’t tried it on desktop, but it’s running silky smooth for me on iPhone. No lag at all. I see some others complaining of that too so not sure what the issue is.
JKCalhoun 2 hours ago [-]
See if there's anything in the Web Inspector console (or equivalent). Maybe an error or assertion is firing off.
efilife 5 hours ago [-]
seems to be a "vibe-code" problem
hxii 3 hours ago [-]
Vibe coded or not, I was honestly trying in on two desktops (and two browsers) and a mobile phone and didn’t get any lag, which is why I couldn’t have caught this before.
It might be some other combination that might contribute to whether there is or isn’t lag, and I’m going to try and find what it is :)
johnsmith1840 5 hours ago [-]
Been on a train of thought recently that with AI making web dev so much easier that we should be making more beautiful experiences.
I have always felt ultra minimalism is partly a way of fighting bugs. Why can't we put more effort to make every site a great experience in of itself?
Been experimenting with going way beyond my usual frontend work for something truly special. This made me think if it. It's 10x the effort but that's about the same effort I put in before manually making a minimal one.
I want more koi fish swimming around my saas.
rhplus 3 hours ago [-]
Pleasant flashbacks to the Windows 95 classic Serene Screen “Marine Aquarium”
Seems like quite laggy (I suppose bcz of heavy assets and rendering). I would have liked it more if we had some interactive elments with the pond or the fishes because I can only stare at it for some seconds lol
jeromechoo 8 hours ago [-]
This is neat. I like the zen background sounds. I'm particularly fascinated by digital third places with extremely limited social interaction (like cursor camp by Neal). I think it has something to do with the impossibility of something like this happening in real life.
That said, I'm not sure how real the "koi you see are other people visiting the pond together with you" bit is. I only ever saw 3 swimming koi. Maybe that's the base.
hxii 7 hours ago [-]
Hey! That’s the base, correct. Three are always there so if someone joins and nobody else is using it – they’re never alone.
In essence, when you someone joins the counter goes up and another koi will spawn locally.
It’s a bit nerfed from my initial idea to sync the movement of each koi, but I might do that in the future.
It looks like the way I deployed (Railway) it causes `429 Too Many Requests` to be returned, so I’ll definitely have to look into that. But it’s 1:21 AM so tomorrow.
Thank you for letting me know!
p1necone 7 hours ago [-]
I noticed the koi pop in and out of existence on visible parts of the screen - it would be nice if incoming koi swam into frame from offscreen, and outgoing koi swam offscreen before disappearing.
dolebirchwood 6 hours ago [-]
Yes, that was very jarring. I didn't bother reading the intro text that said the other fish are other people on the site, so I just thought this was janky crap. The creator shouldn't assume people read anything. I see a button that says "Enter", I click - I'm not reading anything else. So it's going to cause a lot of confusion when I arrive in a pond filled with way too many fish for a zen-like experience, and even more annoyance at the constant flickering in and out.
hxii 3 hours ago [-]
Thank you for the feedback! It’s definitely on my project task list.
So far the options I thought of were to fade or scale the koi as they enter or leave the pond. I will try to see what will work visually here.
applfanboysbgon 7 hours ago [-]
It appeared to be real earlier, or at least simulated being real. I watched for 10 minutes and there were ~10 koi in my pool, with koi routinely flickering in and out of existence as though they suddenly joined or left. That said, I see three static koi now. Entirely conceivably that HN killed the backend and triggered a failsafe.
keithnz 7 hours ago [-]
lots and lots of koi at the moment!
max979 4 hours ago [-]
Had a desktop aquarium once, very calming. This digital version is probably less messy and just as effective.
kalms 49 minutes ago [-]
If small size, I recommend lots of plants and capping any "live" substrate with sand. Had one going with shrimps and a few endlers for years. I only topped the water up and very occasionally changed the water. Not that it really needed it.
After the first few weeks, it just soldiered on with minimal algae or intervention needed. It's a lovely thing to have, I can recommend it. (That said, I also have a small aquarium problem according to the wifey)
pozol 7 hours ago [-]
This is great! The sounds and visuals are a great way to recenter. Only UX thing I’d say, is it would be nice, and less distracting, if other “users/koi” popping in instead kind of faded in. Them suddenly appearing kind of pulls you out of the zen mode.
Awesome idea!
lappet 54 minutes ago [-]
This is really cool! So peaceful.
Cider9986 7 hours ago [-]
I really like the UI especially the about page. I don't think you are supposed to be able to see the about page on the playing page (it took a bit to start and then started when I was in about) but it looks good there with the blur.
I understand your trepidation sharing this, given how often 'vibe coded' is used derogatorily. I like what you made, thank you.
thoughtpeddler 6 hours ago [-]
Super cool, thanks for making this! I've been there with you on the perfectionism. Glad that 'good enough' won this time, and we're all the better for it. Keep going!
marcuskaz 7 hours ago [-]
Too many koi fish is stressful (and slow)
I'd love a version without the multiplayer and just zen
hxii 3 hours ago [-]
Thank you for the feedback! Will definitely add that as an option.
mcint 7 hours ago [-]
Looks like it locks the number when you first load. I had it open for 30 minutes, with just 3 fish, but after reading your comment, re-opened to find 3 dozen.
Choice about busyness would be nice.
wateralien 7 hours ago [-]
I do this with the screensavers on the Apple TV device. They’re amazing.
Coeur 6 hours ago [-]
Have a big virtual hug from me, hxii!
grvdrm 7 hours ago [-]
Awesome. Top of bookmark list for a daily zen!
Suhinnall27 6 hours ago [-]
This is honestly super cool, and a lot of fun. I was about to say something about the koi fish spawning and despawning until I read that they are the other users on the site, which is an awesome mechanic. Is there a way to set this as a screen saver or background?
farrysaini 6 hours ago [-]
This is great! I would really like this as live background on Android.
Jtarii 7 hours ago [-]
You might want to prompt ChatGPT to increase the frame rate of the fish animation.
ecto 7 hours ago [-]
You might want to prompt for some manners, and why humans have them.
emkoemko 6 hours ago [-]
weird comment.... this was vibe coded so yes it has terrible performance why wouldn't we want more fps?
hxii 3 hours ago [-]
Vibe coded doesn’t necessitate bad performance. As I’ve replied to others – during testing I didn’t get any lag across three different devices that I own, so I just didn’t have a chance to catch this before.
That’s not to say “it’s a you problem”, but rather that I currently don’t know under which circumstances the lag appears.
Then actually entering took a few seconds and it was quite laggy looking at all the fish.
Once those things are fixed I think the idea is neat. It would be cool to be able to interact with the pond in some way (click lily pads, drop food in the water, click the water to make it splash) but that might not be what you're going for with this
During my work on it I’ve been testing it on both my Linux box as well as my MacBook and haven’t encountered lag. I’m not meaning to say “it works on my machine” by this, but simply that I couldn’t have caught this before.
I will definitely address the lag issue, and find a more “graceful” way for koi to enter and leave the pond.
About interactivity – I was thinking about this both during the development as well as just when I had the idea and the intention was always to not have any, simply because in my own experience we are always doing “something”, and this was a way to get a little bit of the opposite – to do nothing.
But I can see how some micro-interactions could be useful. A sort of a “popping bubblewrap” action.
Keep going.
Also, please talk to a lawyer before slapping a Copyright on anything you didn't make. Machine-made products cannot be Copyrighted in the US and most Berne Convention countries, and you cannot own the output of an LLM, nor can you legally shield yourself from the consequences.
It might be some other combination that might contribute to whether there is or isn’t lag, and I’m going to try and find what it is :)
I have always felt ultra minimalism is partly a way of fighting bugs. Why can't we put more effort to make every site a great experience in of itself?
Been experimenting with going way beyond my usual frontend work for something truly special. This made me think if it. It's 10x the effort but that's about the same effort I put in before manually making a minimal one.
I want more koi fish swimming around my saas.
https://youtu.be/PprsZgA-kxs?si=waSpdI4J323fNNGh
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/a-former-air-force-p...
That said, I'm not sure how real the "koi you see are other people visiting the pond together with you" bit is. I only ever saw 3 swimming koi. Maybe that's the base.
In essence, when you someone joins the counter goes up and another koi will spawn locally.
It’s a bit nerfed from my initial idea to sync the movement of each koi, but I might do that in the future.
It looks like the way I deployed (Railway) it causes `429 Too Many Requests` to be returned, so I’ll definitely have to look into that. But it’s 1:21 AM so tomorrow.
Thank you for letting me know!
So far the options I thought of were to fade or scale the koi as they enter or leave the pond. I will try to see what will work visually here.
After the first few weeks, it just soldiered on with minimal algae or intervention needed. It's a lovely thing to have, I can recommend it. (That said, I also have a small aquarium problem according to the wifey)
Here's a list of other sound/relaxation websites: https://fmhy.net/audio#ambient-relaxation.
This one is pretty funny but not relaxing to me. It may be a covid remnant: https://imisstheoffice.eu/
I'd love a version without the multiplayer and just zen
Choice about busyness would be nice.
That’s not to say “it’s a you problem”, but rather that I currently don’t know under which circumstances the lag appears.