Whatever next...

If you hadn't already guessed, there's a bit of vibe coding going on here. I've been using Claude Code to throw together ideas of mine. I've been a Java developer for quite a long time, did Android development of my own, worked with SQL and PostgreSQL and all sorts of stuff like that, but there's something freeing about just typing what I think would be cool and having it just ✨appear✨ in a matter of minutes.

Today, I was thinking about how I didn't get a lot of exercise over the Christmas break and probably ate a bit too much (as did we all). There's obviously a billion fitness trackers and habit trackers out there, so not much point in reinventing what is a very rounded and well-done wheel. Since I'm trying to approach app design that solves problems and/or gives a nice little hit of the ol' dopamine, I thought I'd work on a game concept. A sort of real-life-walky-monstery-fighty-RPG.

Your device would pick up your location, and show you your map of where you are. A familiar sight to yourself, especially if you're at home. Uses OpenStreetMaps, something like that. And then, on the pavements and streets around you, little coins spawn. Go out and get them! Earn enough coins, and you can buy WEAPONS. Weapons to take on the monsters that have also spawned around and are trying to block your path and beat you up. It worked quite nicely - I chatted with Claude (remembering that is not a human being) for a bit about design decisions and RPG mechanics before we went ahead and implemented code. The game has a shop, different types of monsters (including some bosses, such as the deadly not-at-all-generic Dragon), and trees. Trees will spawn coins or potions to heal yourself in battle, and then go on a cooldown for a little while. I liked in the Animal Crossing games that you could plant a tree, and then in a couple of days you'd have some fruit to harvest. Went for a similar angle here. The map API is clever enough to identify parks, so we've got treasure chests spawning in parks, guarded by a few beasties. There's a levelling-up system and level scaling with the baddies, stronger weapons and armour which reduces incoming damage. It's all pretty good!

Only thing is, I had no idea what the endgame is. So you've earned a bunch of coins and bought the strongest sword and smacked a dragon about a couple of times. Now what? There's some ideas floating about to do with leaderboards ("Afterimage's area - he's got the most coins around here!") or territory (reclaim corrupted areas from the bad dudes), but I can't decide yet.

Bye for now!