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SEEKING VOLUNTEERS Project Name: Symbiants Website: https://ant.care/ GitHub: https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants Languages: Rust (Bevy), WebGPU, WASM, JS Project Description: Symbiants is a digital ant farm with a mental health twist. The goal is to make a cute, real-time ant colony sim (think SimAnt + Tamagotchi), get players to form a daily routine around feeding and caring for their ants, and incorporate basic mental health activities (guided breathing, positivity journaling, etc.) into the gameplay. The player gets a comfy, cozy, digital environment and a pet that grows in real-time. Each morning, the user gets online, check on their ants as part of their "what's changed on the Internet" routine, do a quick self-check-in, and get a visual reminder of how their consistency is affecting their pet's growth. -- This is my first attempt at building a video game. It's been a lot of fun so far, but, unsurprisingly, is a lot of work. I had some cash saved up and took the last year off of work. In this time, I built a prototype in React, then taught myself Rust/Bevy and began chipping away. I've made some progress, but I don't feel this vision is anywhere near complete. I would love to have more people to work with, discuss ideas, agree upon architectural designs with, and to learn the finer points of Rust/WebGPU development. To me, this is an especially important project because I see a lot of people who love to be terminally online, work from home, play video games to zone out after work, and sometimes fall into a rut where days fly by without sufficient self-care. How to reach those people? It can be difficult to broach the subject because mental health is a bit taboo. I am curious to see if a video game can be an effective means of starting a conversation. |