dopa
01

tide pool

Ripple the surface. Draw the water down. Let it flood back.

A rock pool holds its water behind a sill. Hold the notch open and the pool drains through it, the surface drops, and whatever the water was hiding comes into view.

more about tide pool

The water is simulated rather than drawn. Light gets absorbed with depth, so the shallows read differently from the deep end, and the surface actually settles instead of looping.

There are eight things to find down there. Scallop, cockle, sea glass, blue glass, a spiral shell, an urchin test, a cushion star and a pearl. The first time you turn each one up is worth more than every time after, which is the only progression in the toy.

Let the notch close and the pool fills again, so nothing is used up and the finding starts over.

Drops are the playground’s own currency and spend in the studio on a Bead avatar, themes and sound kits. They buy nothing outside dopa.

It runs in the browser with nothing to download and works offline once loaded. There is no timer, nothing to lose and nothing that ends. It is closer to beachcombing than to a game, which is the intent.

questions

How do you play Tide Pool?

Drag the surface to send ripples across it. Hold the notch in the rock rim and the pool runs out through the channel, uncovering the boulders and then the sand shelf. Let go and the sea floods back in.

What can you find in the pool?

Shells, sea glass, an urchin test, a cushion star and more, resting on the shelf where only a drawn-down pool reaches them. Each kind you turn up for the first time joins your shelf for good.

Why does it look different at night?

The light follows your device clock, so the pool moves from daylight through golden hour to a dark pool where every ripple you make lights up with bioluminescence.

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