DESCRIBE THE OBJECT
This project depicts a fish tank on a desk with various species of fish swimming around and doing fish things like eating food (and occasionally each other). It also contains a treasure chest that periodically opens to release a column of bubbles and a snail that slowly makes its way across the screen, cleaning up uneaten food as it goes.
DESCRIBE YOUR MOTIVATION IN CREATING THIS OBJECT
In this stressful time of year, I wanted to make something relaxing that could idle in the background while I study like a real fish tank, but also something with enough fun little details to make it interesting and engaging. Some of my favorite details are the bubble column, snail trail, and occasional cannibalism (in real life, betta fish are very territorial, so since my digital aquarium has betta fish, I wanted to reflect that in there as well).
DESCRIBE YOUR PROCESS
I started this project with the idea of having a little aquarium of fish and kept coming up with fun ideas as I coded, sometimes from my head, sometimes as a result of errors or problems I ran into. For example, the original version of the code had all of the fish able to eat each other and I found that the number of fish would die out too quickly. To try and solve this, I made it so that the fish were able to reproduce, but even then it was too slow to keep up with the rate of the fish’s cannibalistic tendencies, so I scrapped the cannibalism (mostly) and had them eat fish food instead.
WHAT DOES THE PROJECT MEAN TO YOU?
This piece represents to me how far I have come in my coding abilities. In addition to finding it silly and enjoyable to watch, my past self would look at this and have no idea how it was done. I have learned so many concepts over the course of the semester, and had to learn many more just for this specific project. Despite hours of pain, tears, and frustration, I’m glad I was able to end the semester with a project I am so proud of.
Below: a screenshot of my project
