Hey guys,
I'm an IT student and I spend most of my day staring at VS Code. After a while my desktop started feeling pretty dead, so over the past couple of weeks I decided to build a tiny pixel cat that just chills in the corner of my screen while I code.
At first it was just a simple sprite animation sitting on a transparent Electron window. If you click it, it hides inside a cardboard box, and if you drag it around, it turns into a little vampire cat.
Then I realized I needed a Pomodoro timer that didn't take up another browser tab, so I built one directly into the cat's speech bubble. You can set a custom time and label (or just throw an emoji in there like in the screenshot), and when the timer stops or finishes, the cat tells you to go grab a coffee.
The newest part I just finished working on is the "Couple Lounge" feature. I hooked up a Node.js + Socket.io backend with MongoDB so you can generate a 6-digit code and pair your pet with your partner or a study buddy. Once paired, you can send short notes to each other and they pop up directly through the cat on the other person's desktop.
Tech-wise, it's built with Electron and vanilla JS (OOP structure) on the frontend, and Express/Socket.io/MongoDB on the backend. One of the biggest headaches was fixing the Electron transparent window drag issue where CSS drag was eating all my click events, so I had to write a custom IPC mouse delta tracker to tell clicks and drags apart.
I'm trying to keep the UI super minimal so it doesn't become annoying or bloated while working. Still polishing things up before packaging it into an .exe installer, so I'd love to hear what you guys think.
If you used something like this while coding or studying, what features would actually be useful to you? Also open to any UI/UX feedback since design isn't really my main thing. Thanks!
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