Low Tide

Low Tide is a quiet, hand-inked tide pool you can play with.

The tide is out for about three minutes. Tap the water to drop a pebble: it ripples, startles the fish and stirs up the crab. Press and hold a creature to log it in your field journal, but only during its moment: a snail grazing, the crab snatching a fish, an anemone closing on one, the silver school balling up.

Drop too many pebbles and the whole pool hides. Fill the journal before the wave washes the round away, then face a harder tide. Keep an eye out for something that isn't supposed to be there.

Everything you see is drawn in code. What you hear is real: field recordings of Azores and Iceland shorelines, stones and water, and a kalimba, marimba and bowed vibraphone playing a score that follows the tide. Sound starts after your first tap; press M to mute.

Controls: mouse or touch. Tap to drop a pebble. Press and hold to log a creature.

Sounds (all CC0): NOX Sound "Essentials Series", Kenney, the Versilian Community Sample Library, and herring gull recordings by Canardo55 on Freesound.

Reverb: impulse response h133 (Park Street subway station) from the MIT IR Survey by James Traer and Josh McDermott (2016), mcdermottlab.mit.edu/Reverb/IR_Survey.html, used under CC BY 4.0; trimmed and re-encoded.