Peer Discovery and Mating — When Dilders Meet
What if your virtual pet could detect other Dilders nearby? What if they could interact, exchange data, and even produce offspring with inherited traits? That's the peer discovery system.
Build Journal¶
Body Language — Custom Body Shapes and Movement Per Emotion
The face was done. 16 distinct expressions. But the body was the same for every mood — a static black blob. Today the octopus learned to move, and two moods got entirely new body shapes. Fat is fat. Lazy lounges. Angry trembles. Chaotic distorts. The body finally matches the face.
C vs Python — Building a Firmware-Accurate Preview Renderer
How do you know the DevTool preview matches the actual e-ink display? You port every C drawing function to Python, render both, and diff them pixel by pixel. Here's what we found.
16 Emotions — Building the Octopus Personality System
One octopus personality isn't a pet. It's a novelty. Today the octopus learned to feel — angry eyebrows, sad droopy eyes, chaotic spiral pupils, heart-shaped creepy eyes, and 12 more distinct emotional states. Each one changes how the octopus looks, moves, and talks.
Phase 1 Continued: Dev Environment & Tooling
The hardware is wired up and running C firmware. Now we need proper tooling to make development sustainable. This post covers the setup CLI, DevTool GUI, and the workflow they enable.
Runtime Rendering — From 4MB Pre-Baked Frames to 30KB Firmware
The biggest architectural decision so far: throw away every pre-rendered frame and draw the octopus mathematically at runtime. The firmware went from 4MB to 30KB. This is how and why.
The Sassy Octopus is Born
Meet the first resident of Dilder. She's got a smirk, two round eyes, five wavy tentacles, and 196 opinions about WiFi, toasters, and the meaning of ink.
First Pixels — Hello World on the E-Ink Display
We got pixels. Real, physical, black-on-white pixels on the Waveshare 2.13" e-ink display, driven by C firmware on the Pico W. Phase 1's proof-of-life is alive.
Phase 1: Hardware — Pico W + E-Ink, Let's Go
The planning phase is done. We've got hardware on the bench. Phase 1 begins now.
Phase 0: Planning — From Idea to Blueprint
Every project starts somewhere. Dilder started with a question: how hard is it to actually build a Tamagotchi?