TITLE: LOW TIDE — an interactive tide pool
PROMPT: Create 'LOW TIDE', an interactive tide pool at ankle depth: a sun-warmed rocky basin (layered organic rock shapes) holding pools with drifting anemones (swaying tentacle rays), a patrolling hermit crab, sea stars, barnacles that snap shut on approach, and caustic light ripples on water (animated overlay). Palette: kelp green, wet-stone purple, seafoam, sunny glints. Interactions: pointer acts as your hand's shadow — creatures react (crab hides, anemones retract, fish scatter); tap-and-hold drops a pebble with ripple rings; each creature opens a small waterproof field-guide card; a TIDE slider drains and refills the pool, exposing wrinkled wet rocks and stranded pools. Wonder at small scale.
DESCRIPTION: A sun-warmed rocky basin at ankle depth: layered ellipse rocks with wet-stone shading and moss caps under animated caustic light bands, a horizon of sea and sun glints, and six creatures with individual behaviors — a tentacle-waving anemone, a scooting hermit crab, an ochre sea star, barnacle clusters, a startle-prone sculpin, and pink coralline algae. Your pointer casts a visible hand shadow; creatures within its reach retract, hide, or dart (eased fear states). Clicking drops a pebble with expanding ripple rings and rising bubbles plus a plunk; clicking a creature opens a waterproof field-guide card with name, Latin, and dry wit; the TIDE slider drains the pool from flood to stranded, darkening the rocks and lowering the water horizon.
TECHNIQUES: layered canvas scene (gradient sea, ellipse rock basin with highlights and moss), overlay-composited caustic sine bands, per-creature behavior state machines with eased fear decay, procedural creature renderers (radial tentacle rays, star polygons, crusts), pebble ripple ring system with bubble particles, WebAudio plunk, guide cards, tide-driven scene regrade.
INTERACTION: Move the pointer to cast your shadow — nearby creatures retreat; click water to drop a pebble; click a creature for its field-guide card; drag the tide slider from flood to stranded.