Catch The Record

With each passing year, it’s getting harder to find meaning in what I do — or really, in most of my interests. Time flies, and suddenly, you can’t let yourself indulge in certain things anymore. You end up spending hours tinkering with something, only to feel like you should be doing something more “productive.” It’s like you’re your own worst critic, forbidding yourself from having fun. You start feeling like you’re just messing around, and maybe you should be doing something more useful.

So, what’s my point?
I keep searching for new meanings in what I love. You probably know I’ve got an online radio station that streams my field recordings 24/7 — really cool recordings, by the way, and the stream quality is top-notch, probably the best you can get. The sounds are relaxing, perfect for zoning out. I’ve got quite a lot of recordings already, and I’ve got about five times more that I haven’t even organized yet. To me, they’re fragments of life. My personal horcruxes.

This 24/7 audio stream, powered by the open-source Azura Cast protocol, is available online, and sometimes I do YouTube streams too. But let’s be real — it’s not the most convenient setup. I’ve been wondering what I could do to improve it. Not everyone wants to visit a my website about field recording just to listen to the radio. Heck, even I don’t like that. Should I set up an autonomous YouTube stream like those “lo-fi girl” channels? Nah, that would mean setting up another server and all sorts of extra hassle. Too complicated. So I thought a little more… and then made things ten times more complicated.

I created a mini app for Telegram. Tada! But it’s not just some mini app with a radio link like “Thanks for listening! :3” No, I turned it into something like a game. Yes, almost like a clicker game. Like a Hamster, you know)) But I swear, you won’t make a single cent from this. That’s the slogan of my business model. I should put that quote on my office wall. So yeah, you won’t earn anything in my app, except maybe my respect.

But, still, it ended up feeling just like those endless tap games, and I’m into that stuff myself. There was a ton of coding involved, a ton of headaches. ChatGPT is basically my brother now. I don’t even consider myself a programmer. I just taught myself a bit of coding back when I was messing around with Solana and other nonsense (Rust and JS), which actually helped me a lot in my current job. I built the backend in Python and the frontend in HTML and JS. And don’t get me started on the database struggles. I had to learn how to create them, connect them to the server, manage them via command line, and tweak them for different platforms. And of course, I had to log everything — every little action in the app, so I could track all your moves in real time or through log files. At some point, it started feeling like mixing sound. Seriously. You’re not just mixing instruments and vocals — you’re piecing together errors, logic, bugs, and hacks into something coherent. And it has its own space, like a soundscape. You’re setting up data processing between the frontend and backend, and a whole bunch of other things. There’s even a simple deployed server code that receives messages from the main app and passes them to another one that manages the bot. (I couldn’t get both tasks to work asynchronously in one piece of code.) So the bot does its bot things in Telegram — commands, start buttons, referrals, and so on — while also sending posts to the Telegram group and Discord channel based on certain events. Yeah… I went a little overboard.

By the number of lines of code, I could probably pass for a confident outsourced Indian developer. And the funniest thing is — it works. The code was written from scratch, and it kept evolving, getting tested, and growing more complex. During my ten-minute “mega research” on GitHub, I didn’t find anything useful, because I thought everything there was too complicated. So I made something equally complicated from scratch.

But wow, what a satisfying feeling.

So, here’s the deal:
You’ve got an app where you listen to my recordings. One of Telegram’s great features is that you can open as many mini-apps as you want, minimize them, even minimize Telegram itself, and the sound keeps playing. Exactly what I wanted.

Oh, and you earn points for listening. Uh-oh, here we go. The app’s got different, let’s say, game mechanics.

Game Mechanics:

After working on casual games and tapping away at clicker games, I think I’ve devolved to the point where I get a dopamine hit from watching numbers change and random actions made by not-so-smart people. But honestly, sometimes that’s just what you need. Especially when everyone around you is all creative, and you just want to be a dummy for a bit, with something playing in the background. Like what, you ask? My field recordings, of course :3

So, here’s the deal: By default, you earn 100 points for every 10 seconds of listening. But there’s also a boost system. You get a percentage boost for completing simple tasks like visiting links related to me and my sound work — different links to social media or resources. You also get a boost for each referral you bring in. Classic hamster wheel stuff. You get 15% for every referral added to your streak. Yeah, streak — what a funny word. And here’s the twist: a single person can sign up under multiple referral links, which is a bit of a deviation from the usual, but it adds a whole new game mechanic. You can support your friends by following their links, creating strategies for mutual growth.

There’s a leveling system in the game too. It’s almost like Path of Exile (PoE). Let me explain: You can level up from 1 to 50. That’s it.

BUT. To level up, you need to exchange your Points for World Sounds. And here’s where things get spicy. When you hit the exchange button, all your Points get converted into World Sounds (WOS), and you drop out of the points leaderboard. You’re nobody now.

If you survive that, you can use WOS to level up. For each level, you get a noticeable boost. But here’s the kicker — it’s not just a flat boost. For example, for level 2 you get 5%, for level 3 you get 10%, for level 4 it’s 15%. But these add up. So by level 4, instead of 15%, you’ve got a total of 30%. And it keeps stacking. The numbers in the game are a bit different, and the system is exponential. So the total boost becomes really noticeable. It’s worth grinding for. And to grind, you’ve gotta listen.

Also, there are a couple of hidden buttons in your profile for TON wallets and some activities tied to them. But honestly, I thought to myself, “Come on, don’t go too far. That’s already any Ubisoft-game-level complex,” so I kept them hidden. Let’s keep this project free from any monetization. At least in the game itself.

You don’t need to mindlessly tap like an idiot or check in every few hours to collect profits. The sounds themselves have intrinsic value. That’s the whole point. The rest is just window dressing, though I tried to make the dressing a bit more fun.

And here’s the most important game mechanic:

While you’re listening, there’s a chance you’ll come across special Sound Relics. Depending on their rarity, the chances vary. There are four types: Simple, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Each type has its own bonuses, look, sound, and even lore, if we can call it that.

Relics are associated with something rare and valuable. Sonic Relics can symbolize rare sounds that the player managed to “record” or “discover” during their sound exploration.

There’s a whole waterfall of game mechanics, numbers, and other goodies.

The game also has leaderboards: Best in points, best in referrals, best in levels, and best in relics.