VS Explorer

An idle planet exploration game that evolves while you code.

🚀 What is VS Explorer?

VS Explorer is a lightweight idle game that runs entirely inside VS Code. While you write code, your planet quietly evolves — resources accumulate, missions progress, and events unfold. Open the panel whenever you want, make quick decisions, and get back to work.

No ads. No accounts. No internet required. Your progress is saved automatically between sessions.

🎮 Gameplay

Open VS Code → Check your planet → Mine resources → React to events
→ Close VS Code → Time passes offline → Come back and collect

The game revolves around four pillars:

Core loop

• Resources accumulate offline (up to 8 hours cap)
• Each planet climate gives a unique offline resource bonus
• Reach level 5 to evolve your planet — a new procedural world with different bonuses
• Build a ship to boost mining speed, offline rates and event damage resistance
• Complete missions and trade resources at the market for rewards

✨ Features

🌍 Planet System

• Procedurally generated planets (name, climate, terrain) via numeric seed
• 5 climates with unique offline bonuses: arctic, desert, temperate, tropical, volcanic
• Level-up every 100 XP (max level 5 per planet)
• Planet evolution unlocks a new world and keeps your inventory

⛏️ Mining

• 3 session durations: Quick (1 min), Medium (5 min), Long (15 min)
• Real-time animated progress bar (client-side, no re-renders)
• Mining rewards boosted by the Advanced Drill item and ship engine upgrades
• Background VS Code notification when mining completes while panel is hidden

👽 Events & Decisions

• 6 themed random events: Meteor Shower, Alien Signal, Reactor Failure, Cave Discovery, Hostile Fauna, Data Storm
• Each event has 3 choices with real effects on HP, resources and XP
• Event cooldown of 3 minutes; 6% trigger chance per tick

🗺️ Active Exploration

• 4×4 procedural map per planet (resets on evolution)
• 6 cell types: Mineral Deposit, Energy Cache, Data Fragment, Ruins, Danger Zone, Empty
• Costs ⚡15 energy per cell; danger zones deal immediate HP damage

🚀 Ship Crafting & Garage

• 12 ship parts across 4 slots: Hull, Engine, Weapon, Shield
• SVG ships composed in real-time from the selected parts
• Multiple ships stored in the Garage — activate any one at any time
• Active ship provides passive bonuses to mining, offline rate and damage resistance

🔄 Market

• 6 resource trade pairs (minerals ↔ energy ↔ data)
• Multipliers ×1, ×5, ×10 — slightly unfavorable rates for resource management tension

📋 Missions

• 10 objectives across 5 categories: mining, events, exploration, crafting and fauna
• Progress tracked automatically — collect rewards when goals are reached

🔼 Upgrade Tree

• 5 permanent upgrades (3 levels each) purchased with XP, persist across planet evolutions:
  • ❤️ Planetary Resistance — +20 max HP per level
  • 💚 Accelerated Recovery — HP regen ×1.5 per level
  • ⛏️ Enhanced Extraction — +20% mining rewards per level
  • 🌙 Offline Efficiency — +15% offline resource rate per level
  • 🤝 Favorable Trade — −10% trade give cost per level

🦎 Procedural Fauna

• 10 creatures across 5 climates (2 per planet, chosen by seed)
• Two interaction stages: Study (costs data) → Domesticate (costs minerals + data)
• Domesticated fauna add permanent passive offline bonuses

❤️ Life System

• HP is affected by events; heal by spending ⚡35 energy
• Passive HP regeneration offline (boosted by Recovery upgrade)
• Death screen with 3 recovery options: revive with energy, import save code, or restart

💾 Save System

• Auto-save via VS Code globalState — no files, no setup
• Export / import progress as a Base64 code for backup or cross-machine migration
• The save code also works as a death recovery mechanism

🎨 Visual Themes

• 3 themes via VS Explorer: Change Visual Theme:
  • Default — inherits your VS Code theme
  • Cosmic — deep space blues and purples
  • Retro — green terminal on black

🖥️ How to Open

Three ways to launch VS Explorer:

1. Click the 🚀 rocket icon in the Activity Bar (left sidebar)
2. Click 🚀 VS Explorer in the status bar (bottom right)
3. Ctrl+Shift+P → VS Explorer: Open Game

🧰 Tech Stack

No external dependencies. No bundler. No framework.

🗂️ Project Structure

src/
  extension.ts        # activation, commands, activity bar provider
  game/
    state.ts          # GameState types and defaults
    engine.ts         # idle loop: offline progress, mining, events, inventory, life
    events.ts         # 6 random events with choices and effects
    items.ts          # 4 craftable items with active effects
    missions.ts       # 10 missions + 6 market trades
    ships.ts          # 12 ship parts, SVG composition
    fauna.ts          # 10 procedural fauna across 5 climates
    exploration.ts    # 4×4 procedural map generation
    save.ts           # Base64 encode/decode
    procedural.ts     # planet generation + climate bonuses
    upgrades.ts       # 5 permanent upgrades (3 levels each)
  ui/
    panel.ts          # 8-tab WebviewPanel: render, incremental DOM updates
media/
  logo-512.png        # Marketplace icon (512×512)
  activitybar.svg     # Activity bar icon

🗺️ Roadmap

Next Features

• [ ] Passive Missions v2 — time-based objectives (survive 1 hour, explore 3 planets)
• [ ] Planet Lore — procedural descriptions and history for each world
• [ ] Fauna Events — domesticated fauna interact with random events
• [ ] Ship Combat — danger zones deal reduced damage based on ship weapon
• [ ] Leaderboard — optional anonymous score sharing via save code hash
• [ ] Achievements — permanent badges across all playthroughs
• [ ] Sound Pack — additional ambient and event sounds

Planned Improvements

• [ ] Localization (PT-BR / EN toggle)
• [ ] Keyboard shortcuts for common actions
• [ ] Mini status bar widget showing current resources

🤝 Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome at github.com/gustavoweb/vs-explorer.