AboutEmpFish
About this map
Low Ground is a field journal about sadness. The name on the cover is EmpFish.
It isn't a memoir. The notes are drawn from the common shape of low days — the things many people describe: tea made and forgotten, messages you can't answer, the word "fine", a Tuesday that won't end — rather than from one person's story. If you recognise yourself in them, it's because a lot of people have walked this terrain.
It isn't a guide, either. Nobody here is a doctor or a therapist. Writing can keep you company; it can't treat anything. If a low mood has lasted a long time, or has started to get in the way of eating, sleeping, working or seeing people, talking to a professional is a step very much worth taking.
If tonight is heavy, go straight to the lantern.
Map legend
- Contour line Joins points of equal height. The closer the lines, the steeper the ground.
- Index contour Every fifth line is heavier, so you can count how far you have come down — or up.
- Route Dotted where you have not walked yet. The amber line follows you as you read.
- Waypoint Each field note. Waypoints light up once you pass them.
- Lowest point The lowest place on the whole route, pulsing quietly. There is a letter there.
- Lantern Wherever your cursor goes, the map is lit. And a real lantern sits at the top of every page.
Things to try
- Click Click any bare land: ripples spread through the contours and leave a survey mark with the height.
- M Press M — or the compass on the home page — to unfold the map of the whole route. It remembers what you have read.
- ♪ The waves button in the header turns on ambient sound: wind, rain and a soft chord that follow each note’s weather.
- ☁ Log today’s mood on the Weather page and the whole map changes with it.
- ◎ On the Lantern page, bring the cursor close to the lantern, or click it.
- ↗ Move slowly across the cards; and on the route, watch the altimeter in the corner as you walk down.
Colophon
- Terrain
- Simplex noise in four octaves, bent once by domain warping. Live contours are drawn by a shader; the terrain on each card is traced at build time with marching squares. Full field notes →
- Type
- LXGW WenKai, Source Serif 4 and JetBrains Mono, all under the SIL Open Font License.
- Built with
- Astro, generated as static files. No server code.
- Privacy
- No analytics, no cookies, no tracking. Your theme, language and weather log live only in your own browser.
- Access
- If your system asks for reduced motion, the map holds still, the rain stops, and titles appear without animation.