AboutEmpFish
About this map
Low Ground is a field journal about sadness. The name on the cover is EmpFish.
The “I” of these notes is a surveyor who does not exist: someone who spent a year in a valley that is on no map, walking down from the ridge to the lowest place by the river, then back up by the switchbacks. The valley is invented, and so is that year's weather.
What the surveyor carries is not invented — tea made and forgotten, a letter that will not open, the word “fine”, a Tuesday that will not end. These are shapes that many people describe from their low days. If you recognise yourself in them, it is because a great many people have walked this ground.
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
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
- ↓ Scrolling is walking. On the home page the route is laid on the ground itself, and you follow it down to the lowest point. Change pages and you lift over the ridges and come down where that entry stands.
- 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 — and the month — as you walk down.
- ❄ The seasons follow you: birch leaves in autumn, snow in winter, seeds in spring, motes of light in summer. Your cursor stirs the air.
- ⌕ Move over the plate at the top of any entry and a loupe appears.
- ✉ Under the letter at the lowest point, you can write one too and fold it into the tin. It stays in your browser only.
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.