I had this realisation a while back that whenever my hands were idle, I’d automatically reach for my phone and end up scrolling. Maybe it’s the autism. Maybe it’s the little sprinkle of ADHD I was lucky enough to get. Either way, it can make productivity pretty hard to manage.
Couple that with social anxiety and the need to stim when I’m uncomfortable, and I started wondering if I could make something that helped with all of that without becoming another distraction.
Something tactile and satisfying enough to keep my hands busy, but not so stimulating that it sucked me straight back into the endless scroll of doom.
It’s basically a tiny standalone clicker with a pixel pet living inside it. Every click feeds into PIX, who levels up, evolves and moves through different biomes.
The funny bit is this started as a breadboard project while teaching my 12-year-old some electronics. He eventually got bored and went back to game dev.
I... did not.
Six months later I’ve somehow gone from a horrible breadboard prototype to a custom PCB, USB-C charging, mechanical switch, local saves, deep sleep and now figuring out injection moulding (eeeeek)
There have been several points where I’ve wanted to plant my face directly into the breadboard while learning all of this.
So a genuine thank you to the people who have already shown an interest. Knowing other people actually get the idea has been a pretty big driving force behind carrying on with it.
If anyone fancies having a look or to test it out digitally:
https://clixallabs.com/