VS Buddy

Don't punch your monitor—punch the Buddy! Relieve your coding stress with this interactive, physics-driven rag doll sidebar extension for VS Code.

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Inspiration

Inspired by the pure frustration and anger we often feel when coding and the cathartic, fun stress-relief that the hit 2004 flash game "Interactive Buddy" provides.

What it does

We came up with VS Buddy as a tool and solution to help developers have a brief distraction and reprieve from coding woes and frustrations. VS buddy is a Visual Studio Code extension that lives in your side bar and is there for whenever you feel the need to punch your monitor or scream your head off.

Open the sidebar to load up the VS Buddy, then click & drag to punch/smash the buddy around the screen.

How to get it

There are two methods to get the extension:

  1. Get the latest official release from the VS Code marketplace/search in the VS Code extension sidebar for "VS Buddy"
  2. Download the latest build artifact/.vsix from Github releases and from the VS Code extension menu use the "Install from .VSIX" to manually install

Once installed, the Buddy should be available within the Explorer tab of VS Code.

How we built it

We built the sandbox using Unity game engine and built the game for WebGL/WebAssembly. The VS Code extension was written in TypeScript using a custom Webview panel and packaged/bundled using the vsce package from NPM. The resulting bundle was uploaded directly to the VS Code extension marketplace for others to download.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into a few challenges along the way but managed to essentially deal with them all:

  • Ensuring 2D physics was consistent/responsive within a VS Code panel
  • Issues with build tooling to live preview extension during development
  • Making sure collisions were not problematic and prevent the buddy from leaving the intended sandbox
  • Having the VS Code Webview canvas display the built Unity WebGL and dynamically respond to resizing

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we managed to complete our MVP goal and even published the extension to the VS Code marketplace.

What we learned

  • How to build a Unity application for WebGL/WebAssembly
  • How to scaffold and create a VS Code extension
  • How easy it is to publish and share the extension on the marketplace

What's next for VS Buddy

We reached our goal but would like to be able to expand upon this idea further.

  • Possibly rewrite the extension to be more native to VS Codes extension ecosystem (themeing, resizing)
  • Add additional features that would make interaction more fun
    • Integration with editor like smashing code and buddy
    • More tools to beat the buddy up with like in the original game

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