Asciiquarium (Node.js)

Enjoy the mysteries of the sea from the safety of your own terminal.

This is a Node.js port of Kirk Baucom's original Perl asciiquarium (v1.1), with new fish species backported from the Android live wallpaper by Claudio Matsuoka.

What's different from the Perl original

• Rewritten in plain JavaScript for Node — zero dependencies (no Term::Animation, no Curses). Renders via raw ANSI escapes, so it runs anywhere Node does, including Windows terminals.
• Press j to drop a fishhook on demand.
• Press s to summon a shark.
• Press a to add a fish.
• Handles terminal resize by rebuilding the world.

Most of the ASCII art is by Joan Stark; the rest is from the original asciiquarium sources.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 14

Install

npm install -g @craftzdog/asciiquarium

Or run from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/craftzdog/asciiquarium-js.git
cd asciiquarium-js
./asciiquarium.js

Usage

asciiquarium

Controls

| Key | Action | | ------------ | ----------------------------- | | q | quit | | r | redraw (rebuild all entities) | | p | toggle pause | | j | drop a fishhook | | s | summon a shark | | a | add a fish |

Command-line arguments

• -c — "classic" mode (accepted for compatibility; visually identical to default in this port, which currently ships only the classic fish set).

License

GPL-2.0-or-later — same as the original Perl asciiquarium. See LICENSE.

Credits

• Original Perl asciiquarium: Kirk Baucom <[email protected]>
• New fish species and improvements: Claudio Matsuoka
• ASCII art: Joan Stark (and original asciiquarium contributors)
• Node.js port: Takuya Matsuyama