That’s really cool, nice work! I just tried it and was petting for a bit. What does observe do? It asked for camera permission and now I’m curious.

Thanks! "Observe" (if used from the toolbar at the top), just means you're watching Blinkys (the player is observing). They might follow your cursor around and just get curious. If you observe too long, it results in neglect, which can reduce their overall health. Generally, it's better to be interacting with them. It's just a default player state when you're not Feeding, Petting, Teaching or Punishing.

When you enable the "Enable Observation", they observe your motion (through your webcam) and will react accordingly. There's a little more detail about the Webcam Observation in the manual :)

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Webcam Observation

Enabling webcam allows the Blinkys to "see" you through motion detection. They respond to your real-world movement:

Motion is detected by comparing video frames every 100ms

Significant motion (> 30%) triggers awareness in random Blinkys

If collective trust is low (< 0.4), your movement increases their fear

If trust is high, your presence may comfort them

The "THEY ARE WATCHING YOU" indicator appears when Blinkys are aware of your cursor.

The "CAMERA ACCESS GRANTED" warning appears when webcam is active

Privacy Note: Webcam data is processed entirely locally in your browser. No video is transmitted, stored, or sent anywhere. The Blinkys only receive a single motion intensity value (0-1), not actual images. You can disable the camera at any time.