Paws & Wires: Catone & Catwho

Seated hands-first WebXR bomb-defusal & clicker arcade! Disarm desk circuits with bare hands while stopping two mischievous 3D cats with paw boops, a wool yarn ball, laser & salmon!

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Inspiration

Most VR bomb-defusal games require physical controllers, complex paper manuals, or standing roomscale movement. We wanted to create an immediately joyful, seated, 100% controller-free, hands-first tabletop arcade game inspired by mid-century illustrated appliances (colorfigures) and the universal comedy of trying to work at a desk while two curious cats—Catone (a chubby ginger tabby) and Catwho (the neighbor's mischievous tuxedo cat)—try to bat at your wires, sit on your circuit board, and press the glowing red button!

Why is there a bomb and a cat on your desk? You ordered a "99% Off Silent Alarm Clock" online, Catone jumped into the shipping box looking for tuna, the Bomb Squad went on a coffee break leaving a paywalled manual, and Catwho snuck in through the window because shiny red wires look delicious.

What it does

Paws & Wires: Catone & Catwho blends tactile WebXR bare-hand circuit defusal with a frantic coin-minting clicker economy and 3D feline defense:

  • Bare-Hand Bomb Defusal: Use direct finger and palm tracking to press the 4 color-coded plungers, lock the left and right copper coils, and karate-chop high-voltage surge wires before the countdown hits zero.
  • Tactical VR Paw Boops: When Catone or Catwho reach across the desk to chew your red wires or tap the detonator, physically boop their paws away in 3D space with your bare hands.
  • Clicker Economy & Feline Bribery Shop: Smash the golden coin-minting plunger between defusal phases to earn cash (+$15, +$25 Combo) and unlock three tabletop gadgets on the in-world Upgrade Monitor:
    1. 3D Wound Wool Yarn Ball: Rolls and bounces across the workbench to distract the cats.
    2. Red Laser Pointer Sweep: Lures both cats to the far corner of the desk.
    3. Gourmet Salmon Treats: Buys 5 full seconds of peaceful purring so you can snip the final wire.
  • 10-Level Escalating Campaign & 3-Card Scoreboard: Progress through 10 increasingly chaotic waves culminating in an illustrated 3-card victory scoreboard (MAX LEVEL, BOMBS DEFUSED, CATS STOPPED) with a persistent Top-3 Hall of Fame.

How we built it

We built Paws & Wires: Catone & Catwho from scratch using WebXR (immersive-ar passthrough and immersive-vr), Three.js, the WebXR Hand Tracking API, and a deterministic Node.js engine:

  • Seated Airplane-Seat Ergonomics ($\le 0.52\text{ m}$ reach): The 3D workbench auto-calibrates $0.30\text{ m}$ below eye level and $0.36\text{ m}$ in front of the player so every wire, plunger, and gadget sits comfortably within a seated arm's reach without Gorilla Arm fatigue.
  • Custom 3D Cat Inverse Kinematics & Wound Wool Yarn Physics: Both cats are animated via custom 3D limb IK (updateCatArmIK) and a 4-beat walking gait with hard collision separation. When the player deploys the multi-layered 3D wound wool yarn ball (SphereGeometry core + 14 multi-axis TorusGeometry wool wraps + CatmullRomCurve3 trailing yarn tail), our rigid-body sphere solver (updateYarnBallPhysics) computes gravity, tabletop restitution ($e = 0.60$), rolling angular velocity ($\omega = v / R$), AABB/cylinder chassis collision exclusion, and paw-batting impulses.
  • 100% Zero-Copyright Procedural Web Audio Synthesizer: A custom Web Audio API bus mixer (Master <- {Music, SFX}) synthesizes adaptive spy-groove basslines, harmonic combo chimes, cat meows/purrs, and explosion SFX with automatic sidechain ducking.

Challenges we ran into

  • Distinguishing Intentional Wire Chops from Accidental Hand Passes: In controller-free hand tracking, resting hands near a compact desk can trigger false touches. We solved this with directional joint-velocity checks (index-finger-tip, middle-finger-tip, wrist) and visual hover/depression feedback on every 3D plunger and wire.
  • Keeping Two 3D Cats Readable Without Blocking Critical Wires: We engineered a dual-lane desk perimeter pathing solver and chassis exclusion zones so Catone and Catwho prowl around the bomb and reach inward with telegraphed paw wind-ups rather than clipping through the circuit board.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • 100% Controller-Free End-to-End Playability: From the 3D Title Screen to defusing circuits, booping cat paws, buying upgrades on the 3D monitor, and tapping Replay on the Scoreboard, zero controllers are ever required.
  • Charming Hand-Inked colorfigures Aesthetic at 72Hz: Combining inverted-hull ink outlines (#231e16), procedural textures, and dynamic foveation (setFoveation(1.0)) to maintain smooth frame rates on Meta Quest headsets.

What we learned

Designing for bare hands in seated WebXR taught us that physical comedy and tactile toys multiply the joy of hand tracking: batting a rolling 3D wool yarn ball or gently booping a cartoon cat's paw away from a red wire feels immediately intuitive to first-time VR players within 5 seconds.

What's next for Paws & Wires: Catone & Catwho

We are preparing Paws & Wires: Catone & Catwho for a full release on the Meta Horizon Store, adding local co-op passthrough table sharing (two players seated at the same real table), 20 new modular circuit puzzles, and unlockable cat hats and collars.

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