Phishing for Mail

Inspiration

We get a lot of spam texts, calls, and emails. One of us even got a spam text during the project. Some of the in-game phishing emails are based on real ones we've received. A few of our older relatives have been phished before, and it happens to people every day. We wanted to make something small that teaches people what these tricks look like.

What it does

It's a simple inbox game where you sort real messages from fake ones. As you play, you learn the signs of phishing: bad links, strange senders, odd requests, and everything in between.

How we built it

We started with almost no knowledge of HTML or JavaScript. We tried Webflow, opened Godot for a moment, then accepted we needed to learn from scratch. We found a Windows 98 CSS library and used it as our base. From there, we wrote our own scripts for email loading, pop-ups, sound effects, and the BSOD screen.

Challenges we ran into

A lot. Figuring out display: none vs display: flex. Pixel sizes vs percentages. Windows breaking because of one line of code, audio playing only after user interaction, the overlay fading, and pop-ups behaving. Each fix broke something else.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We built a working game despite knowing almost nothing about web development when we started. We matched the Windows 98 look, wrote our own systems, and turned our spam experiences into something useful.

What we learned

We learned the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We learned how browsers handle audio, layout, and events.

What's next

We plan to expand beyond email to include other scams, like phone calls and texts. Future updates will add more lessons on preventing phishing, social engineering, and identity theft. We also aim to improve the UI and make the learning experience more intuitive for new users.