PomoGrove

Menu Screen

Inspiration

I've always been fascinated by gamified productivity apps like Forest and Flora. However, I wanted to take this concept further - instead of a flat 2D garden, what if you could build an entire 3D island that you could rotate, explore, and watch grow from every angle?

...and pink themed 👆

Also, most productivity visualizers are mobile apps, but I do most of my work on desktop. I wanted to create a desktop experience that felt premium and responsive, with the performance benefits of a compiled app rather than a browser-based tool.

What it does

Your island becomes a unique 3D landscape that represents your productivity journey. You can rotate it, admire it, and watch it grow over time. All your progress is saved locally, so your grove is always there when you come back.

How I built it

Tech Stack:

Tauri - For building a lightweight, secure desktop app
Rust
SvelteKit + Svelte 5
Threlte (Three.js) - 3D rendering engine
Tailwind CSS
Blender - Editing 3D models

Development Timeline (Nov 14-16, 2025):

Check Changelog in the git repository

Challenges I ran into

Getting certain things to work (like tauri store) was tricky. I initially tried using both frontend and backend storage simultaneously, which caused data conflicts and overwrites. There were also lots of problems with threejs but I managed to overcome that
Implementing the procedural generation logic where water blocks cluster together and grass spreads naturally required algorithmic thinking. I had to check neighboring blocks, calculate weighted probabilities, and handle edge cases where no valid adjacent position existed.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I genuinely think this makes the pomodoro technique more engaging. Watching your island grow feels rewarding in a way that checkmarks never did

What I learned

This hackathon taught me as much about managing a project timeline and keeping Git clean as it did about the actual tech stack. The technical skills matter, but knowing when to ship and when to refine made all the difference.