CJ Trowbridge

Re‑Imagining a FOSS Habbo + ICQ in 2025

Low‑Bandwidth Graphics • Peer‑to‑Peer Networking • Zero Central Servers

1 Historical Inspirations

1.1 MyCoke Studios (2002 – 2007)

Aspect What It Was Why It Worked on 2000‑era Links
Genre Branded social‑virtual world (isometric rooms, avatar chat, in‑game music mixer) Filled the gap between plain IM and heavy MMOs.
Tech Shockwave/Flash vectors + fixed 256 × 256 pixel tiles Tiny payloads; once cached locally, assets never re‑downloaded.
Currency & UGC “Decibels” earned via mini‑games and audience votes; users decorated rooms Loop kept teens coming back despite dial‑up speeds (< 56 kbps).
Marketing Hack Coke bottles & TV spots pointed teens online Built‑in audience; piggy‑backed on Coca‑Cola’s reach.

Lesson → Vector art + modular tiles + cleverly cached assets can deliver a rich world with minimal bandwidth.

1.2 Habbo Hotel (2000 – Present)

Aspect Details
Engine Sulake’s “FUSE” pixel‑perfect isometric renderer (Flash, later Unity / WebGL).
Interaction All state changes were delta messages: “avatar A walks to tile (5,9)”.
Monetisation Selling furniture (furni) + hotel‑wide events.
Culture Simple rooms + low barrier to entry → endless emergent play.

Lesson → Transmit state, not bitmaps. Graphics live client‑side; the wire only carries events.

1.3 ICQ (1996 – 2003 peak)

Feature Ground‑breaking Idea Bandwidth Impact
Presence “Uh‑oh! ☻ CJ is online” Text‑only packets; near‑zero cost.
User ID Self‑assigned numeric UIN (public‑key‑ish) Removed e‑mail dependency; simplified auth.
Push, not Poll Client maintains socket; server pushes msgs No busy‑waiting HTTP polling.
File xfer & Chat history Optional, on‑demand Heavy data only when requested.

Lesson → Push‑based sockets + plain‑text protocols were instantly addictive and efficient.

2 Why Tor + IPFS Are Game‑Changers

Challenge (90s/00s) Tor Hidden Services • IPFS Content Addressing Outcome
NAT traversal .onion endpoints route traffic through Tor relays; no port‑forward/ICE needed. Every peer reachable from anywhere.
DNS / identity Onion addresses are public‑key hashes; IPNS/ENS add friendly names. No central DNS, spoof‑proof IDs.
Server costs & DDoS No origin server—each peer can host itself. Costs drop to zero, attack surface shrinks.
Asset delivery IPFS deduplicates & pins vector assets; peers fetch from the mesh even while original host is offline. Infinite “seeders,” instant patch roll‑outs.
Privacy Tor encrypts links + hides IP; IPFS hashes reveal no metadata about requester. Users stay pseudonymous; location untraceable.

3 Modernising the Graphics & Protocol

3.1 Client‑Side Rendering Stack

90s/00s Piece 2025 FOSS Equivalent Why This Choice
Flash/SWF SVG + Web Components Native, vector, CSS‑styleable, no plugins.
Bitmap tiles CSS Grid layers or WebGL quads GPU‑accelerated, retina‑ready.
ActionScript JavaScript / WebAssembly Wide talent pool, sandboxed.
MovieClips Declarative components (Lit / Svelte) Incremental DOM diffing = tiny state patches.

Seed‑Driven Procedural Assets

Transmit just a seed + version. Each client locally generates an avatar or decor item identically—zero bandwidth afterward.

3.2 Push‑Based Event Fabric

  • Event Channel: Libp2p Gossipsub over Tor.
  • Data Model: CRDT (Automerge) → resist conflicts when offline.
  • Auth: Ed25519 keys behind .onion; actions signed & verified.

Event Lifecycle:

  1. User moves chair → local CRDT patch.
  2. Patch signed with user key → PubSub broadcast.
  3. Peers validate signature → merge patch → re‑render.
  4. If patch references unseen asset hash, peer fetches via IPFS automatically.

4 Blueprint — “HabboICQ P2P”

Layer Tech Notes
Identity Tor .onion (self‑auth) + DID/UCAN Portable wallet of capabilities.
Transport Tor socks5 + Libp2p NAT‑agnostic, anonymous.
Messaging / Presence Libp2p PubSub topics per friend/room Push only.
World State Automerge (binary) Delta‑encoded, encrypted.
Assets IPFS (SVG bundles, audio samples) Pin by community “guild” nodes.
Client Browser/Electron; SVG+WebGL renderer 100 kb baseline payload.

5 Key Lessons Rolled into Recommendations

Historical Insight Modern Implementation
Vectors over bitmaps = slim downloads SVG symbol libraries + CSS theming
Cache everything client‑side IPFS pinning & browser storage
Event‑only sockets (Habbo deltas) CRDT delta wire‑format
Push beats poll (ICQ presence) Libp2p Gossipsub topics
Self‑authenticating IDs (UIN / .onion) Tor addresses + DIDs
Marketing network effect (MyCoke) Community pin‑servers seed assets; social media optional but not required
Protect users in hostile nets Tor for path‑level anonymity; content encryption end‑to‑end

6 What the User Sees in 2025

Download‑less URL: https://p2photel/#/?gateway=tor

  • First load: ~200 kB (engine + minimal SVG set)
  • From then on: < 1 kB/min typical chat & movement traffic
  • Works behind CG‑NAT, corporate firewalls, or in a mesh island with zero internet—just Tor bridges & IPFS peers.

Features delivered without any central server:

  • Pixel‑perfect isometric hotel, fully community‑hosted
  • Rich text/voice chat (optional WebRTC over Tor)
  • Drop‑in music mixer (WebAudio) with sample packs pinned to IPFS
  • Persistent rooms & inventories tied to user’s keypair
  • Client‑side mods & themes (fork‑friendly)

All while remaining private, censorship‑resistant, offline‑tolerant, and virtually free to host.

7 Factorio‑Style Logic & In‑Game Workspaces

A transformative layer for this virtual world is the addition of Factorio‑style modular logic systems, enabling players to build not just spaces but functional, programmable workflows within the environment.

Concept: Social ComfyUI in an Isometric World

  • Users place and connect logic blocks like sensors, feeds, triggers, and outputs.
  • These blocks could read RSS feeds, analyze sentiment or metrics, and perform real‑world actions (send messages, call webhooks, update dashboards).
  • Objects are visually and functionally linked: like a comfyUI graph or factorio conveyor chains.

Example Use Case:

  1. A player places a “RSS Feed Reader” object.
  2. They connect it to a “Sentiment Analyzer” node.
  3. This outputs to a “Message Generator” or “Webhook Caller”.
  4. The final node sends alerts to a room, user, or external system.

Features Enabled:

  • Visual scripting in‑world: logic chains built collaboratively.
  • Integration with real‑world data sources.
  • In‑game creation of tools, bots, alert systems, dashboards.
  • Forkable and shareable logic constructs as modular items or templates.

Technical Implementation:

  • Each logic block is a WebAssembly sandbox or local plugin.
  • IPFS-pinned logic templates can be shared across peers.
  • Logic execution and state handled client-side with CRDT outputs to other blocks.
  • Trigger flow: RSS block updates → analyzer block runs NLP → output block triggers action.

This elevates the platform from a space for interaction into a fully programmable social computing environment: community‑run, modular, and integrated with external information flows.

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