# Monterey Bay Cozy: A Community Experiment

> Exploring how AI tools can help neighbors build a cozy Monterey Bay game and a local map shaped by human knowledge and care.

URL: [Original article](https://mattcool.tech/posts/mb-fishing)

Published: 2026-11-03T08:00:00.000Z

Tags: ai, community, discord

I've been working on [Monterey Bay Cozy](https://github.com/matthewbcool/Monterey-Bay-Cozy), a community experiment based in the Monterey Bay Tech Discord server. The idea is a little like Google Maps meets a cozy multiplayer game: a shared version of Monterey Bay that neighbors can explore, contribute to, and get to know each other through.

The game is still in its early stages. These screenshots and the trailer show the prototype as it takes shape, with plenty left to build and test together.

Here's a trailer for the world taking shape:

## A Local Map Shaped by People

There is so much useful knowledge about a place that lives with the people who spend time there. A favorite park, a small museum, a city service someone didn't know existed, or an observation about which path is easier to navigate. There are also people who can tell you what that bird is, why the kelp matters, or what you're looking at from the shore.

I'd love to give that knowledge a shared home in a playful version of the bay. You could come for a little fishing and leave knowing something new about where you live, or having met someone who cares about the same things you do.

The vision is for people to curate what is useful and worth discovering, with no ads, paid rankings, or sponsored placement deciding what gets attention. Local experience and care for the community should guide the map.

[Image: A stylized model of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, with a red tile roof and surrounding streets and buildings.]

Caption:
The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History taking shape in the local map.

## Built on Open Maps and Public Data

The local map studies use [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/) for building footprints, roads, paths, and coastline details. That foundation comes from people contributing to a shared map: © [OpenStreetMap contributors](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright), with data available under the Open Database License (ODbL).

Public scientific data helps connect the world to the bay, too. The regional seafloor uses coarse [NOAA ETOPO1 relief](https://cwcgom.aoml.noaa.gov/erddap/griddap/etopo360.html). The map's conditions panel draws observed water levels and predicted tides from [NOAA's Monterey station, 9413450](https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=9413450), through the [NOAA Tides & Currents API](https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/).

For fish ecology, we're exploring historical catch records from NOAA's [Rockfish Recruitment and Ecosystem Assessment Survey](https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/info/FED_Rockfish_Catch/index.html), including blue rockfish, lingcod, and Pacific sardine. Those records tell us about survey catches, rather than how many fish are living in a spot today. The world remains a stylized interpretation, with room for neighbors to help check details and share what they know.

[Image: An underwater prototype scene with fish, kelp, rocks, and sea stars on a sandy seafloor patterned with light.]

Caption:
An early underwater scene, exploring the bay's marine life in a stylized
world.

## Where AI Tools Fit

One thing I want to explore is how many different ways people could help build this world.

Someone might bring a reference photo of a building. Someone else might know that a fish looks wrong, have an idea for a little interaction, or notice an accessibility problem. A developer could help turn those observations into changes, and AI tools could help with the code, models, or iteration along the way.

The hope is that more people can take an idea far enough to show it to someone else, try it together, and improve it. Local knowledge, creative judgment, feedback, and technical skills all have a place. Human review and conversation are part of making those contributions useful.

That fits Monterey Bay Tech's charter: technology is for everyone and should put people first.

[Image: A prototype aquarium exhibit with sharks, schooling fish, turtles, and an octopus behind a large window, viewed by visitor silhouettes.]

Caption:
The prototype's Open Sea exhibit brings the growing creature collection
together.

## What I Want to Learn

In my community work at NVIDIA, I keep coming back to this question: how can we support communities with AI tools in ways that produce something useful, help people build relationships, and make it easier to share what they know?

A shared local game gives us something concrete to try. Can someone who doesn't identify as a developer help shape it? Do people learn from one another while making a change? Does contributing give them a reason to come back and collaborate again?

I also want to understand the support this takes. Getting started, reviewing changes, correcting mistakes, and keeping a shared project welcoming all require people's time. Learning where AI helps, where people need help, and whether the result is worth maintaining is part of the experiment.

## Still Taking Shape

The current prototype is a foundation of procedural creatures, local environments, and browser tools for exploring and refining them. Multiplayer, community-curated recommendations, and an integrated contribution workflow are still goals. We haven't yet established whether this approach leads to sustained community participation.

I'd like to test a small contribution session with developers and non-developers, then share what we learn. A useful result could be a better way to help people contribute, a new connection between neighbors, or an honest understanding of where the idea needs work.

You can read more about the purpose, current state, and longer-term vision in the [Monterey Bay Cozy README](https://github.com/matthewbcool/Monterey-Bay-Cozy#readme). If you know Monterey Bay and have a place, creature, or bit of local knowledge you'd love to see represented, I'd love to hear about it through [Monterey Bay Tech](https://www.montereybaytech.org/).