What is the After the Tap game?

A free browser game that turns the After the Tap bite-detection tool into something you have to actually do. You walk out onto a model of Flinders Pier in Western Port, pick one of five stands, cast a RUI KR21 squid jig, and strike when you think the squid has the jig properly. Nothing to install and no account.

What does the game teach that the animation does not?

Timing under pressure, and force. The animation shows you what the line does in each of the three outcomes. The game makes you commit: how long you hold the rod decides how hard you swing, and both when and how hard change the result. It also uses three different hidden attack rhythms, so there is no single count that always works.

Is the timing in the game real?

The order is real, the seconds are not. Contact, two feeding tentacles, arms wrapped, chewing, release is the sequence the tool is built on. The actual number of seconds in each phase was chosen to be readable and learnable in a game, and the jig sinks faster than a real 3.5 size does. Those are game parameters, not measurements, and they are all in one config file.

What do I need to run it?

Any reasonably modern browser with WebGL. It works with a keyboard and mouse on a desktop and with on-screen controls on a phone. The 3D model of the jig is about 2 MB and only downloads once you press Play.

Which squid jig is in the game?

Rui Tang’s own KR21 Hulk Green Gold Red, exported from the product viewer, with its angle-dependent cloth shader intact — so it shifts green to gold to ruby as it turns underwater, the same way the real one does in the water.

It is one of the most consistent land-based squid marks in Western Port, and the five numbered stands in the game match the six-point tour in the Flinders Pier guide. The layout, the deck surfaces and the orange pilot boat moored off to the west are all read off Rui’s own aerial photographs and 360 panoramas of the pier.

Free eging game

After the Tap: The Game

Strike at the right moment, on a model of Flinders Pier

Trouble running it? Open the game on its own page.

What it is teaching you

The After the Tap tool shows you what the line does in each of the three outcomes. This is the same timeline with a rod in your hand: you have to decide when to swing and how hard, and both change the result.

When you swing	What is on the jig	Too soft	About right	Too hard
Too early	Only the two feeding tentacles are on the jig	The jig pulls straight out. Nothing was ever hooked.	You hang off the tentacles. Attached, not hooked — about half come off on the way up.	The tentacles part and the squid is gone.
The window	The arms are wrapped around the jig	The crown never sets. A squid crown is barbless; it only holds if you drive it.	Clean hook-up.	The crown can pull through and tear out, so full power is never simply the best answer.
Too late	It has started eating the cloth	It works out it is not food and opens its arms before your strike arrives.	Hooked, but the cloth is chewed and the foil underneath is showing.	Same, and the jig is no better for it.

The one cue that survives all three directions is the same one the tool is built on: the jig stops sinking early. Work out your own numbers with the squid jig sinking rate guide, then read when to strike when squid fishing for the strike itself.

Controls

W A S D: Walk out along the pier
Mouse: Look around
E: Take up the rod at a numbered marker
C: Cast
Hold SPACE: Load the rod. The strike happens when you let go — how long you hold is how hard you swing.
Hold W: Wind in slack. Watch the bow in the line close up.
Left click: Twitch the jig
Esc: Back to the pier, to walk to another stand

On a phone: thumb stick bottom left to walk, drag the right half to look, and the same buttons along the bottom. Back to pier and Recentre are on-screen buttons.

The pier

Looking seaward along the modelled pier: pale concrete deck, the widening platform off to the west, timber decking further out, and moored boats in the bay

Built from Rui’s own aerial photographs of Flinders Pier and the six 360° panoramas in the Flinders Pier squid fishing guide: the pale concrete approach, the platform that steps out to the west part way along, the timber decking from the yellow kerb outward, the widened head with the old raised pile frame, and the orange pilot boat moored off to the west. The five stands are numbered to match that guide’s tour points.

The pier is compressed to about 80 m so the walk out is a walk and not a commute — the real one is around 200 m. Both aerials are oblique photographs rather than survey plans, so they give the order and the sides of everything, not exact dimensions.

What is real, and what is a game parameter

Real: the order — contact, two feeding tentacles, arms wrapped, chewing, release. That is the sequence the tool is built on.
Real: a squid crown is barbless, so it only holds if you drive it, and it can pull through if you overdo it.
Real: the jig. It is the RUI KR21 Hulk Green Gold Red, exported from the product viewer with its angle-dependent cloth intact, so it runs green to gold to ruby as it turns.
Game parameter: the number of seconds in each phase. Chosen to be readable and learnable.
Game parameter: the 0.95 m/s fall. A real 3.5 size jig is slower; the game sinks faster so a cast reads in a few seconds. It is not a KR21 specification.
Game parameter: how often a squid held only by its tentacles stays on all the way up. A simplified teaching model, not a measurement.

Published by SquidFishing.com.au, the educational site of RUI Fishing Tackles, and built and reviewed by founder Rui Tang.

Questions anglers ask

What is the After the Tap game?: A free browser game that turns the After the Tap bite-detection tool into something you have to actually do. You walk out onto a model of Flinders Pier in Western Port, pick one of five stands, cast a RUI KR21 squid jig, and strike when you think the squid has the jig properly. Nothing to install and no account.
What does the game teach that the animation does not?: Timing under pressure, and force. The animation shows you what the line does in each of the three outcomes. The game makes you commit: how long you hold the rod decides how hard you swing, and both when and how hard change the result. It also uses three different hidden attack rhythms, so there is no single count that always works.
Is the timing in the game real?: The order is real, the seconds are not. Contact, two feeding tentacles, arms wrapped, chewing, release is the sequence the tool is built on. The actual number of seconds in each phase was chosen to be readable and learnable in a game, and the jig sinks faster than a real 3.5 size does. Those are game parameters, not measurements, and they are all in one config file.
What do I need to run it?: Any reasonably modern browser with WebGL. It works with a keyboard and mouse on a desktop and with on-screen controls on a phone. The 3D model of the jig is about 2 MB and only downloads once you press Play.
Which squid jig is in the game?: Rui Tang’s own KR21 Hulk Green Gold Red, exported from the product viewer, with its angle-dependent cloth shader intact — so it shifts green to gold to ruby as it turns underwater, the same way the real one does in the water.
Why Flinders Pier?: It is one of the most consistent land-based squid marks in Western Port, and the five numbered stands in the game match the six-point tour in the Flinders Pier guide. The layout, the deck surfaces and the orange pilot boat moored off to the west are all read off Rui’s own aerial photographs and 360 panoramas of the pier.