Ongoing

Unannounced Tycoon Sim

Designer & Lead Developer·2025·2 min read

A competitive procedural tycoon sim — Townscaper-like building on an irregular grid, with Monopoly Tycoon-style rival businesses. Built on Cinder (C99/Vulkan) and Pulse (Golang/NATS).

Overview

Personal project, working title withheld until announce — a competitive procedural tycoon sim combining relaxed city building with rival businesses. Place buildings on an irregular grid, attract passing trade, and outmanoeuvre competitors. Built on Cinder (C99/Vulkan) and Pulse (Golang/NATS); deliberately not Unreal or Unity.

Problem

Off-the-shelf engines fight the specific blend of procedural layout, economic simulation, and rendering control I want. Contract work funds the project, but the architecture needs to stay small, legible, and mine.

Constraints

  • Solo developer — scope must stay disciplined
  • Solo project alongside ongoing contract work through Hidden Bridge
  • Custom tech only where it earns its keep

Approach

Three components: Cinder for rendering, Pulse for multiplayer-ready room abstraction over NATS JetStream, and the game itself for procedural building and simulation.

Key Decisions

Custom C99/Vulkan renderer (Cinder) instead of a commercial engine

Reasoning:

Full control over pipeline and iteration. Vulkan 1.3 with Slang shaders; the API surface stays minimal — describe pipelines programmatically, render.

Alternatives considered:
  • Unreal or Unity
  • Godot

Pulse — room abstraction over NATS JetStream

Reasoning:

Reuses patterns from contract backend work. Pub/sub with durable streams; rooms as a thin layer for future multiplayer and tooling.

Alternatives considered:
  • Dedicated game server with custom TCP protocol
  • Off-the-shelf multiplayer SaaS

Irregular grid procedural building

Reasoning:

Townscaper proved the pleasure of low-friction placement; Monopoly Tycoon proved competitive sim depth. The combination is the product.

Alternatives considered:
  • Traditional rectangular grid
  • Pure sandbox without economic competition

Tech Stack

  • C99
  • Vulkan 1.3
  • Slang
  • Golang
  • NATS JetStream

Result & Impact

  • Cinder — C99 / Vulkan 1.3
    Renderer
  • Pulse — Golang / NATS
    Backend

In active development. Cinder handles rendering experiments; Pulse prototypes session and room semantics; the building system explores irregular-grid placement rules. Intended as the game I want to play and the tech stack I want to maintain.

Learnings

  • Building your own engine is viable when the game design demands rendering control
  • Backend abstractions from contract work transfer directly to game infrastructure
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