The Forge, from dust to an intelligent lineage
This guide describes the intended complete Forge. The current public build is described below; later-stage explanations and design examples are part of the direction being built.
Play freeBefore the run, choose the cloud’s place, nursery, ingredients, mass, spin, field, turbulence, and temperature. A harder cloud gives you more to spend. The same seed and choices rebuild the same system.
Six stages, one system
In the current build
Protostar
The cloud’s conditions determine whether it collapses and what begins to form. Gravity has to overcome what holds it up. The star can ignite, or the cloud can disperse.
In the current build
Protoplanetary Disk
Gas, dust, and pebbles move around the young star. The ice line, growing planets, and remaining gas shape the conditions the system will carry forward.
In the current build
Giant Impacts
Young worlds collide and settle into their masses, orbits, moons, and spins. This stage ends at First Worlds: assembly is over and the worlds’ clock begins.
In the current build
Hadean
Young worlds develop crusts, oceans, atmospheres, and fields. Their heat and chemistry determine whether conditions for life can remain open.
Current build reaches first life
Archean
Life advances only where its environmental windows permit it. Microbes and oxygen change a world; resets leave a history. Intelligent life is possible, not guaranteed.
In development
Phanerozoic
An intelligent lineage makes the seal possible. You can seal the system at Year 0 or keep playing for a richer system, risking the worlds and lineages already there.
First Worlds is not Year 0
First Worlds closes assembly. Year 0 is the seal after an intelligent lineage emerges. Neither a loss nor the end of assembly is a forced seal. The system is kept; the Galaxy is the future game it feeds.