But I’m also hoping that Microcosm Industries can be more: acting as a way to spur people to make more of these, or even serving as a Schelling Point for this somewhat fractured simulation toy world. Because this type of software shouldn’t just be thought of as being from the heyday of Maxis—maker of SimCity and many other games—decades ago. In truth, this kind of software is easier to build than ever, due to processing advances and AI-enhanced coding. We might be entering a new golden age for the simulation toy.
Here’s a bit more about the thinking behind Microcosm Industries: https://microcosm.industries/about/
And please let me know of other examples I should add to the Microcosm Industries list, or fellow travelers I should be speaking with.
Discussion (2 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I hope I'm not insulting 1bpp here as a person with genuine passion. But to me, the promises "LLMs can prototype your ideas quickly", "LLMs can build from solely a natural language description" increasingly sound like proverbial monkeys-paw-wishes.
Not wrong, but also the opposite of helpful.
I want to be clear here, I'm not talking about coding AIs/LLMs in general, just the particular flow
simple idea ->
working app
All the great apps I've ever used, from the measliest web clients (think of some important form CRUD thing), to the most complex desktop applications (IDEs, DAWs, games):
the moat was and is always attention to detail, and being a good "host" and guide for your users.
This app is so blown up with bombastic text that the opposite applies, I first have to consider what mindset is required to find it interesting.
Seems common.