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Comment by Cieplak | Hacker News Reader

Thinking of some ways you could build this product into a business, which I think is the best way to scale the positive impact of your work. First thought was building a network interface so folks could interact and collaborate within the environment. The other thought was to offer it as an educational tool, as a gateway to more advanced programming; for that to work, though, I think it’d need some sort of game-like attractions, to pique the interest of the user and create positive feedback loops so they delve deeper into the tooling. The Minecraft comparison resonated strongly for me; even if it’s not your long term vision, it seems an apt template to follow while you crystallize your ultimate product vision.

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That's exactly how I have been thinking. What I was thinking was to make it a Steam game, but entirely open ended, maybe with a bit of resource scarcity so that people have to scramble to get what they want. I said to someone else yesterday maybe things like cities with user built transportation systems for rent, resource wars with medieval siege engines all designed in an arms race between users could evolve organically. In a way that combines the two things you mentioned: the shared aspect and the incentive to learn programming. When I was a kid I knew all the pokemon and their stats, why? Because it was required to advance in a game. Now suppose you have a castle and someone figured out a way to outsmart your defenses. Either use programming ideas to update your cannons or lose the castle... I could add a basic "building block" of damage to avatars like being hit with anything moving faster than x, then anything you can design that throws things could be a weapon, figure a way to store balls "under pressure" triggered by a step plate and you have a bomb/booby trap.

edit: (sorry I keep having ideas and editing the post) At some point the game itself might be open kinda like the internet, the reality of the game what things exist where, who has what can be agreed upon with some sort of blockchain system, then several "browsers" can be written to "plugin to the matrix" if you know what I mean.

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