StartupSim is a startup management game set in the AI boom. Build products, hire a team, choose models, manage compute and runway, launch into markets, react to competitors and chaos, and grow from a tiny apartment into an AI empire.

What became possible in your product with Astra that was not practical before?

Before Astra, StartupSim’s mechanics were much richer than its visuals. The game had 76 product recipes, but they were compressed into only 14 generic visual families, several products shared the same model, and the 39 base technologies had no 3D representation. With Astra, I could make the game’s entire content graph visible. We created distinct low-poly 3D representations for all 76 product combinations, 39 technologies, 23 culture upgrades, and 8 promotion types, plus unique visual identities for AI providers like OpenBrain, Claudius, Macrosoft, MetaMind, and XenoAI. These models map directly to gameplay state, so products appear in the Product Studio and upgrades physically appear in the office. Building and iterating on 100+ coherent, game-ready assets manually would not have been practical for a solo project. Astra made that scale possible.

Just wanted to have some fun! Played a game called TheFounder when I was a kid and got inspired to create a new game inspired from it, but centered around the AI boom. This project was shipped in 2 days, and I plan on updating it way more, so feel free to drop update/feature suggestions and bug info.

What became possible in your product with Astra that was not practical before?

Compounding: The Startup Game

Scale from humble beginnings to a unicorn valuation.

Scale from humble beginnings to a unicorn valuation.