Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I built a procedural universe in Python to explore simulation theory
Hi HN! I’ve spent the summer of the past 2 years building The Atlas, a procedural universe simulator that generates 1 sextillion galaxies (10²¹) from a single mathematical seed. Think No Man’s Sky meets theoretical physics, but running entirely in your browser. Everything is purely deterministic, the universe is calculated from SHA-256 hashed seeds using the golden ratio as primordial constant. There’s no database, no pre-saved data, just pure math. Time itself is treated as a coordinate, so the universe exists as a 4D structure where any moment can be computed on demand. Shut it down for…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
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Atlas of Spacefree▲770Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons, asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-Keplerian orbits…
2025 · atlasof.space · its alternatives →
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I figured I needed to work on my coding skills before building the next groundbreaking AI app, so I started working on this free tool site. Its basically just an aggregation of various commonly used calculators and unit convertors. Link: https://www.calcverse.live Tech Stack: Next, React, Typescript, shadcn UI, Tailwind CSS Would greatly appreciate your feedback on the UI/UX and accessibilty. I struggled the most with navigation. I've added a search box, a sidebar, breadcrumbs and pages with grids of cards leading to the respective calculator or unit convertor, but not sure if…
2025 · calcverse.live · its alternatives →
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Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
2022 · jason.today · its alternatives →
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I was fascinated reading through another recent HN submission about a highly efficient implementation of A* in Lisp, which got me thinking about how I could do something similar in Python. However, these kinds of pathfinding algorithms really need complex terrain/mazes with interesting obstructions to showcase what they can do and how they work. So, I started thinking about how I could generate cool and diverse random "mazes" (they aren't really mazes, but I'm not sure what the best term is). I got a bit carried away thinking of lots of different cool ways to generate these mazes, such…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I didn't realize Universe Sandbox ran on MacOS, and I was in the mood to play around a bit. Some functions it's got: - Random system generation - Sonification is super fun too - Habitability Simulation (Just for fun, don't cite this please) - Replacing, spawning, deleting objects I've had tons of fun building this, so I hope someone else can share the joy. It's free and runs in the browser. I'd love to hear any feedback. I think this is at a state where I might leave it as it is, but if people are interested in other features, maybe I'll keep working on it. I've kept saying I'll stop working…
Dec 2025 · luna.watermelonson.com · its alternatives →
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We ported pbrt-v4 to Julia and built it into a Makie backend. Any Makie plot can now be rendered with physically-based path tracing. Julia compiles user-defined physics directly into GPU kernels, so anyone can extend the ray tracer with new materials and media - a black hole with gravitational lensing is ~200 lines of Julia. Runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and CPU via KernelAbstractions.jl, with Metal coming soon. Demo scenes: github.com/SimonDanisch/RayDemo
Feb 2026 · makie.org · its alternatives →
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Develop open metaverse worlds and publish to any web server
2022 · croquet.io · its alternatives →
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Explore the universe directly in your browser
2025 · universesim.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 9RT
Hello everyone! I've created a programming language named Atlas in C, and I'm excited to share it with you. After many years of thinking about how to bridge CPU and GPU programming more effectively, I decided to build a minimalist language that focuses on a single structure: a stack of (up to 4-dimensional) tensors. Atlas is designed to be simple and efficient—it generalizes many of the concepts behind WebGL while offering some unique features. For example, it runs on Windows 10/11 and in browsers via emscripten, and it even has the capability to render directly to the Windows desktop.…
Nov 2025 · banditcat.github.io · its alternatives →
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Exists▲132Generate your own 3D worlds and team-deathmatch in minutes
2025 · exists.ai · its alternatives →
- 11PA
I've been working for a while on trying to curate a game that has the emergence of procedurally generated computer games but that can be played with only pen and paper. Here I present the best version I've been able to come up with that is simple and emergent. I've really enjoyed being able to engage with this sort of game while not feeling like my brain in rotting. I recon my numeracy improves while playing it.
Jun 2026 · jameshylands.co.uk · its alternatives →
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- 13LN
I was reviewing Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis) and decided to give it a second go, now with measurements of fundamental constants more precise than 100 years ago. And I stumbled upon a value for Hubble's constant that's uncannily close. Here are the full calculations. https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1K1qoUFvqZp1fWbpcKJWq63nflgwS0ZHh?usp=sharing Meaningless, or meaningful coincidence?
2021 · its alternatives →
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I've been iterating on a small galaxy visualization project that originally started as a university course assignment, using only provided sample data (no real astronomical distances). Recently, I updated it to include redshift-based distance data, which makes the 3D structure more meaningful and closer to real large-scale galaxy distributions. Repo: https://github.com/Avicted/galaxy_visualization_raylib Demo video (3D navigation + galaxy structures): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC83RDWuPvw Current state: - Written in C (C99 standard) using Raylib -…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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An in-browser, freely explorable, 3D game across infinite universes procedurally generated.
2021 · across-multiverse.com · its alternatives →
- 16SA
Hey HN, I’m a physicist turned quant. Some friends and I 'built' SymDerive because we wanted a symbolic math library that was "Agent-Native" by design, but still a practical tool for humans. It boils down to two main goals: 1. Agent Reliability: I’ve found that AI agents write much more reliable code when they stick to stateless, functional pipelines (Lisp-style). It keeps them from hallucinating state changes or getting lost in long procedural scripts. I wanted a library that enforces that "Input -> Transform -> Output" flow by default. 2. Easing the transition to Python: For many…
Feb 2026 · its alternatives →
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Evolution, Theoretical Physics and Computer Science
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
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Hello HN: I love the randomness of the universe. I've been spending some time creating a Craps simulator to help experience this love without having to shell out like a real degenerate. For others similarly fascinated: I would love to hear any and all feedback you've got on this. It's meant to be unique in the sense that it's a community-oriented, infinite simulation.
Feb 2026 · infinitecraps.com · its alternatives →
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Notes on entropy and complexity. Contribute to RobinLinus/my-tiny-little-infinite-universe development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Most games have limits. You can only use preset features, need coding for customization & adding mods, require expensive extra devices. We wanted to remove those barriers. That’s why we are building space zero—a browser based 3D world powered by AI. We plan to build players can freely mix items to generate unexpected creations with unique properties and sounds. Also the world itself is dynamically generated, evolving endlessly. I uploaded a demo version I’ve been working on for the past month! I hope to get any feedbacks or comments :)
2025 · 0.space · its alternatives →
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A 3D game across infinite universes procedurally generated.
2021 · across-multiverse.com · its alternatives →
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GitHub: https://github.com/TeamHypersomnia/Hypersomnia - The netcode relies on full simulation determinism - this includes Box2D physics. I'm using standard floating-point calculations and rely on IEEE754 compliance. I also use STREFLOP for portable math function implementations. This is commonly done for RTS games with a lot of synchronized units, however this technique is rarely if ever seen in games with complex physics, esp. shooters. - The atlas packer I wrote for the game was reused in Assassin's Creed, Skydio and received 2 scientific references:…
2024 · hypersomnia.io · its alternatives →
- 23MF
Wrote a program in FreeBASIC to try and find out how Genetic Algorithms work. It's a quick hack that I wrote to try some theories with because the Wikipedia Article on GAs reads like greek to me. So I built it from the general principles i knew at the time. The "genome" per individual is an array of 9000 integers but I used only monochrome pictures with either black or white; An individual also has a fitness score. There are 1000 individuals in the population and only two are selected to reproduce. So that makes 9 million (yes, MEELION as El Reg would write) data points and the scoring…
2015 · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I'm a 19-year-old aerospace student. I spent the last 13 months building a custom Linux distro from scratch because I wanted to see if we could treat the OS kernel as a mathematical engine rather than a deterministic administrator. The Stack: Flux (The Shell): A custom math-native shell where x² and ∑ are valid syntax. It parses mathematical notation directly into optimized SIMD instructions (no Python wrapper). Tenet (The Scheduler): Written in Tenet (my custom DSL for game theory). The scheduler is a Nash Equilibrium solver compiled to native code. In my benchmarks (Ryzen 7 5800HS),…
Feb 2026 · fawazishola.ca · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Atlas of Space alternatives
- While the world builds AI Agents, I'm just building calculators alternatives
- Little Procedural Pixel Worlds alternatives
- Visual A* pathfinding and maze generation in Python alternatives
- A solar system simulation in the browser alternatives
- A physically-based GPU ray tracer written in Julia alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →