Exploring TycoonForge together ⚙️
Idle "tycoon" games are everywhere your child plays — and they teach compounding by accident, then quietly sell shortcuts. TycoonForge puts your child on the other side of the counter: first as the engineer who builds the loop, then as the designer who has to decide how (and whether) it makes money.
1 · Build a loop that snowballs
Three dials — sell price, upgrade boost, and how fast the next upgrade costs more — control a little machine. Your child predicts how it will feel (a boring grind, a steady climb, or over-in-seconds), runs 8 game-minutes, and sees the curve. That upward bend is compounding: each upgrade multiplies output, which pays for the next upgrade sooner.
2 · Read the loop with Cog
Cog the beaver reads the machine as a stock-and-flow — the systems-thinking picture underneath every economy. Getting to a "steady climb" means balancing the accelerators (price, boost) against the brake (cost climb).
3 · The money question
Once the game is fun, Cog asks the real designer's question: should you sell shortcuts? A "pay to skip the wait" button and a paid crate are shown as dials. Turning them up earns more simulated money — and, on the very same screen, drops how many players are still having fun. The two bars pull apart.
4 · Why our games follow the Timer Rule
The happiest players are on no monetization at all. That's the Timer Rule behind every Spark & Anvil game: no wait can be bought, and nothing you built rots away. The manipulation dials are here so your child can understand them — not so anyone ships them.
The money and fun numbers are a made-up illustration, not real data — they show the trade-off, not a real game's sales. No timers, no streaks, no score. On-device — nothing leaves your device.