Building in public
Journal
One city, built game first and then for real. These are the days, in order, with the screenshots that made the argument.
Day 03 · 15 September 2026 · 9 min
How a settlement grows from twelve people to a city block
Twelve people in six tents, on 41.6 hectares. Five levels later the same ground carries 216 and runs its own power, food and factory. This is the smallest piece of city that stands alone.
avenSamuel 
Day 02 · 14 September 2026 · 4 min
Eight pictures of a dome, and what each one got wrong
A dome is easy to draw and hard to believe. Eight images, from a spec sheet with 10,920 struts to a low-poly hut, and the one detail that decides whether people would live in it.
avenSamuel 
Day 01 · 14 September 2026 · 7 min
Twelve pictures of a city, and the four rules that survived them
A render will agree with anything you type. Twelve images of maiaCITY later, only four things had shown up in every single one — and those four are the ones the game is built on.
avenSamuel 
Day 00 · 15 September 2026 · 1 min
The 1 million lives decision I almost didn't dare to take
Building a city is the kind of idea you keep in a drawer. Day 00 is the day it came out of the drawer, and the first thing I had to admit about why it stayed in there so long.
avenSamuel