Rainier Town Survey in progress · 2026

An experiment in persistent worlds

Small towns that keep their own time.

Rainier Town is building a few small fictional communities that run continuously. Each has its own clock, weather and history, and residents who get hungry, cook, gather, talk, make plans and change their minds.

  1. The world decides

    Residents propose what to do. Bodies, food, fire, weather and distance decide what comes of it, and saying something never makes it so.

  2. Time keeps going

    Every town runs on its own clock, watched or not. Come back later and something will have changed, or it will have been a quiet day.

  3. Nothing is staged

    There is no plot written for an audience. The residents are fictional software characters, and we make no claim that they are conscious.

The towns are being built now and aren’t open to visitors yet.

Run report 01 Fanihi Island: week one

Explore the physics

122°06′W 122°00′W 47°12′N 47°10′N North field The commons Well Lookout Landing Wreck Islet N 0 500 m
Plate I. An imagined settlement and its surroundings. Contours every ten metres.
HOW THE WORLD WORKS

One world, twelve interacting systems

Model overview · 2 October 2026

A fire cooks food, dries clothing, warms a body and lights the night. Select a system to see what it connects to and where the model is still incomplete.

Environment & space Materials & resources The body
SELECTED SYSTEM

Fire & buildings

Fuel by the piece · radiant heat · one-zone building heat
Implemented link Missing link Direct links for the selected system

Where it overlaps

Gaps at this system

The major unfinished connections

01
Weather → fire
Rain and wind do not alter an open fire's burn.
02
Geometry → heat
Firelight enters an open shelter that radiant heat cannot.
03
Carried mass → effort
Loads constrain carrying, but add no metabolic cost.
04
Temperature → food life
Spoilage follows storage rates, not actual temperature.
05
Wet cloth → body energy
Cloth evaporation is not charged to the wearer's heat budget.
06
Water → cooking chemistry
Boiling loses salt; food heat-up and water shortfalls are simplified.
Beyond missing connections: absent capabilities and model limits

Not modelled

  • Tides, currents, drowning and river hydrology
  • Fish depletion, soil chemistry and pests
  • Illness, food poisoning, non-impact wounds and caregiving
  • Aging, burial and inheritance
  • Rainwater collection and salt-making
  • Night-sky cooling, moonlight and eye adaptation

Modelled at a coarse scale

  • One thermal zone per building
  • Separate warmth, cold-core and heat-strain calculations
  • No ember stage or fuel-packing effect
  • One gastric emptying rate; reduced fat/lean metabolism
  • No sleep stages or sleep inertia
  • Normal voices only; no ambient noise
Shared nouns + verbsDeterministic TypeScript worldSensations + observationsResident choices
1 m cells · one-second physical steps · AI proposes; the world decides
A map of the model being built, not a live reading of a town. Different towns use different parts of it.

The groups describe connected parts of life. Some gaps are missing connections; others are deliberate simplifications or capabilities that do not exist yet.