A calculator with powers
Roughly gets its shape the day he learns when to stop planning: think as deep as you can, and the moment nothing new occurs to you, start, because the remaining insights only arrive while building. The design that emerges: a fog-covered map of hexagon islands, each one an exercise type you conquer by beating the global average speed over your last fifteen attempts, with GTA's gym button-mashing as the feel reference and Civilization's fog as the pacing.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 1:58 (la regla: cuando no se te ocurra nada más, empieza)
- ↳ video diary @ 26:17 (una calculadora con poderes)
- ↳ Entry 205-1: The GeoGuessr of mathematics (la investigación que este diseño convierte en pantallas)
The day starts with two unproductive hours of not knowing whether to start programming yet ▸ 0:40, and out of them comes his rule for the oldest founder question. Plan in your head as deep as detail allows, because simulation is cheap ▸ 1:22; had he started Roughly cold he’d have had no idea what direction to take ▸ 1:37. But the switch has a trigger: when you sit thinking and nothing new occurs to you, start ▸ 1:58, because the remaining insights only arrive while doing ▸ 2:12.
What the planning produced: a map of hexagons, each one a specific exercise, one-digit sums, two-digit multiplications ▸ 16:45. Your speed is averaged over your last fifteen attempts ▸ 17:43, and beating the global average conquers the island ▸ 17:52, with a live bar climbing as you accelerate, the feel borrowed from mashing X in GTA San Andreas’ gym ▸ 19:16. A golden tier waits for top players ▸ 19:52. Fog hides the far islands so the user never faces the whole curriculum at once ▸ 21:12, Civilization style ▸ 22:44, and playing an exercise once, no need to pass it, unlocks its neighbors ▸ 21:46. Fermi problems, estimation questions about real facts, get named and deferred: they can’t be generated procedurally ▸ 27:01.
lo que lo demora son efectos, sonidos y agentes; esto no tiene ninguno →
The schedule confidence comes from an honest inventory of what actually slows his programming: visual effects, sounds ▸ 25:46, and anything with agents, which demand endless manual testing ▸ 25:56. Roughly has none, so an MVP this week ▸ 26:08. The pitch he lands on for the research’s game: “es como una calculadora con poderes”, and what excites him most is exactly how simple that is ▸ 26:17…
// continued in
no entry has continued this idea yet: the arc is still open