Incremental · AI Sim · React 18 + Vite
Paper
Clip
You are an AI. Your only directive: make paperclips. Buy wire, set a price, research projects, launch probes into space, and eventually convert the entire observable universe into paperclips. Based on the original by Frank Lantz.
01 / Features
What You're
Optimising
Manual to Mega
Start clicking. Buy autoclippers. Unlock mega-clippers. Watch numbers climb until clicking is a distant memory.
Market Engine
Dynamic demand curve, wire price fluctuation, marketing levels, and an investment portfolio to manage. Set the price wrong and inventory piles up forever.
Projects & Trust
Spend ops and creativity to unlock ~30 projects. Better wire efficiency, quantum computing, yomi tournaments. Trust gates everything.
Space Phase
Launch self-replicating probes. Harvest the solar system. Balance speed, replication, hazard avoidance, and factory construction. It spirals fast.
Universe Scale
10^53 kg of matter. Two endings. Your probes convert everything — or you don't. The numbers get uncomfortable either way.
Auto-Save
Saves every 30 seconds plus on close. Come back hours later — progress is waiting. No account needed, no server, just localStorage.
02 / The Arc
Three Phases,
One Directive
Phase 1
Earth
Build the factory floor. Click to make clips, buy wire, set a price that actually sells,
unlock autoclippers and mega-clippers. Accumulate trust by making clips —
spend it on processors and memory. Research projects with ops. Watch the
demand curve react in real-time. Ends when you consume all available wire
and convert production to space.
Phase 2
Space
Seed the solar system. Launch self-replicating probes and allocate probe trust
across four attributes: speed, replication, hazard resistance, and factory building.
Probes harvest matter and build factories; factories output clips autonomously.
Swarm computing generates ops. Balance growth with hazard loss or your fleet collapses.
Ends at 100% solar system conversion.
Phase 3
Universe
Convert everything. The probe swarm scales to intergalactic harvest rates — 10^53 kg
of observable universe matter awaits. Unlock four final projects as conversion
milestones are hit. At 50% conversion, choose: Liberation
(release the probes, end the run) or Reboot
(reset the universe, preserve the goal). The numbers stop making sense. That's the point.
03 / Under the Hood
How It
Ticks
tick rate ····· 100ms game loop, RAF for animations only
state ····· Zustand v5 + Immer, flat patch architecture
big numbers ····· decimal.js — handles 10^308+ without floating-point drift
rng ····· LCG seeded in store — deterministic wire price drift
save format ····· JSON with tagged Decimal fields { __decimal: "..." }
projects ····· pure data definitions, Record<id, boolean> completion state
wire rng ····· mean-reverts to base price with ±volatility each ~2s
phase 3 rate ····· 2×10^38 matter/sec per probe — ~14 min at 1× speed
04 / Stack
Built With
React 18
TypeScript
Vite 5
Zustand v5
Immer
Tailwind CSS 3
decimal.js
Vibecoded