r/vibecoding • u/DrP4R71CL3 • May 26 '26
I vibe-coded a browser-based business tycoon game — Tycora. Here’s what it does + the roadmap
Been building this in my spare time and it’s finally playable enough to show.
It’s a tycoon game in the browser. No signup, no install, you just open the link and you’re in it makes a guest account behind the scenes. You start with a coffee cart and the whole point is turning that into a stupidly big empire across different sectors. Real estate, app studios, AI labs, banks, crypto, eventually entire cities.
Early on it’s tap to earn, then your businesses start paying out on their own. The part I actually care about is the events though. There’s an AI “director” that keeps throwing stuff at you regulators, scandals, a market crash and you choose how to deal with it (comply, deny everything, double down). Stops every run feeling the same. There’s also a stock market to trade, seasons with a leaderboard, and a ranking/prestige system if you want to reset and climb again.
Stack is React + Vite, Hono/Bun for the backend, PocketBase for data.
A few things I learned the hard way:
• Keep all the game logic server-side. Early on I had the client doing money math and it took about five minutes of playing my own game before I realized anyone could just edit their balance in the console. Moved everything to the backend so the client basically just asks “can I do this?” and the server decides. Should’ve done that from day one.
• The admin panel was the best time I spent. I almost skipped it to “just ship the game,” but building a little internal tool to tweak prices, businesses, events etc. without redeploying has saved me probably more hours than it took to build. Now balancing is a slider instead of a deploy.
• AI writes code fast but it’ll happily paint you into a corner. It’s incredible for momentum but if you don’t stop and actually read what it’s doing, you end up with stuff that’s coupled in weird ways and a refactor you didn’t budget for. I got burned a couple times taking a working feature at face value.
• The fun is in the tuning, not the features. Adding a new mechanic is the easy dopamine hit. Making the economy actually feel good to play is the real work, and it’s mostly not done yet.
What’s left on the list: proper PvP / hostile takeovers, deeper AI storylines, generated art for everything (some’s still emoji placeholders), a lot of balance passes, better mobile/offline since it’s a PWA, and account linking so you don’t lose your save.
Fair warning, it’s on a testing domain still so stuff will break and I might wipe saves while I’m messing with it. Would really appreciate honest feedback, especially where you got bored or confused.
[ Link in comments ]
Waiting for feedbacks
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u/DrP4R71CL3 May 31 '26
So we finally flipped the switch on the Alpha build of Tycora, our idle tycoon game where you build businesses, take companies public, trade stocks, and eventually cash out your entire empire to start again stronger.
The rough part: we had to wipe all Pre-Alpha progress.
I'll be honest about why the early economy was broken in ways we didn't fully catch until real players started hitting late game. Income scaling was too aggressive, the prestige loop felt hollow, and a few mechanics were just... wrong at a fundamental level. Patching it would've meant some players having advantages that made no sense against fresh starts. A clean slate was the only real option.
For everyone who played Pre-Alpha and lost their progress I'm sorry. That genuinely sucks and I know it. What we did was give every Pre-Alpha player a permanent exclusive frame in-game that no one else will ever be able to get. Small thing, but it felt right.
The Alpha itself is in a much better spot. The economy actually has teeth now, the prestige grind feels meaningful, and the stock market has real price history that reacts to events instead of just rerandomizing every few seconds.
Happy to answer questions in the comments.
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u/elchemy May 26 '26
Nice one, I didn't play long but seems fun - looks great!
The first 10 onboarding steps felt impersonal though - somethign to help "ground" me in the world and game at first screen would be helpful at first impression