How to play

Starsown is a free browser game about growing worlds that have never existed, and finding out what you grew. There are 2¹²⁸ possible worlds. Every one anyone sows becomes a permanent, shareable object in a sky everyone shares.

The loop

Rarity, and the rarity score

Every trait a world rolls (its class, its atmosphere, its rings, its moons, life) had odds. A world's rarity score adds up how improbable all of them were together, measured in bits. Each bit halves the odds: a 10-bit world is about 1 in 1,000, a 20-bit world about 1 in a million. Higher is rarer, and the score is what the generator's generator odds line on every world is made from.

The score places a world on the ladder. The bands were calibrated on 1.2 million generated worlds:

Some kinds of thing are extraordinary however they rolled, so a few classes have a floor: a black hole is never below epic. Every sown world also has an observed rarity (how rare it is among everything actually found so far), which is what the Observatory's census counts, and which drifts as the sky fills in.

History trumps the generator

Rarity has three sources: the math, the census, and history. The rarest known world wears the crown until something rarer is sown; every crown holder is remembered in the lineage. Firsts, like the first gas giant claimed or the first world to 100 likes, become permanent landmarks. A landmarked or crowned world turns gold and its rarity reads UNIQUE · 1 of 1: it has left the generator's ladder and belongs to history.

The founders

The first ten accounts hold Genesis Stars: ten bespoke stars, class GENESIS, rarity ORIGIN, never generated again. The first hundred hold Alpha Worlds, young living planets with neon trinary rings no seed can roll. Their status belongs to the object, not the account: Alpha #042 is Alpha #042 forever. See them all in the founders' registry.

The Observatory

The Observatory is Starsown's living public record of the explored universe. Its census counts every world exactly once (on the ladder by tier, or beyond it as unique or founding), so its numbers always add up to the registry. The landmarks are the permanent firsts; the almanac names each month's rarest sow; the crown is the live record for the rarest world known. Every figure in it is a door: click one and the registry shows you those worlds. Its science library explains how every world is computed, from stars to super-Earths, and credits every source.

Glossary

Sow

Grow a new world from a random 128-bit seed. The only way a world enters the registry.

Claim

Take root on a world you discovered. Permanent; it joins your collection.

Stake

A free claim on someone else's unclaimed world. After 24 hours one staker is chosen at random.

Designation

A world's catalog identity, derived from its seed in real astronomical formats (2011 MP907, SSX J1049-8455). Search the registry by it.

Rarity score (bits)

How improbable a world's traits are together. Each bit halves the odds. See rarity.

Tier

A world's rung on the generator's ladder, from common to cosmic, set by its rarity score.

Unique

A world history made one of one: a landmark, or a crown worn. It leaves the ladder and turns gold.

Founding

A Genesis Star or Alpha World: issued to the first explorers, outside the ladder entirely.

Landmark

A permanent historical first: the first black hole sown, the first legendary claimed. Written once, never changed.

World of the Month

The almanac's pick: the rarest world sown in a closed month. A permanent title.

The crown

The rarest world known. A live record: it passes the moment something rarer is sown, and the lineage remembers every holder.

Observed

Counted among worlds actually sown, as opposed to the generator's odds over every possible world.

What things are worth

Nothing, in money. Worlds can't be bought or sold and there is nothing to purchase. They are worth exactly what a shared history makes them worth: someone was first, someone found the rarest, and the sky remembers.