HASH RUSH: Crypto Tycoon Sim

Inspiration

I’ve always loved the idea of bringing a live, simulated market into a platform like Horizon Worlds. It’s something I’ve never seen done before — and that’s exactly what made it exciting. The concept felt ambitious, maybe even impossible at first, but I dove in head-first to see how far I could push the boundaries of what’s possible inside Horizon.

What it does

HASH RUSH is a fully simulated cryptocurrency tycoon game featuring a live, shared market system.
Every world instance sees the same coin prices in real time — a living economy where timing, luck, and strategy collide. How does this work? With the clever use of world persistent variables, I was able to successfully assign a controller instance that handles volatility of coin prices to allow for multi-instance wide value fluctuations. That way, every player is experiencing the same coin dips and rises throughout all play sessions simultaneously in unison.

Players decrypt hashes in a Decryption Mini-Game, replicating directional sequences on screen — kind of like entering a classic video-game cheat code. Each decryption has a Luck % chance to reveal a coin. Maintaining a streak increases your luck multiplier, while one mistake resets it.

When you successfully find a coin, you’re awarded a random amount of a random coin — up to ten. Finding a coin for the first time unlocks its trading mechanics, allowing you to buy and sell that coin freely on the market.

Beyond manual decryptions, players can expand their Crypto Mining Arsenal — automated rigs that decrypt hashes every 30 seconds. Each rig can be upgraded to boost its luck and yield permanently, and higher-tier rigs produce more coins. You can also purchase power-ups to increase your base luck and coin yield during manual decryptions.

How we built it

The entire game was built inside Meta Horizon Worlds using TypeScript for logic and the Custom UI API for player interfaces.
I started by using Gen AI to generate a functional baseplate script, which gave me a strong foundation to build upon. From there, I continued refining and expanding the code through countless AI-assisted iterations to achieve the desired systems and gameplay flow.
Even the sound effects in Hash Rush were generated with Gen AI — giving the world a cohesive, digital atmosphere that fits its theme perfectly.

Challenges we ran into

While AI was incredibly helpful, it also created a ton of challenges. Each fix seemed to break something else, and debugging those chain reactions was exhausting. The Custom UI’s performance limitations on mobile devices made optimization even more demanding. Because the script is dense and the systems complex, balancing performance while keeping everything responsive was one of the hardest parts of development. I’m continuing to optimize the game to reach the best stability and performance possible.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

With every project I take on, I push myself to outdo the last — and Hash Rush is my most ambitious build yet. There were moments I doubted I could finish it, but seeing it come together reignited my confidence. Pulling off something this complex inside Horizon Worlds is a huge milestone for me, and I’m proud of how it turned out.

What we learned

I learned that AI is a powerful tool — but it’s no replacement for human judgment. Without direction, it can easily drift off course. Clear vision and consistent human input are key to getting meaningful results. Building Hash Rush taught me how to collaborate with AI instead of relying on it, taking each step intentionally toward a bigger goal.

What's next for HASH RUSH: Crypto Tycoon Sim

Just like the real crypto world, Hash Rush will continue to evolve. Expect new coin drops, new power-ups, advanced mining rigs, and maybe even entirely new game modes in future updates. The goal is to keep expanding the economy and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in Horizon Worlds — one update at a time.

Built With

• copilot
• genai
• horizon
• typescript
• visual-studio