Timber Tycoon

• 

  Thumbnail

Inspiration

I’ve always liked games where you start small and slowly build something bigger over time. Especially idle/tycoon-style games where simple actions eventually turn into a full system you don’t even have to think about anymore.

For this project, I wanted to capture that feeling, but keep it super simple and actually finishable in a hackathon. So the idea became: start as a lone lumberjack in a forest and slowly turn that into a small automated wood production setup.

What it does

Timber Tycoon is a simple 3D game where, in short, you chop trees, collect wood, and sell them for money.

As you earn more, you can buy upgrades and machines that start automating parts of the process. So instead of doing everything yourself, the game slowly shifts into a small factory/automation loop.

How we built it

We built it in Unity using C#. The first thing we focused on was just getting a working gameplay loop: moving around, chopping trees, picking up wood, and selling items.

Once that felt good, we added tool switching, interactions, and basic automation systems on top of it.

The main goal was to keep everything simple and playable rather than overcomplicating it with too many systems.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest part was honestly just keeping the scope under control. We had a lot of ideas, but in a hackathon you kind of have to force yourself to focus on finishing the core game first.

Another challenge was making the progression feel rewarding without adding too much complexity or confusing systems.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re pretty happy that the game actually feels complete. You can start from nothing, go through a full loop of chopping and crafting, and eventually start automating parts of it.

Even though it’s simple, it still feels like a real progression system, not just a demo.

What we learned

We learned a lot about building within time limits and how important it is to keep things small and focused in a hackathon.

On the technical side, we got more comfortable with Unity’s player interactions and structuring a clean gameplay loop.

What's next for Timber Tycoon

If we keep working on it, we’d probably expand the automation side more and add different types of resources and machines.

It would also be fun to make the world a bit bigger and let players build more complex production chains over time.

Built With

• c#
• unity