ATLAS ETERNAL — The Living Map

A hands-first fantasy diorama for the Meta VR Start Developer Competition 2026. Sit before a living map table where an infinite, seeded world renders as a miniature — oceans, deserts, forests, snow peaks — and play the last Cartographer's heir entirely with your hands. Then press V and step into the map — the table swells twenty-fold, tiles become real ground under your feet, and the adventure becomes a walkable world you roam with the thumbstick, weapon in fist.

Play it live: https://zrald1.github.io/Gameofwar/

The game

• Morvane, Keeper of the Fold — the blue wizard at the map's rim greets you, asks who you want to be (answer him by voice — "an elf..." — or tap a race), walks first-timers through a guided lesson, and answers any poke with the one tip that matters now. He notices your deeds — first dig, inked contract, level-up, legendary drop, world-fold — and mutters observations in quiet stretches, his staff-star pulsing while he speaks. Hold your fist on him (or press T on desktop) to hear the lesson again; free speech with no contract on the table reaches him too
• Pick a race (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Naga, Demon) — each with its own perk and its own birthright weapon riding your right fist in adventure mode (squire's sword, delver's hammer, living branch, tide trident, ember claw)
• Step Into the Map (V or the HUD button): the diorama scales ×20 — 5 cm tiles become 1 m ground, the rim NPCs stand ~1.9 m tall beside you, and thumbstick locomotion walks the endless fold (it recenters beneath your feet at every rim)
• Skills grow from what you do — six effort tracks (walk, dig, punch, quest, talk, wish) ripen into named talents at seeded thresholds, woven from your bloodline: an Elf who punches wakes Sylph Knuckle-Oath; a Dwarf who digs wakes Deepforge Delver-Hand. Each grants a real passive
• A fold-map rides your view top-right — live biome ink, red Xs on dig sites, cyan diamonds on survey targets, gold house on the haven, violet P / blue W on the talkable patrons — with labeled edge arrows pointing at every off-screen mission
• Pinch the champion meeple and carry it across tiles to travel; drop it at the map's edge and the infinite world recenters beneath it
• Guild patrons deal the quests — three personas choose the difficulty; answer with take / bargain / harder / refuse chips, or talk to them
• Weapons drop on a six-tier rarity ladder — Mythic sits at a 0.1% floor on any roll, and quest grade sharpens the odds
• Level up as you dig and quest; equip the strongest weapon you find
• Hands are verbs: point at the X to dwell-press it, punch it with a fist, and answer patrons with a thumbs-up or an open palm
• Carry your champion to the X and press it to dig gold, relics, and legendaries
• Build a Haven of income-generating houses; whisper wishes at the pedestal
• Event chimes answer every satisfying moment — digs, wishes, builds, unlocks
• Everything persists — race, gold, level, arsenal, map, home

Author your own world

Unlock the Cartographer with an admin PIN, then paint biomes, roads, dig sites, spawn points — plus a Minecraft-style voxel layer for walls, doors, stairs, towers — all with your hands. Save it as the default map everyone lands in.

Or let the Guild Architect do it: Commission the Guild sends an engineer to plan a world and a laborer to raise it — playable instantly, offline or LLM-drafted from your prompt with a bring-your-own key (?llm= link).

Run it locally

npm install
npm run dev          # dev server + emulated XR browser → https://localhost:8081/

Production build (what judges get):

npm run build && npm run preview   # → https://localhost:4173/

On a Quest: open https://<your-LAN-IP>:8081/ in the headset browser (same Wi-Fi, accept the dev certificate).

Stack

Immersive Web SDK (IWSDK) + WebXR + Three.js. Deterministic seeded terrain (zero backend), UIKitML spatial panels, instanced terrain, procedural quests. Hands-first: every interaction is a pinch or a ray.

Deep-link a world: ?map=atlas-home | verdant-reach | old-earth | terra-mirror — jump straight into a specific charted world.

2D map creator: open map-editor.html on the same host — a flat editor for painting biomes/roads and exporting world JSON (how the bundled maps were authored).

Repo

• src/ — game systems (terrain, nav, quests, interact, edit, hud, presence)
• public/scenes/ — scene composition
• public/ui/ — UIKitML panels
• public/maps/ — charted world definitions
• SUBMISSION.md / NEXT_STEPS.md — Devpost package + remaining steps
• docs/screenshots/ — storyboard stills for the demo video

Multiplayer (optional)

Same-table presence works with zero backend: open the app in two browser windows (or two Quests on the same network) and you share the table. ?room=name joins a separate room; ?relay=ws://host:8787 routes presence through tools/presence-relay.mjs for cross-network play.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. The old-earth/terra-mirror maps use public-domain Natural Earth country data.