https://galantrixgames.itch.io/thousand-suns

Hi HN, I'm the author of Thousand Suns (1KS). This has been my full-time project for the past six months and is now available as freeware for Windows, Linux and macOS (experimental) on itch.io.

It started as a game but slowly turned into a serious simulation as I educated myself on nuclear war. I'm a stay-at-home dad, previously a Big Tech software engineer, and not a nuclear war expert. But I spent an enormous amount of time learning about the subject from original and derived sources, such as the well-known site NUKEMAP.

It goes beyond existing free projects by simulating full conflicts on top of single detonations. The conflicts are “all out” and meant to be a demonstration of the power of present-day arsenals rather than a depiction of nuclear war escalation.

This was made with Godot/C# and I spent a good amount of time hand-optimizing the code... Not because it was needed, but because it was fun! I'm not using any external libraries with the exception of Godot itself. It was all custom-made and the nuclear calculations were derived from the amazing 1977 book "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" by Glasstone and Dolan.

I decided to make it free because I think it's important to raise visibility on what is, perhaps, the most dangerous threat to our survival. Without minimizing the many other risks we face, it is the one way civilization as we know it could end tonight.

Feel free to ask any questions and I hope 1KS is useful for you!