From personal workshops to sprawling shared landscapes to party dungeons deep inside mountains — every space in poqpoq World is a sim, and each type serves a different purpose.
A sim is an independently hosted region of the world. It has its own terrain, objects, permissions, and visitor list. Think of it as a plot of land with its own rules. Some sims are permanent. Some are temporary. Some belong to you alone. The sim type determines its size, who can enter, and how long it persists.
poqpoq World supports four sim types today. Each one fills a different role in the ecosystem — from quiet personal studios to epic party adventures.
The standard building block of poqpoq World. A general sim is a 256 × 256 meter persistent region where you can build, terraform, invite visitors, and run scripts. It is your own corner of the world — a house, a gallery, a game arena, a forest, a city block, whatever you imagine.
General sims are available to subscribers only. Explorer tier ($15/mo) grants 1 sim or 2 dungeons. Creator ($29.95/mo) unlocks 5 sims. Professional ($129.95/mo) gives you 15. Each sim persists indefinitely: your builds, terrain, placed objects, and permissions survive between sessions.
You control access. Set your sim to public and anyone can visit. Restrict it to friends, group members, or a whitelist. Grant build permissions so collaborators can create alongside you. Your sim, your rules.
Every player gets a workshop — a small personal space for learning, experimenting, and building without pressure. Workshops are included with every account at no cost. No subscription required.
Workshops are smaller than general sims but fully functional. You have the same build tools, the same object library, and the same scripting capabilities. The difference is size: a workshop is a compact studio, not a sprawling estate. Free workshops support up to 2 visitors and are unlisted by default. Subscribing at Explorer tier or above makes your workshop listed in the world guide so others can find it.
Think of it as your creative sandbox. Try out new shapes, test textures, prototype link sets, learn the physics system. When you are ready to build at scale, subscribe and claim a general sim. Your workshop stays yours either way.
Dungeons are ephemeral, party-scoped instances that exist only for the duration of an adventure. When a party leader activates a dungeon portal, the system creates a private copy of the dungeon zone. Nobody outside the party can enter. When the run ends — in triumph or defeat — the instance is destroyed.
Dungeon layouts are authored using Black Box Dungeon Master, a dedicated design tool built on an octile grid system. Game masters place rooms, corridors, spawn groups, traps, and loot containers in a top-down editor. The dungeon is then exported and loaded at runtime as a fully playable 3D environment with avatars, combat, physics, and NPC AI.
Dungeons support difficulty scaling based on party size and level, checkpoint-based progress saving, and multiple loot distribution modes. Up to five players can adventure together. For full details, see Dungeon Instances.
Some sims are created and maintained by the poqpoq team. These are the public plazas, welcome areas, event venues, and curated experiences that form the shared backbone of the world.
poqpoq sims can be any size — they are not bound to the 256 × 256 meter standard. A welcome plaza might be compact and carefully curated. An event arena might stretch across multiple standard sim widths. A wilderness zone might be enormous. Size is determined by purpose, not subscription.
Players can explore poqpoq sims freely. You cannot build in them unless specifically granted permission by the platform team. They serve as common ground — places where everyone meets, events happen, and the world feels alive.
| Property | General | Workshop | Dungeon | poqpoq |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size | 256 × 256 m | Compact | Varies by layout | Any size |
| Persistence | Permanent | Permanent | Ephemeral | Permanent |
| Access | Owner-controlled | Owner only | Party members | Public |
| Build rights | Owner + permitted | Owner | None | Staff only |
| Cost | Subscription | Free | Free to enter | Platform-funded |
| Quantity | 1 / 5 / 15 by tier | 1 per player | On-demand | As needed |
| NPCs | Owner-placed | Owner-placed | Spawned by layout | Platform-placed |
Every player starts free with a personal workshop. Paid tiers unlock general sims, dungeons, marketplace access, and more.
Beta Bonus — All five studio apps (Animator, Skinner, Terraformer, Marketplace, and Events) are currently in open beta. Every pOqpOq player gets complimentary access to all tiers until beta wrap — no credit card required. Use the time to build your pipeline, stake your claim, and help us polish every workflow.
Each sim type fills a distinct role in the world. Together, they create a layered experience that supports exploration, creation, structured gameplay, and community.
Dungeons are the newest sim type and the most technically distinctive. Unlike persistent sims, they are created on demand and destroyed after use.
Dungeon layouts are created in Black Box Dungeon Master, a visual editor that uses an octile grid — octagons for rooms, squares for corridors. Game masters toggle walls, place spawn groups, set traps, and configure loot in a top-down view. The tool exports a .bbd file (BlackBox Dungeon format) that World loads at runtime.
Dungeons are not static levels. Each one has a personality — aggressive, cunning, hoarding, expansive, or defensive — that shapes how it spawns enemies and sets traps. Dungeons collect energy from player activity: offerings, fallen adventurers, time spent exploring. They spend that energy to grow new rooms, evolve bosses, and strengthen defenses. A popular dungeon becomes more powerful. A neglected one slowly fades.
Rooms range from natural caves and crystal grottos to forged chambers and boss arenas. Eight visual themes — natural cave, ancient stone, crystal, organic, frozen, volcanic, overgrown, and shadow — give each dungeon a distinct atmosphere. Multi-cell rooms combine adjacent octagons into grand halls, libraries, and colosseum arenas.
Building regulations ensure every dungeon is survivable. The entrance is always safe. Shrines are sanctuaries. No more than two consecutive trap cells. At least 30% of cells offer meaningful loot. Bosses are never within three cells of the entrance. Every trap is survivable — dungeons punish carelessness, not existence.
For the full dungeon experience — encounter design, loot distribution, difficulty scaling, and the connection to quest loops — see Dungeon Instances.
Workshops exist because creation should not be gated behind a paywall. Every player who signs up gets a personal space to experiment with the full build toolset. This is deliberate: we want builders to fall in love with creating before they ever consider a subscription.
Your workshop is permanent. It never expires, even if you never subscribe. Anything you build there stays. If you do subscribe and later cancel, you keep your workshop and its contents. Workshops are yours for as long as you have an account.
Four sim types, one world. Shared plazas give everyone a place to meet. Workshops let everyone create. General sims reward commitment with space to build at scale. And dungeons turn the world into a living adventure. The sims are the spaces. What you do inside them is up to you.