Empire of Sugar

🦄 Empire of Sugar 🌈

You start with one unicorn, a bathtub in the corner, and no idea what is out there.

A turn-based game of light and sugar on a board hidden under clouds.

Explained in-game. Jump right in; come back for the hints below if you get stuck.
Seven boards, from a two-turn tutorial to 25×25. Best played in order, but none of them is locked.
Every board scores you as a % of my own best score. The seven are the same for everybody, and 100% is not a cap.
From the fifth board on, a rival: a dark unicorn from the opposite corner.

🤖 On the use of AI

A deliberate split of roles, and it seems fair to say in which way:

Mine: every design decision (ideas, theme, mechanics, economy, balancing) and the template from my 2025 entry, size tricks included.
Claude Code's: the implementation, byte-golfing, and the bot I balanced against.

SoundBox player by Marcus Geelnard.

Balance the two incomes. This matters most. 💧 pays for each step, 🍬 buys unicorns. A 🌈 through a ⛲ makes 💧, through a 🍭 makes 🍬. Water without unicorns is wasted; unicorns without water cannot move.
Stand between a ⛲ and a 🍭 and one unicorn lights one of each.
Exploring is a multiplier. Every 🌈 and 🦄 scores 1 point per % of ☁️ cleared.
The middle tile is always a 🚿. A second bathtub: more income, another place to buy unicorns. With a rival, only one of you gets it.
A new unicorn pays for itself. More unicorns, more clouds cleared and more 🌈 lit. Buy early.
Let them grow. Three turns of shining earn a rank, up to 3; a rank 3 🌈 pays three times as much.
Save steps. Steps off a 🍮 are free. 🍩 are portal pairs: jump for 2 💧.
Presents can wait. Their color shows what is inside. Take 💧 early, 🍬 and 🦄 once you can move a whole herd.