Building Universes from Code: Points as the Skeleton of a Living World

Tim Ellis
Dec 20, 2025
2 min read

Series: The Architecture of Presence - Part 3

A stylised 3D character stands before a vast landscape, with glowing points connected by lines spread across the terrain, representing a living digital world structured by meaningful locations.

As systems mature, you begin to see the pattern.

Spawn points. Checkpoints. Audio emitters. Trigger locations. Moments of interaction.

They are not separate ideas - they are expressions of the same underlying truth:

that worlds are shaped not just by geometry, but by meaningful locations within that geometry.

By treating these as a unified concept - points that describe intent rather than implementation - the engine gains a quiet elegance. Systems no longer need to know what something is used for; they only need to know that this place matters.

And so, a single point can become many things. A beginning. A memory. A signal. A decision.

This abstraction does something profound. It reduces complexity while increasing possibility. It allows creators to place ideas into a world, not just objects. And it allows the engine to interpret those ideas consistently, across audio, gameplay, narrative, and beyond.

In the end, this is how digital worlds begin to feel coherent. Not because every system is tightly coupled, but because they all agree on what matters - and where.

Because in any universe, real or simulated, structure emerges not from chaos…but from the quiet agreement that certain points in space are worth paying attention to.