Building Universes from Code: When One World Becomes Many

Tim Ellis
Dec 20, 2025
1 min read

Series: The Challenge of Cross-Platform Reality - Part 1

A stylised 3D character stands between three distinct environments separated by vertical light panels: a modern city, a forest, and an industrial city at dusk, symbolising one system existing across multiple platforms.

In theory, code feels universal. Logic is logic. Algorithms behave the same wherever they are executed. A completed system can feel like a finished universe - self-contained, stable, complete.

But the moment we ask that universe to exist on more than one platform, everything changes.

Operating systems look similar on the surface, yet beneath their interfaces lie fundamentally different environments - different file systems, memory models, security assumptions, and graphical pipelines. Each operating system carries its own history, its own priorities, its own interpretation of how software should behave.

So, when “finished” code is introduced to another platform, it isn’t simply deployed - it is translated.

Paths resolve differently. Permissions behave unexpectedly. Timing shifts just enough to matter. What was once a single, coherent world quietly splits into parallel realities, each obeying slightly different laws.

In the next post, we’ll explore why these differences reveal themselves only at the final stages - and why cross-platform issues often appear when everything else seems done.