I replaced my dashboard with a navigable 3D universe — here's what I learned

Tin Papučić — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 01:23:24 +0000

A few months ago I asked myself a question I couldn't answer:
what if the web wasn't flat?

Not in a gimmick way. Not "let's add a parallax effect."
I mean — what if navigating a platform felt like navigating space?
What if your reputation wasn't a number on a profile page,
but something you built by literally moving through a universe?

That's Lightverse.

The concept

Instead of a dashboard, users land on a 3D universe view.
Three galaxies orbit a Genesis point. You click one,
the camera pushes in, star systems appear.
You click a star system, planets materialize.
You click a planet — that's your destination.
A knowledge node, a news feed, a building tool,
your identity profile.

Every level of navigation has meaning:

Galaxy = domain (knowledge, identity, finance, art)
Star system = category within that domain
Planet/node = the actual feature or content

The breadcrumb at the top reads:
Lightverse → Lumina Archives → Light Codex → What is Light?

That's not just a UI element. That's a location in space.

What's actually built

Five galaxies are live or in progress:

Lumina Archives — knowledge galaxy.
Slide-based learning nodes covering the Light economy,
lore, and financial literacy (what school didn't teach you —
compound interest, how banks create money, why this isn't taught).

Identity Nebula — your reputation galaxy.
Profile, achievements, Light score, social connections.
Your cosmic color — picked from 8 presets —
appears everywhere your identity does.

The Forge — build galaxy.
The Light Generator: a 5-stage mechanic where you literally
construct a crystal reactor over ~20 hours.
A hologram materializes into a solid 3D model on completion.
87 Active Light awarded. Currently adding procedural voxel
architecture generation here.

The Signal — transparent news galaxy.
14 sources (BBC, Reuters, FT, ECB, Fed, Nature, arXiv...)
collected every 6 hours, each signal tagged with:
funding type (state/private/nonprofit), editorial bias,
and a corroboration score — how many independent organizations
are covering the same story. Not "objective." Transparent.

The Exchange — financial literacy galaxy.
6 nodes covering what money actually is, how banks create it,
inflation, budgeting, compound interest, and why none of this
was taught in school.

The reputation system

Light is earned through exploration, learning, completing
challenges, and building. It has three layers:

Core Light — permanent, never expires
Stable Light — reflects consistency over time
Active Light — temporary, must be renewed (30 days)

Your reputation doesn't freeze at your best moment.
It lives with you.

The honest part

I work three shifts at a cookie factory in Osijek, Croatia.
I built this in the hours between shifts.

Stack: Laravel + Inertia.js + React Three Fiber + Three.js +
MobX + Python (for the news collector/verifier pipeline).

Is 3D navigation actually better than a dashboard?
I genuinely don't know yet. It's slower to learn.
It requires orientation. But once you know it —
you know where everything is spatially, not just where to click.

What I'd love to know

Does spatial navigation make sense as a UI pattern, or is it just beautiful friction?
The Signal's corroboration scoring — useful signal or false confidence?
Procedural voxel architecture generation as an art form in a browser — has anyone seen this attempted?
What would make you actually stay in a universe rather than leave after the novelty?

Honest opinions only. I can take it.

lightverse.cloud

Building Lightverse — a reputation-based system in a 3D web environment (React + Laravel + Three.js). Would love feedback from devs: does a reputation layer for the 3D web make sense to you? lightverse.cloud 🚀

Tin Papučić — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:02:51 +0000

DEV Community: Tin Papučić

I replaced my dashboard with a navigable 3D universe — here's what I learned

Building Lightverse — a reputation-based system in a 3D web environment (React + Laravel + Three.js). Would love feedback from devs: does a reputation layer for the 3D web make sense to you? lightverse.cloud 🚀