🏗️ Outdoor skiing... in the desert.

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Hello Fellow Engineers!

Welcome to Real Civil Newsletter, the only newsletter where bridges get reviewed, dogs become video game protagonists, and architects get roasted.

This week we’re skiing in the desert (because of course we are), reviewing a bridge taller than your hopes and dreams, and watching Paddy the Apprentice ask life’s biggest question: “Am I allowed it?”

Plus: haunted powerwash musicals, farming simulators with a murder problem, and indie game gems that cost less than a flat white.

Let’s dive into it 👇

♟️ This week, we’re giving away THREE copies of Dicey Chess! ♟️🎲

Love chess but wish it was way less predictable and way more chaotic? Dicey Chess turns strategy on its head. Random moves, weird rules, and total brain-melty fun. It's like if your rook took a risk management course and immediately quit.

And now, the big reveal... 🥁

🏆 maidenpriest139 🏆
🏆 keiranc13 🏆
🏆 lucius.drake 🏆

Check your inbox for your key and get ready to play the most unhinged version of chess since someone let an architect near the board.

Missed out? Don’t worry! More giveaways are coming!

🗳️ Want in on the next one? Vote for the next card to be revealed in this newsletter!

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

Trojena – Saudi Arabia's Ski Resort in the Desert

Because when life gives you 40°C heat... you build a ski resort.

Yes, welcome to Trojena, Saudi Arabia’s absolutely bonkers plan to create a high-tech, high-altitude winter resort in the Middle of the Blistering Desert. Slated for 2026, this project is part of the mega giga ultra-budget NEOM initiative, which we assume was pitched by an engineer on Red Bull and bad sleep.

❄️ What’s the Big Deal?

• Outdoor skiing... in the desert.
  Trojena will somehow offer year-round snow sports at elevations reaching 2,600 metres. Basically, Saudi Arabia looked at the Alps and said, "Bet we can build one of those too. But shinier."

• Artificial lakes, snowy peaks, and mirrored skyscrapers
  Because why stop at functional when you can add massive glass façades to blind passing satellites?

• A gravity-defying “folded village” with cantilevered buildings
  Great news: engineers made sure it won’t collapse. Bad news: somewhere an architect is trying to make all the buildings curve into the shape of a falcon or something.

• Energy-efficient and eco-friendly
  Despite the climate gymnastics, the resort will use renewable energy ("as long as you ignore the vast quantities of material and equipment required to build the thing!), smart infrastructure, and probably a small army of AI climate control systems, finally, robots doing something useful instead of generating "design inspiration" for architects on Pinterest.

👷‍♂️ Final Thoughts

Truly an engineering miracle, and a future headache for anyone maintaining HVAC. But hey, at least it wasn’t designed by architects alone.

⚡ Cool Links

👀I played with my snake for 27 minutes...
Presented without context.

🌉 USA’s Mega-Bridge Rankings Update
A deep dive into the tallest and highest bridges globally - spotlighting France’s Millau Viaduct (tallest pylon) and the USA’s own Royal Gorge Bridge (highest deck in the States).

🌾 Grave Seasons – Farm + Murder Mystery
From Blumhouse comes a cozy farming sim with dark murder-mystery flair: grow crops and romance or catch a supernatural serial killer. Wholesome with a side of horror, engineers cultivating crops beats architects building pristine blueprints any day.

🎵 Ghost Powerwash Musical… Wut?
Revealed at Xbox/Summer Game Fest: There Are No Ghosts at The Grand, a supernatural powerwash simulator… musical? Clean haunted hotels, bust ghostly beats, with a talking cat sidekick. Just when you thought sim games peaked, engineering ingenuity popping out of every sudsy corner.

🏛 Wholesome Direct 2025 – Cozy Indie Showcase
The annual indie celebration dropped this week, featuring cozy life‑sims (Townbox, Discounty, Sheepherds!), emotional tales (Fishbowl, Anxiety Puppy), and building zen-sims.

🤫 Super Secret Trading Cards

As voted by you, this week’s top-secret reveal is none other than…

🎡 Super Happy Fun Land, the location card with the most deceptively cheerful name in engineering history.

Illustrated by the incredible Cy, whose style perfectly captures the card’s unnerving cuteness, this twisted fairground is where unlucky engineers are “banished” to live out their remaining turns in total tapped uselessness. (In Timberborner lore: it’s also where the sick beavers go. You know… for “fun.” 😬)

As a location card, it affects all players. If this nightmare carnival enters play, each player must tap and banish one engineer, who can’t be used again until the card is removed or replaced. Think of it as… unpaid leave, with neon lights.

Here’s a peek at the development process:
📸 Final card:

📝 Sketch concepts:

For the collectors out there: yes, there’s a holographic version. The holo layer will shimmer over the background and lights, while the beavers and arrows remain matte. Think Pokémon nostalgia, if Pikachu got trapped in a dystopian funhouse run by beavers.

Now, the real question is…

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

Am I allowed it?

He found a discarded toy and gave me the look… you know the one: “Am I allowed it?” 🥺

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

🌱 Lyca is a small, chill game where you restore a dead wasteland into a lush meadow, and now it features Paddy, my very own dog, as a playable character. Yes, really.

It’s like peaceful vibes meets plant-based chaos, and it costs about the same as a coffee. ☕

👉 Show them some love, Grab it on Steam HERE and support a brilliant indie dev who put a very good boy in their game.

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

Ah yes, the Millau Viaduct, France’s proudest engineering flex and probably the only structure in Europe taller than an architect's ego.

This record-breaking cable-stayed bridge soars a ridiculous 343 metres above the Tarn Valley, taller than the Eiffel Tower (take that, Gustave). It’s the tallest bridge structure in the world, and yes, that includes your cousin’s dodgy Minecraft suspension project.

Built to relieve traffic from a horrible bottleneck in the Tarn River gorge, it spans 2.46 km with seven elegant piers, all laser-aligned with more precision than an architect lining up throw pillows on a concrete bench.

⚙️ Engineering Feats:

• Designed by Michel Virlogeux (engineer) and that one architect who... helped with aesthetics (sigh).

• Constructed using incremental launching from each side, that’s right, they built it like a reverse Lego set from both ends, and it actually lined up.

• Each pylon is a hollow concrete tower, designed to flex slightly in wind.

• The deck is steel, lightweight yet strong, and supported by 121 cable stays.

We deduct 0.6 points for some needless architectural flair, like topping a world-class steak with edible glitter. But still, chef’s kiss on the engineering. An absolute unit of a bridge.

Final Score: 9.4/10

🏗 r/realcivilengineer Spotlight

This one might just be too strong for the newsletter!