🏗️ This Pyramid Is 2km Tall and Makes Engineers Cry

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Hello Fellow Engineers!

Welcome to the Real Civil Newsletter - the only newsletter where you can build a 2km pyramid, escape prison with a spoon, and still find time to review a bridge with stained glass walkways (why?).

This week we’re heading to Tokyo Bay for the most ambitious megastructure you’ve never heard of, watching Paddy lose his mind at the beach (and possibly chase an architect), and uncovering questionable bridge design choices disguised as “art.”

There’s also space engineers, amphibious drones, time-traveling flies, and one truly orbital indie puzzle game.

Read on for trusses, tunnels, and toilet-paper-based economies.

Let’s dive into it 👇

This week, we’re giving away ONE copy of The King Is Watching! 👑👁️

You’ve built kingdoms, laid roads, and maybe even escaped prison with a spoon — now it’s time to test your loyalty. The King sees everything… including poor structural planning.

One lucky winner will receive the game and find out if they can survive the throne’s gaze (and possibly engineer a coup).

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for... 🥁

🏆 liondens2305🏆

Check your inbox for your game key and prepare to serve (or sabotage) in the most judgmental monarchy ever!

Missed out? More giveaways are coming - including your chance to influence the next one.

👑 Want in next time? Vote in the poll in this email!

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

Tokyo’s Mega‑City Pyramid (Shimizu TRY 2004)

You know a project’s bold when it makes even the most ambitious engineers squint at the blueprint and go, “Wait, we're doing what now?”

Welcome to the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid

A real proposal to build a 2-kilometer-high city over Tokyo Bay. Yes, two kilometers. That’s four Burj Khalifas stacked on top of each other like a very expensive game of Jenga.

And no offense to our friends in the architecture world (you do beautiful work, really), but this is a level of madness only engineers could genuinely fall in love with.

What makes it a feat of engineering insanity (in the best way):

• 2,004 meters tall
  That’s higher than most mountains in Japan, and it’s supposed to hover over water. Who needs flat ground anyway?

• Five megatrusses
  Think of it as a pyramid made of massive steel spiderwebs, each the size of a city district. And no, these aren’t just for show, they’re designed to survive earthquakes, typhoons, and whatever else 2100 decides to throw at us.

• A million people inside
  Homes, offices, schools, vertical farms, algae power stations… it’s like SimCity and Blade Runner had a baby and gave it a PhD in civil engineering.

• Materials of the future
  This isn't a job for concrete and rebar. We're talking carbon nanotubes, graphene, and self-healing coatings. Basically the stuff Iron Man probably orders in bulk.

Quick Stats to Flex:

• 🏗 Height: 2 km

• 🌇 Capacity: Up to 1 million people

• 🧪 Materials: Graphene, carbon nanotubes, photovoltaic glass

• 💨 Weatherproofing: Designed for seismic, wind, and flood resilience

• 🚄 Internal transport: Inclined elevators, walkways, and pods

Bottom Line:

The Shimizu TRY 2004 pyramid is one of the most ambitious, under-the-radar megabuilds ever proposed. It’s part sci-fi, part civil engineering thesis, and 100% a flex of what humans could do when we stop arguing about floorplans and start thinking in square kilometers.

Now I guess I need to figure out how to create this in Cities Skylines or Timberborn!

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⚡ Cool Links

🛸 Engineering Students Build a Drone That Flies and Swims
Danish students create a viral amphibious 3D-printed drone. It goes underwater and into the air, unlike architects, who just go over budget.

🎮Nintendo drops surprise Indie World Showcase for August 7, 2025
A short indie‑only presentation focused on the Switch and Switch 2 lineup, think cozy, creative, and occasionally anti‑architect gameplay reveals

🐭 Hela: co‑op open‑world indie revealed at Switch 2 Partner Direct
Control a mouse familiar in Scandinavian fairytale forests with physics puzzles, paragliding, and no architects in sight, sets sail in 2026

🚀 Aphelion announced in collab with ESA, space engineers rejoice!
Story‑driven sci‑fi adventure from Don’t Nod explores a frozen exoplanet with real science input, moon base building optional, architects optionaler

👀 Five tiny Steam gems from early August you’ve probably missed
From time‑flipping flies to FMV horror mansions, oddball indie games like Time Flies and Dead Take offering bite‑sized weirdness and fun

🃏 Civil Draft

We’ve officially blasted past 10,000 units sold - big thanks to everyone collecting!

An 8th card has now been added to the preorder pack, this will be a new alt art that will be revealed soon.

In the meantime, here's the finished Space Engineer alt art from the community vote earlier in the campaign:

🚀 There’s also a vote live on Creo right now to decide which alt art card gets the next holo upgrade. The rest will follow as more goals are hit, so get your votes in before the architects try to make everything chrome.

Meanwhile on Patreon, we're testing the waters for Civil Draft accessories:

• Custom binder, collectible coin, playmat, and a super high quality large poron mousemat

• Estimated preorder: November, shipping June 2026.

👉 Vote on the holo card at Creo
👉 Give your thoughts on accessories on Patreon

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

This dog is excited to get to the beach!

🐾 Paddy Alert! Took my dog to the beach and he absolutely lost it - sprinting ahead, tail wagging, ignoring all commands. I swear he just wanted to chase architects off the promenade. Good boy.

👉 Watch Paddy in full zoomie mode here

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

This week I tried to escape prison using only my engineering skills… and a spoon. While digging tunnels and bartering for golden toilets, Arc Tracker helped me remember geometry is fun when you're not knee-deep in dirt.
Think orbital puzzle-solving meets orbital toilet disposal.

🎯 If you like clever puzzles, circular thinking, and games that challenge your engineering brain - check out Arc Tracker on Steam!

👉 Watch me escape (sort of) here

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

Welcome to another episode of “How Much Did the Architects Ruin It?”
Today, we’re reviewing the Pedro e Inês Bridge in Coimbra, Portugal, or as I like to call it, “The Bridge of Glassy Regret.”

✅ The Good (engineer-approved):

• Structurally Clever:
  Two offset cantilevers reach toward each other and meet in the middle. They support one another without any vertical piers in the river. Now that’s a flex.

• Balanced Forces:
  Despite its zigzag look, this thing actually works thanks to some brilliant compression/tension equilibrium. That’s the kind of math that gets engineers excited, not whatever colour palette the architects were choosing.

❌ The Bad (architects definitely got involved):

• Stained Glass Walkways.
  Yes. STAINED GLASS. On a footbridge. Great for a cathedral. Terrible for maintenance, UV damage, and anyone not wearing sunglasses.

• Purposefully Offset Walkways.
  It’s designed so the sides don’t line up, because… art. Because of course they don’t. Nothing screams “architect got the final say” more than a structure that looks like it was installed incorrectly on purpose.

• Function vs. Form?
  Function took a holiday. One slippery surface, one awkward angle, and a bunch of tourists wondering if it’s broken.

Final Score: 4.6/10