Refinery Simulator

What it does

The Great Refinery Run is a browser-based game that walks players through the steps of oil refining. Users guide crude oil from extraction through desalting, distillation, hydrotreating, catalytic cracking, and blending into finished fuel products. The game includes interactive challenges like removing salt from crude oil, separating molecules by weight in a distillation tower, cracking heavy hydrocarbons, and choosing logistics routes for final delivery. A "Just the Facts" mode provides refinery information without gameplay elements.

Who it is for

The game targets people who lack petroleum industry knowledge but want to understand how refineries work. The creator, a chemical engineer and refinery logistics manager, built it to explain downstream operations to family members and non-specialists. The homepage mentions it as a companion to a book called "Fueling Curiosity: The ABCs of Refining." The game treats STEM education as its primary audience.

Pricing

The site does not show prices.

How it stands out

The game preserves scientific accuracy while remaining accessible to non-engineers. Rather than simplify refining into cartoon abstraction, it uses real process names (hydrotreating, fluid catalytic cracking, HF alkylation) and actual chemistry concepts like molecular weight separation and sulfur removal. The interactive mechanics force users to understand cause-and-effect: heating causes separation, cracking produces coke buildup requiring catalyst regeneration, pressure changes affect boiling points. The inclusion of logistics choices at the end connects refining to real-world distribution constraints.

What a founder should check

First, verify the addressable market for refinery education. Established petroleum industry training uses specialized software and in-person instruction; educational games face competition from vocational programs, university curricula, and vendor-provided simulators that refineries already use for employee training.

Second, examine switching costs and distribution. If schools or companies adopt this, what replaces it, and how hard is that to remove? The connection to "Fueling Curiosity" suggests a book bundling strategy, which limits reach unless the book gains adoption first.

Third, understand the moat. A single developer with domain expertise created this, but scaling requires ongoing maintenance as refining processes evolve, browser technology changes, and competitors build similar tools. The educational STEM game space attracts well-funded startups and nonprofit initiatives with larger marketing budgets.