What is Identity Quest™?

Identity Quest™ is a free, browser based personal brand simulator from Mashman Consulting Group. You play a founder, executive, entertainer or public figure building a personal brand over years of in-game time, spending a weekly energy budget across content, networking, press, publishing and business building.

Is Identity Quest™ free to play?

Yes. It is free, with no purchase, no paywall and no advertising. It exists as a teaching tool and a lead magnet for MCG.

Do I need to download or install anything?

No. Identity Quest™ runs entirely in a web browser on desktop, tablet and mobile. There is no app store download and no installation step.

What is a personal brand simulator?

A personal brand simulator models the long arc of building a public reputation: how audience, credibility and income interact over time, and how a decision made in one week pays or costs in a later one. A simulator lets you make the trade-offs and then live with them.

Founders, executives, creators, authors, speakers and anyone weighing whether to build a personal brand deliberately rather than by accident. It is also useful for marketers and communications teams who want a working model of how reputation compounds.

Does the game teach a real methodology?

Yes. The mechanics are built on Identity Positioning™, the framework behind Mashman Consulting Group's client work, and on the doctrine in Isaac Mashman's book Personal Branding: A Manifesto on Fame and Influence. In-game numbers are tuned for play and are not published figures.

Can I change how the game plays?

Yes. Two dropdowns sit above your action tiles. Focus sets what the week is for: Audience, Authority, Revenue, Trust or Recovery, each with a trade-off, or Balanced with none. Events sets how often decision cards and crises interrupt: Calm, Standard or Intense. Network opens eleven networking moves, from a message on social media to an industry conference, each with its own cost and payoff. Market conditions also change every few months (an algorithm shift, a conference season, a slow quarter), so the best plan keeps moving.

Can I save my progress?

Guest progress saves locally on the device you are playing on. A free account saves your run and your save slots to the cloud, so you can pick up on another device. The newest progress always wins: switch back to a tab and it loads what you played elsewhere, and if two devices played different runs, both are kept (one in a free save slot).

How long does a full run take?

A short session moves a few in-game weeks. Reaching the higher tiers takes several in-game years, which is deliberate. The slow climb is the point the simulator is making.

What is Brand Power in Identity Quest™?

Brand Power is reach × influence: the number of people your name actually moves. Reach is your followers plus the people who know you off-platform, such as clients, rooms you have spoken in, readers, and neighbours. Influence is your Brand Audit composite from 0 to 100. Your Brand Power sets your tier in the Hierarchy of Personal Branding, from Unconscious Incompetent to International Icon.

How does the Brand Audit in the game work?

It is built to the real Identity Positioning™ Brand Audit: twenty-five dimensions across five pillars weighted 25, 25, 20, 15 and 15 (Omnipresence, Credibility, Seamless Branding, Reputational Health and Risks, Marketability), a composite from 0 to 100 in five bands from Unstructured to Institutional, a Risk Register, and the same cap: Reputational Health under 40 holds the composite at 59. It ranks your three highest-value moves.

Does my career change how the game plays?

Yes. Each of the seven careers (consultant, coach, e-commerce, design agency, blue-collar business, intrapreneur and full-time creator) has its own four Business Moves and its own economy. A coach can launch a group cohort, a trade business can ask for reviews or add a crew, and a creator can drop merch. Events and their wording follow your field and what you have actually done.

Do my decisions have consequences later?

Yes. Business moves with real exposure can come back weeks later as a decision, such as a refund request, a late shipment or scope creep. Shortcuts like bought followers are flagged by the audit until you remediate them, crises handled badly stay on the record for months, and you face at most one decision card a week so each one gets your full attention.

Identity Quest™ | Free Personal Brand Simulator Game

Goals & Rules

GOALS

Grow Followers, Brand Power, Reputation, Credibility, and Money sustainably using Identity Positioning™.

Brand Power is reach × influence: the number of people your name actually moves. Reach is your followers plus the people who know you off-platform; influence is your Brand Audit composite. Visualized as your Skyline.
Six tiers of Brand Power, matching the Hierarchy of Personal Branding: 0 Unconscious Incompetent • 100 Friends & Family • 3,000 Local Hero • 40,000 State Representative • 200,000 National Personality • 600,000 International Icon. You start at the base because everyone has a personal brand whether they direct it or not. International Icon also takes an audit composite of 75 or more: it is never reached on numbers alone.
Reaching a new tier for the first time triggers a Milestone. A short narrative beat with a small permanent bonus.
Business Engine (Business & Output panel) shows a level (0 to 10) and the weekly cash it produces. Engine-building Business Moves level it up; a Professional Website investment increases its $/wk output at the same level.
Revenue Momentum (Business & Output panel) is a compounding multiplier. Built from followers, credibility, reputation, and Business Engine level. Applied to Business Move payouts and Business Engine's weekly revenue. It grows gradually at first and accelerates before leveling off at very high stats, so business income genuinely compounds as your brand grows.
Write Your Book takes 26 weeks of dedicated effort (once per week, 20 energy each). Publishing unlocks a permanent +10% boost to all actions. And unlocks book-specific events like bookstore placement.
Launch Your Podcast takes 4 weeks (once per week, 15 energy each). Once live, Record & Publish Episode (10 energy, repeatable) permanently grows your weekly follower trickle and gives a direct stat bump each time.
Achievements track two things: Doctrine badges (behaviors Isaac Mashman's book teaches) and Milestone badges (raw growth. Followers, cash, firsts). Check the trophy count in the header or the Achievements tab.
Sound: the 🔊 button opens music and effects switches and a volume slider. The score is generated as you play: it changes key every sixteen bars, adds bass, arpeggios, rhythm and melody as your tier rises, turns minor during a decision card or while you are broke, and slows down in burnout. It pauses whenever the game is in the background.
Social Media Advertising (Advertising tab): pick a campaign focus. General Brand Awareness, or once unlocked, Promote Your Book / Podcast / Business. Plus a daily budget ($10–$1,000/day, scaling from +3% to +15%) and a duration in days. It's billed automatically each week for as long as it runs, and the boost lands on whichever focus you chose instead of always going to general reach. It can also draw the occasional negative-comment crisis. A legitimate paid channel, not a shortcut.
Once your podcast is launched, Episodes Published and Total Podcast Downloads unlock as new stats. Recording more than one episode in the same day triggers a fatigue warning. It doesn't block you, but it's a real signal to pace releases.
Once your book is published, its stat card becomes "{Your Name}'s Book" and tracks Total Book Sales, which grow passively each week and get a bump from press placements.

RULES

Actions cost energy/money. A week has 7 Days. Rest Day restores a modest amount of energy without burning a full week. Resting 3+ days in a row without other action risks a Momentum penalty when you advance the week.
Advance Week resolves the week: decay, passive income, random events, and resets the Day counter to 1.
Sponsorship payout scales with followers & credibility (CPM model).
Reputation Events are crises to manage; Strategic Dilemmas are values-based choices tied to Identity Positioning™ doctrine. Both use the same 3-option format. Every one is tied to something you have actually done or built, and you face at most one decision card a week: a move of yours coming back first, then debt, then backlash, then a reputation event, then a dilemma, then a shortcut offer. Storylines wait for a quiet week.
Shortcut offers (Pay-to-Win) give a quick boost but schedule a delayed backlash. MCG's own ethic is to never take them.
Positive random events are gated by realistic thresholds. An industry-leader collab won't appear before 10,000 followers, a fan tribute needs a couple thousand, a guest spot on a top podcast requires your own show to be launched first, and so on. Growth unlocks bigger opportunities, same as real life.
Brand Audit (nav tab) unlocks every 4 weeks. It is built to the real Identity Positioning™ audit: twenty-five dimensions across The Five Personal Brand Pillars (Omnipresence 25%, Credibility 25%, Seamless Branding 20%, Reputational Health & Risks 15%, Marketability 15%), a 0 to 100 composite with five bands (Unstructured, Exposed, Competent, Consolidated, Institutional), a Risk Register, and the same cap: Reputational Health under 40 holds the composite at 59. Most dimensions read the last eight to twelve weeks, so a position slips when the work stops. It ranks your three highest-value moves; run them from the audit (keys 1 to 3) for a bonus you don't get taking the same move at random.
Book Sales (nav tab, unlocks once published): choose paperback, hardback, both, or neither, and set your own price for each. You keep a flat 30% profit per unit (covers publishing, print, and distribution). Minus your Book Agent's cut, if you've hired one. Promote Your Book becomes a repeatable daily action once published.
Team (nav tab): hire experts at one of 3 tiers ($500 / $1,250 / $5,000 per week, billed automatically at Advance Week). A Book Agent takes a cut of book sales but boosts Promote Your Book; a Video/Graphic Editor boosts Post Content; a Podcast Editor boosts episode output; a Networking Coach boosts Network; a Publicist boosts Pitch success. If you can't cover payroll, the most expensive hire is let go automatically.
Impressions track how many people are actually seeing your content lately. Separate from your follower count. Post Content and any active Ad Campaign both generate impressions, but they decay each week (faster if you go quiet). Higher impressions genuinely raise how often sponsors respond and how much they pay, on top of followers and credibility.
Going Broke (Finances tab): set your own debt tolerance (Conservative, Moderate, or Aggressive) for how far into the negative you're willing to go. Cross that line and weekly fees plus real reputation damage start stacking. It's never a game ender: dig out via a Business Partner Loan (guaranteed, ~12% interest), a Bank Loan (not guaranteed, ~18% interest), or selling back an owned Investment for half its cost.
Your Age is set at the start and moves forward with the calendar as you play. Roughly a year every 52 weeks, visible any time in the Age chip. It occasionally shapes which random life event shows up. Texture, not a countdown to anything.
Save Slots (Help ▾): independent save slots, separate from your main autosave. Useful for running side-by-side playthroughs with different careers or archetypes before deciding what to try for real. Signed-in accounts sync slots to the cloud; Guest Mode keeps them on this device only.
MCG Brand Audit (Investments tab): unlike the permanent, one-time investments above it, this is a repeatable, free claim. +5% to every action for 4 weeks. Once it expires you can claim it again right away; while it's active, you can't stack a second one on top.
Meditation (Get More Energy): a free option that restores +5 energy once per day. The single best free recovery option available, if you can actually sit still for it.
Write an Article on Your Site (15⚡): a Personal Brand action. Long-form content that builds real Credibility along with modest followers and impressions, distinct from the quicker reach of Post Content.
Publish a Press Release (10⚡ · $297, once per month): a Business action. Raises Credibility and directly advances your Business Engine a level. The monthly cooldown means it's a periodic lever, not a repeatable grind.
Publishing your book now requires a $100 ISBN fee at the moment your manuscript is finished. If you can't cover it yet, the manuscript waits for you, no progress lost. Once Year 2 begins (Week 53+), you can start writing another book. Each additional one costs another $100 ISBN fee but adds a further permanent +5% to all actions, stacking with the first book's +10%.
Executive Assistant (Team tab): a weekly-cost hire ($750/$1,250/$2,500 across 3 tiers) that reduces the energy cost of every action by 1/2/3 respectively. A genuine efficiency multiplier across your whole week, not tied to any single action.
Healthy Decisions / Quick Fixes (Get More Energy): two one-click buttons that use every available option in a category at once. Healthy Decisions covers Cold Shower, Nap, Workout, and Meditation; Quick Fixes covers Coffee, Energy Drink, and Proper Meal. Individual buttons are still there if you'd rather pick one at a time.
Sponsorships are capped at 2 attempts per rolling 4-week month and are not guaranteed. A sponsor may not respond at all, and category (Local Business up to Premium/Luxury Brand) affects both pay and odds. Frequent sponsorships build audience fatigue over time, which can trigger real Audience Fatigue events.
Get More Energy (toolbar): Rest Day is the main way to recover, but six other realistic options exist. Cold Shower, Power Nap, Quick Workout (all free), Coffee ($3), Energy Drink ($5), and a Proper Meal ($12). Each usable once per day.
Pitch the Press/Podcast opens a target picker instead of resolving instantly. Podcast Guest Spots land most often but pay the least; Local News, Major Podcasts, Trade Publications, and finally National TV/News get progressively harder to land, cost more energy to attempt, and pay off bigger when they hit. Your estimated odds are shown before you commit. Most pitches go unanswered, as in real life: a miss makes your follow-up with that kind of outlet a little warmer, and every extra pitch in the same week lands less often.
Business / Career Type is chosen once at the start and shapes your entire economy: every field has its own four Business Moves. Consultant and Design Agency pay the most per move but are slower to build; Dropshipping/E-Commerce and Full-Time Content Creator scale fastest with a large following but pay little per deal; Blue-Collar Business and Intrapreneur at a Startup give a steady guaranteed weekly income but cap out lower; Coach is the balanced default.
Strain & Burnout: skipping Rest Day and leaning on quick fixes instead of real recovery builds Strain week over week. High Strain triggers Burnout: a temporary energy cap (70 instead of 100) and a flat output penalty, plus a real crisis moment. Only actual rest clears it.
Investments are one-time purchases that permanently raise the efficiency of specific actions. See the Investments tab.
Weekly Focus, Events & Markets: Focus (the first dropdown above the tiles) tilts the whole week: Audience +15% followers, Authority +15% credibility, Revenue +15% cash, Trust +25% reputation, each at a small cost elsewhere; Recovery trades 10% of output for +8 energy next week and less strain. Events (the second dropdown) sets how often cards and crises arrive (Calm, Standard, Intense). Every few months a market condition runs for 3 to 6 weeks and changes which work pays; the gold banner names it and the weeks left.
Action tiles & hotkeys: This Week shows your core actions as tiles with their cost, the full-value uses left this week, and the reason when one is locked. Rarer moves (Press Release, Sponsorship, Advertising) sit under More Actions, and nothing appears in both places. On a keyboard: 1 Post, 2 Network, 3 Article, 4 Business Moves, 5 Pitch, 6 Book, 7 Podcast or Episode, 8 Promote Book, R Rest, A Advance Week. Inside the Brand Audit, keys 1 to 3 run the three priority moves.
Networking moves: Network opens eleven ways to meet people. Light ones (a message on social media, a comment, reconnecting) cost little and pay a little; a networking event is the classic; volunteering and hosting a dinner build reputation; a conference or a mastermind costs money and unlocks with your following. Walking up to a stranger can be awkward. Every move shares the week's networking freshness, and the bigger ones run once a week.
Audience freshness: each week the first 4 posts, 3 networking sessions, 2 articles, 2 projects and 2 episodes land at full value. Each one past that returns 25% less than the one before, because the same people are hearing from you again. The pips on each tile count down what is left, and it all resets when you advance the week.
Lucky breaks (hero events: viral moments, media features, collaborations) roll once per week, when you advance it. The odds start at 5% and rise 7.5 points for every different kind of work you did that week (posting, networking, projects, press, articles, episodes), up to 50%. Visionaries get ×1.4; burnout halves them. The Advance Week button shows this week's odds live.
Decision cards (Reputation Events and Strategic Dilemmas) list their options in a random order, with the energy and money each one costs shown up front. What they do to reputation and credibility is the judgment call. Closing a card is a choice too: it takes the lowest-effort response.
The week wrap appears after every Advance Week: what changed, how many kinds of work you did, and one line on what to try next.
Daily Brief (Help ▾ or the chip beside This Week): three small goals a day, the same for every player on that date. Finish all three for +15 energy and +3 credibility in the current save (+5 on a 7-day streak).
Storylines are multi-week arcs built from real relationship dynamics: a show inviting you back, a reporter writing a profile, a contact from months ago opening a door, someone copying your format, a speaking circuit that starts with forty people in a room. Your choice in Part 1 changes what Part 2 even says. One storyline runs at a time and they never overlap.
The Rival (beside the growth chart) builds under exactly the same rules you do. Same tables, same weekly energy budget, same growth formulas, same decay, same luck rates. They are randomised at the start of every run and they do not cheat.
Weekly Objectives appear above the board and reset when you advance the week. Small, finishable, and they pay out immediately.
Reposition Your Brand (Business ▾) lets you change archetype, motivator and what you're known for mid-run. It costs money, energy, about 8% of your followers and a quarter of your credibility. Everything else carries over.
Save Slots now include a Compare Runs table: your current run against every saved slot, with the strongest result in each row highlighted. "Week reached" is lower-is-better, since the same tier earlier is the better run.
Focus Mode (top right) hides guide text and the FAQ. Every number, chart and panel stays on screen. Each panel also has its own − button if you want a smaller board, and both choices are remembered.
Legacy Runs unlock at International Icon. Start the Hierarchy again from the base with a permanent, compounding bonus and a brand-new rival.

Motivators → Outcome Multipliers

Money: cash ×1.30 • cred ×1.05 • but followers ×0.80. The trade-off for chasing revenue over reach.
Mission: followers ×1.15 • virality ×1.15 • network ×1.10 • crisis impact ×1.40 • but cash ×0.75. The trade-off for chasing impact over income.
Vanity: virality ×1.40 • followers ×1.30 • but network ×0.70 and rep/cred ×0.90. The trade-off for chasing attention over real relationships.
Combo: perfectly balanced baseline (×1.00 across the board). No trade-offs, no bonuses.

Archetypes

Visionary: 40% higher odds of a weekly lucky break (viral surges, media features, collabs).
Connector: +25% Network output, plus a direct +7 percentage-point boost to Pitch success chance.
Strategist: +5 bonus energy on Rest Day, plus the highest Brand Power conversion rate from your underlying stats.
Creator: +20% Post output, plus genuinely lower variance on Post/Network/Podcast results. Steadier week to week, not just a flavor claim.

Realistic Growth Modeling

Post, Network, and Podcast episodes scale off a small floor plus a small percentage of your current followers, with diminishing returns above 50,000. A brand-new account gains a handful of followers per action; a large account gains more in absolute terms but a smaller percentage. Big spikes come from genuine hero events and press hits, not from routine posting.

Business Engine

Think of the Business Engine as your monetization switchboard. Inputs: audience + credibility + offers. Outputs: revenue and long‑term brand power. High credibility → better close rates; reputation → referrals. Followers prime the pump but do not guarantee cash.

Business Moves are different for every field. Engine moves grow the Business Engine, proof moves add testimonials and case studies, reach moves meet new people, and cash moves pay this week. Some come back weeks later as a decision; Paper the Business makes those land softer.
Spammy tactics or crises reduce its effectiveness.

Glossary

Brand Power
Reach × influence: the number of people your name actually moves. Visualized as your Skyline.

The Five Personal Brand Pillars
What the Brand Audit scores you on, in order and weighted 25 / 25 / 20 / 15 / 15: Omnipresence, Credibility, Seamless Branding, Reputational Health & Risks, Marketability. Twenty-five dimensions in all, the same ones MCG uses on real clients.

Priority Moves
The three moves the audit ranks highest: the dimensions where a point of improvement is worth most to your composite. Each shows what it costs and the bonus it pays. Run them from inside the audit (keys 1 to 3). The first one you take in an audit period pays the bonus.

Risk Register
The risks the audit raises from what actually happened: a bought audience, paid placements cited as coverage, a claim you could not back up, live negative material, no contracts behind a working business. Each names the move that clears it.

Reach
Everyone who knows your name: followers, plus the people who know you off-platform (clients, rooms you have spoken in, readers, neighbours).

Influence
Your Brand Audit composite, 0 to 100: the share of your reach your name actually moves.

Business Moves
Four field-specific moves plus Paper the Business. Styles: Cash now, Builds the engine, Proof, Reach, Protection. Your motivator adds 15% to one style.

Comes Back
A decision card created by a business move you made a few weeks earlier: a refund request, a late shipment, a client who wants more.

Storyline
A multi-week arc. A choice you make now returns several weeks later carrying its consequence. One runs at a time.

The Rival
A brand built under identical rules: same archetype and motivator tables, same weekly energy, same formulas, same decay. No hidden advantage in either direction.

Weekly Objective
A small goal that refreshes when you advance the week. Finishing it pays credibility, reputation, cash or energy.

Repositioning
Changing your archetype, motivator and angle mid-run. Costs money, energy, roughly 8% of your audience and a chunk of credibility. Identity Positioning™ is a choice you can revisit.

Legacy Run
Offered at International Icon. Restarts the Hierarchy from the base carrying a permanent +8% to every action, compounding each generation.

Focus Mode
Hides guide text and the FAQ. Every number stays. Panels still collapse individually from the − button in each header.

Freshness
How many uses of an action are left at full value this week. Past that, each repeat returns 25% less. Resets every week.

Lucky Break
A hero event: a viral moment, a feature, a collaboration. Rolls once a week, with odds that rise for every kind of work you mixed in.

Daily Brief
Three small goals a day. Finishing all three pays a small bonus and extends your day streak.

Reputation
Public sentiment from interactions, networking, delivery.

Credibility
Proof: media, stages, case studies, authority markers.

Followers
Audience size across platforms; not equal to revenue.

Engagement
% interacting; improved by relevance & consistency.

Money
Cash on hand; influenced by the Business Engine, offers, and trust.

Motivators
Money (ROI), Mission (reach), Vanity (virality), Combo (balanced).

Business Engine
Your monetization level (0 to 10) and its weekly cash output. Levels up from engine-building Business Moves; boosted by the Professional Website investment.

Strategic Dilemma
A values-based fork tied to Identity Positioning doctrine. No clean answer, only tradeoffs.

Milestone
A one-time narrative beat and small permanent bonus the first time you reach a new tier.

Day
Position within the current 7-day week. Rest Day advances it; Advance Week resets it to 1.

Investments
One-time purchases (equipment, wardrobe, NFC card, website, media training) that permanently raise a specific action's efficiency.

Write Your Book
A 26-week, energy-intensive project. Completing it grants a permanent +10% boost to all actions and unlocks book-specific events.

Launch Your Podcast
A 4-week project. Once live, recording episodes permanently grows your weekly follower trickle and directly boosts stats each time.

Ad Campaign
A paid daily-budget campaign running for a chosen number of days. Boosts trickle and adds direct followers, billed automatically each week. Can draw negative-comment crises.

Impressions
How many people are seeing your content right now. Built from Post Content and Ad Campaigns, decaying if you go quiet. Boosts both sponsor response rate and sponsorship pay.

Going Broke
Triggers once your balance crosses your own debt tolerance line. Brings weekly fees and reputation damage until you dig out via a loan or selling an investment. Never a game ender.

Sponsor Fatigue
Builds up with each closed sponsorship deal, decays slowly over time. High fatigue raises the odds of an Audience Fatigue event. Followers questioning how often and how genuine your endorsements are.

Strain
Builds when you skip real rest and lean on quick energy fixes; decays when you take Rest Days and genuine recovery. High Strain triggers Burnout.

Burnout
Temporary state once Strain gets too high: energy caps at 70 instead of 100, and every action's output drops. Clears only through real rest, not quick fixes.

Effects Feed
Shows every delta after actions and random events.

Personal and Business Posts
Post asks which kind. A Personal Post shows your life and grows followers and reputation; a Business Post shows your work in your field’s own terms and builds credibility, sometimes a lead. The Brand Audit scores the Skyline Strategy: two about the work for every one about life.

Book Workshop and Show Planner
The book and the podcast open menus. Ask a client for a testimonial or a peer for a foreword before launch; interview a client, a peer or a bigger name on your show. Testimonials and client interviews count as proof in the audit.

Networking Moves
Eleven ways to meet people, opened from the Network tile: from a message on social media (4⚡) to an industry conference (22⚡ and $400). Light moves cost little and pay a little; the bigger rooms unlock with your following and run once a week. All of them share the week's networking freshness.

Warm Lead
Left by some networking and business moves. Your next cash-earning business move pays 30% more. You can hold up to three.

Weekly Focus
The dropdown above your tiles that sets what the week is for: Audience, Authority, Revenue, Trust or Recovery, each with a trade-off, or Balanced with none.

Events
How often decision cards and crises interrupt: Calm, Standard or Intense. Lucky breaks are never reduced.

Market Conditions
Every few months the world changes for three to six weeks (an algorithm shift, conference season, a slow quarter) and tilts which work pays. The banner above your tiles names it and the weeks left.

Pitch Odds
Your chance of landing a pitch. Most cold pitches go unanswered, as in real life. Standing, media training and a publicist raise it; a miss makes your next pitch to that kind of outlet a little warmer.

Decision Card
A reputation event, dilemma or opportunity: red for a crisis, gold for a dilemma, green for an opening. Each option shows its cost. Closing the card takes the lowest-effort response.

IDENTITY QUEST

Personal Brand Simulator · MCG

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👋 Welcome to Identity Quest™

Personal branding sounds like something reserved for celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. It isn't. And that's the whole point of this game.

Identity Quest™ turns the real principles behind Identity Positioning™ into something playable, not just readable. Every action here (posting, networking, pitching press, investing in yourself, writing a book, launching a podcast) mirrors a real decision real people make while building a name worth trusting. There's no single "right" way to win. There's only the tradeoffs you choose, same as real life.

Check Goals & Rules anytime for the doctrine behind the mechanics, and Achievements to track how you're growing. Good luck out there. Go build something real.

Start Your Journey

Primary Motivator

Archetype

Business / Career Type

Each field has its own Business Moves and its own Business Engine economy. Some pay more per deal, some scale faster with followers, some give a steady weekly baseline instead. Full details are in each option above.

Your Age

Your age moves forward with the calendar as you play (about a year every 52 weeks) and can shape which random life events show up.

Who are you? What do you want to be known for? Choose Target Tier

Visionary: 40% higher odds of a weekly lucky break (viral moments, media hits, collabs) · Strategist: more energy on Rest Day + most efficient Brand Power conversion · Connector: stronger Network output + real boost to Pitch success · Creator: stronger Post output + steadier (lower-variance) results

Choose Your Business / Career Type

New feature: your Business/Career type gives you that field's own Business Moves and shapes your Business Engine. Pick one to keep building with. You can see the full breakdown in Goals & Rules any time.

Reputation Event

A situation arises…

Choose Your Pitch Target

Safer bets land more often but pay less. Bigger swings are rare but can move the needle a lot. Landing each type at least once unlocks its own achievement.

Networking Moves

Post Content

Moves

Business Moves

Every field has its own moves. Cash now pays this week. Builds the engine raises the weekly revenue your Business Engine produces, and is often a gamble. Proof is credibility you can produce on request. Reach puts you in front of new people and can leave a warm lead. Some moves come back a few weeks later as a decision; Paper the Business makes those land softer.

Sponsorship Offer

Local Business

A sponsor wants to work with you…

Milestone Reached

Local Hero

You're Losing Momentum

Too many consecutive rest weeks are costing you followers. Get back to work.

Shortcut Offer (Pay‑to‑Win)

A tempting shortcut appears…

Social Media Advertising

Paid reach. A legitimate channel, scaled to spend, and not the same as the shortcuts MCG warns against. Billed automatically from your daily budget for the duration you choose.

⚠️ Reset Everything?

This will permanently erase all progress. Stats, investments, badges, book/podcast progress, and any active ad campaign. This cannot be undone.

Hierarchy of Personal Branding

The six tiers of the Hierarchy of Personal Branding, in Brand Power. International Icon also takes a Consolidated position (an audit composite of 75 or more): it is never reached on numbers alone.

Monthly Brand Audit

A periodic, honest look at how your brand actually moved this month. Modeled on Identity Positioning™ principles.

Priority Moves

Risk Register

The Five Pillars

Since Your Last Audit

Notes

Achievements

Doctrine badges reward the behaviors Isaac Mashman's book teaches. Milestone badges track raw growth. Both keep. Neither expires.

Get More Energy

Rest Day is the main way to recover, but real life has other ways to top off. Each one usable once per day, none of them infinite.

Use every available option in a category at once. No need to click each one individually.

Save Slots

Run separate playthroughs side by side. Different careers, archetypes, or motivators. To compare outcomes before you decide what to try in real life. Switching slots automatically saves your current progress first, so nothing gets lost.

Compare Runs

Your current run against every saved slot, side by side.

Finances

This isn't a game ender. Going into the red has real consequences, but there's always a way to dig out.

Build Your Team

Weekly salaries, billed automatically at Advance Week. Higher tiers cost more but perform better. Fire anytime. No penalty beyond losing the boost.

Total Weekly Payroll: $0/wk

Book Sales

Choose any combination. Both formats, just one, or neither for now. Profit margin is a flat 30%, covering publishing, print, and distribution.

Paperback

Hardback

Invest in Your Personal Brand

Permanent, one-time upgrades that raise the efficiency of specific actions. A real-world investment in your Seamless Branding, paid for once.

🎉 Congratulations.

Book Published

Your book is finished and published. It's now a permanent credential behind everything you do. A standing case study in Identity Positioning™, and a Media Feature-worthy story in its own right. Every action you take from here on earns a permanent +10% boost.

🎙️ Your Show is Live.

Podcast Launched

Your podcast is live. Every episode from here builds residual reach. Your follower trickle grows a little with each release, and each episode gives your stats a direct boost. Consistency compounds; that's Omnipresence at work.

Quick Tour

👋

YOUR BRAND STORY

Target Reached

There's no final ending here. The Skyline keeps going as high as you want to take it.

Storyline

Part 1

Something Unlocked

Reposition Your Brand

Year in Review

Begin a Legacy Run

Play Identity Quest™ In Real Life

Everything in this game is built on real methodology. Identity Positioning™, the same framework Mashman Consulting Group (MCG) uses with founders, executives, entertainers, and public figures building personal brands that actually hold up under real scrutiny.

If playing this made you think differently about your own name, your own story, or your own next move. That's the whole point. MCG works with a limited number of clients to optimize, position, and scale a personal brand the same ethical, organic way this game teaches: no shortcuts, no paid placements, just a clear identity and a real strategy behind it.

Want to see where you actually stand? The MCG Brand Audit is free right now at Identity Positioning™.

Get Your Free Brand Audit Visit mashmancg.com

Identity Quest™ Personal Brand Simulator

This Week Year 1 · Week 1

Your Growth Every week of this run

The Five Pillars Live read

The Rival Same rules, same clock

Business & Output

Effects Feed What each choice did

The Skyline: Your Hierarchy of Personal Branding Identity Positioning™

About Identity Quest™ The world's first personal brand simulator

What Is in the Game

What the Simulator Teaches

How to Play

Frequently Asked Questions