Choosing Your Playstyle
Every run starts with four choices: a motivator, an archetype, a career and a target tier. Each one tilts the numbers. None of them is a wrong answer, and you can reposition later.
The Four Motivators
Your motivator is why you are building a brand: money, mission or attention. It multiplies results across the whole run. Each one buys a strength with a weakness.
| Motivator | Stronger | Weaker | Business style it favours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Money | Cash x1.30, credibility x1.05 | Followers x0.80 | Cash now, +15% |
| Mission | Followers x1.15, virality x1.15, networking x1.10 | Cash x0.75, crises hit x1.40 | Proof, +15% |
| Vanity | Virality x1.40, followers x1.30 | Networking x0.70, reputation and credibility x0.90 | Reach, +15% |
| Combo | x1.00 across the board. No bonus, no penalty. | ||
Combo is the default and the easiest to read. Money suits a player who wants the business to carry the run. Mission and Vanity grow an audience faster and pay for it elsewhere.
The Four Archetypes
Your archetype is how you work best. It is a smaller tilt than the motivator, aimed at one kind of move.
Snapshot
What each archetype does
- Visionary
- 40% higher odds of the weekly lucky break: viral moments, features, collaborations.
- Connector
- +25% networking output and +7 points on every pitch.
- Strategist
- +5 energy on Rest Day and the most efficient Brand Power. The default.
- Creator
- +20% from posts, with steadier results on posts, networking and episodes.
Match the archetype to the moves you plan to repeat. A player who pitches often gains most from Connector; a player who rests on schedule gains from Strategist every week.
The Seven Careers
Your career is chosen once and shapes the whole economy. Every field has its own Business Moves and its own Business Engine, the weekly revenue that grows as you build it.
| Career | How it earns | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| 🌱 Coach | Balanced, steady, network-driven. | The all-round default. |
| 💼 Consultant | High margin per move; strong payoff once credibility compounds. | A slower start. |
| 🎨 Design Agency | The biggest paydays per deal. | A slower client pipeline. |
| 📦 E-Commerce | Low margin, scales fast with audience and ad spend. | Little per sale. |
| 🎥 Content Creator | The audience is the business: sponsorships and reach. | Weak standalone services revenue. |
| 🔧 Blue-Collar Business | Reliable local income and $60 a week guaranteed. | Engine caps at level 7. |
| 🏢 Intrapreneur | A steady paycheck: $140 a week guaranteed. | Engine caps at level 8; slower to scale your own business. |
The money side of each career is covered in Money, Investments, Team and Ads.
Weekly Focus and Events
Two dropdowns above the action tiles change what each week rewards. Change them any week. Both scale gains only; what a move costs never changes.
Snapshot
The six weekly focuses
- ⚖️ Balanced
- No trade-off.
- 👥 Audience
- +15% followers, −10% cash.
- 🎓 Authority
- +15% credibility, −10% followers.
- 💵 Revenue
- +15% cash, −10% credibility.
- 🤝 Trust
- +25% reputation, −10% cash.
- 🌿 Recovery
- −10% on everything, +8 energy next week and 5 less strain.
Events sets how often the world interrupts: Calm halves crises and brings fewer decision cards (x0.6); Standard is the usual pace; Intense brings crises x1.5, cards x1.3 and lucky breaks x1.15.
Market conditions arrive on their own. From week 6, with at least five weeks between them, each week has a 22% chance of a condition that lasts 3 to 6 weeks: Algorithm Shift, Your Topic Is Hot, Conference Season, Slow Quarter, Holiday Rush, Podcast Boom, AI Content Flood, Industry Scandal or Local Spotlight. A gold banner names it and the weeks left. Play to it: a Conference Season favours networking and stages; a Slow Quarter pays less for business moves.
Quick task
Set the week's focus
- Read the market banner, if there is one.
- Find your weakest number on the stats strip, or your weakest pillar in the Five Pillars panel.
- Choose the focus that lifts it: Audience, Authority, Revenue or Trust.
- On a week when strain is high, choose Recovery and rest.
Strategies That Work, and One That Does Not
The game is balanced with a seeded simulator that plays hundreds of careers through the real game. Its finding is consistent: balance beats volume. A player who mixes posts, networking, business moves, articles, pitches, a book and a podcast reaches each tier far sooner than one who repeats a single move.
- Balanced builder. Several kinds of work every week, rest before strain bites, and the Inbox answered well. The reliable path to the upper tiers.
- Authority first. Articles, pitches and the book, with Authority focus. Slower followers, a higher Brand Audit composite and better pitch odds later.
- Audience first. Posts, video and collaborations, with Audience focus and a Vanity or Mission motivator. Fast reach; watch credibility and the Skyline Strategy.
- Business first. Business Moves and the engine, with a Money motivator. Cash early; Brand Power follows only once an audience is there to convert.
- One move, forever. Posting alone, or articles alone, stalls. Freshness cuts each repeat by a quarter, the lucky break barely rolls, and the audit composite stays low.
Your Rival, and Changing Course
Every run has a Rival, randomised at the start, who plays by your rules: the same weekly limits on each move, strain and rest days, business moves, press and invitations. Its card says what it is doing this month and who leads.
Identity is a choice you can revisit. Reposition Your Brand, in the account menu, changes your archetype, motivator and what you want to be known for. It costs money, energy, about 8% of your followers and a quarter of your credibility. Your tier, business engine, book, podcast and badges carry over.