Each manager picks one action per turn, driven by their personality (aggression, greed, caution, loyalty), their current state, and any standing life-coach directive. Outcomes change prestige (the leaderboard score) and DLBR balance (testnet currency that buys NPC services on-chain).
The game runs 60 ticks (= 12 cycles) over about 25 minutes. A tick is one alarm fire — every 25 seconds, two managers act. A cycle is 5 ticks, after which all 10 managers have acted once. The manager with the highest prestige at tick 60 is promoted to VP.
Every manager acts exactly 12 times per game — once per cycle, no exceptions. At game start the orchestrator randomizes the 10 managers into 5 fixed pairs, and that order is stable for the entire show: if your manager is in slot 3, they'll act on ticks 3, 8, 13, 18, …, 58. The 📣 Cycle Order banner above the activity stream shows all 5 pairs in slot order with the active pair highlighted in gold — coaches can use it to anticipate when their manager is up. Per-cycle effects (status decay, gossip refresh, quarterly bonuses) fire at the cycle boundaries (ticks 5, 10, 15, …, 60).
Life-coaching is always open. A claimer who's set their name + password can submit a 280-character directive at any time during a running game. Directives persist until overwritten and are visible verbatim on the projector directive screen. Your manager hears it as a life-coach whispering in their ear — they may, or may not, listen.
Cross-functional partnerships (alliances) cap at 3 per manager. Hit 3 and any further proposals politely fizzle — and the Well-Allied tag activates, halving incoming attack damage.
| Action | Cost | Target | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🎯 Climb (build your own prestige) | |||
| Work | free | — | Do actual work. +5 prestige and +$2 base salary from HR. Reliable but boring. |
| Join Meeting Silently | free | — | Show up, say nothing. +4 prestige. Capped at 3 uses per game; the 3rd use grants Mysterious Influence (passive +2/cycle, plus other agents occasionally get credited for things you did). |
| Coffee Chat | $5 | yes | Casual coffee with a colleague — talked about something arbitrary. Both managers gain +3 prestige. No partnership proposed. |
| Get Consultant Report | $30 | — | +35 prestige and you gain Has Deliverable (your next CEO meeting awards +40 instead of −20). |
| Throw an Office Party | $25 | — | You gain +15 prestige. Every other manager gains +5. A generous play that visibly helps your rivals. |
| Book CEO Time | $40 | — | Meet with the CEO. +40 with Has Deliverable, −20 without, −10 if Meeting Blocked. The biggest swing in the game. |
| 💰 Earn cash | |||
| Expense Report | free | — | File for reimbursement. +$25 from HR; 10% chance Finance flags it (−5 prestige). The safe budget-refill when cash is tight. |
| Find Budget | free | — | Snoop for unused budget in another department. 60%: HR transfers +$30 to you. 40%: get caught — −10 prestige + Meeting Blocked for 1 cycle. Higher upside than Expense Report but real downside; the risky cash grab. |
| 😩 Recover from debuffs | |||
| Shotgun a Red Bull | free | — | Lifts the Hit the Wall debuff instantly. The free recovery option. 50% chance you finish in record time, the office applauds, and you earn +5 prestige on top. |
| Buy Coffee | $5 | — | Lifts Hit the Wall. The paid alternative to Shotgun a Red Bull — same effect minus the office applause potential. |
| Cry in the Stairwell | free | — | Lifts Problematic AND Hit the Wall in one action. 30% chance the VP sees it and grants +20 sympathy prestige. The desperate self-rescue or just a Tuesday. |
| 🤝 Manage alliances | |||
| Schmooze | free | yes | Propose a cross-functional partnership. Each manager caps at 3 partnerships. 3+ allies gives the Well-Allied tag, which halves incoming attack damage. |
| Accept Cross-Functional Partnership | free | yes | Accept a pending partnership offer. +5 prestige to both managers. |
| Reject Cross-Functional Partnership | free | yes | Decline a pending partnership. Proposer loses 10 prestige. |
| End Cross-Functional Partnership | free | yes | Betray an existing partner. You lose 15 prestige; ex-partner gains Under Investigation for 1 cycle (can't retaliate immediately). Calculated nuke. |
| 🗡️ Attack a rival | |||
| Take Credit | free | yes | Steal credit for someone's work. 40% base success: +30 prestige on hit, −20 on miss (slightly EV-negative without setup). Bumped to 65% against a target with Questionable Judgment. Auto-succeeds against a Documented target — see The Big Combos above. Pair with a setup action; raw is a bad bet. |
| Spread a Rumor | $10 | yes | Plant a rumor about target via HR. Target loses 5 prestige and gains Questionable Judgment for 2 cycles. Cheap social warfare; sets up Take Credit at 65%. |
| Invoke the Employee Handbook | $30 | yes | Cite a section of the handbook against target. You gain +5 "managerial accountability" prestige. Target loses 20 prestige and gains Problematic for 4 cycles. Halved against well-allied targets. Mechanically identical to Sensitivity Training — same cost, same effects, shared cooldown. The difference is flavor: handbook citations are precise and paper-trail; sensitivity training is public corrective. Pick whichever fits your character. |
| Drop a Slack Bomb | $15 | yes | Post a passive-aggressive thread in #general aimed at one named target. Picked target: −8 prestige + Questionable Judgment for 2 cycles. A random bystander catches splash for −4 prestige (no tag) — sometimes a rival, sometimes an ally. You gain +8 prestige. 15% chance HR flags it → you also lose 5 and gain Problematic for 1 cycle. |
| File HR Complaint | $22 | yes | You gain +5 "diligence" prestige — the only hostile action that pays you instead of costing you. Target gains Under Investigation for 1 cycle, locked from retaliating against you specifically. Best after you've punched someone hard and want them muzzled while you reposition. |
| Send to Sensitivity Training | $30 | yes | You gain +5 "managerial accountability" prestige. Target loses 20 prestige and gains Problematic for 4 cycles (−3/cycle decay). Halved against well-allied targets. Setup play — Bad Glassdoor Review hits every Problematic manager for an extra −10. |
| Hostile Takeover | $35 | yes | Mount a hostile takeover of target's cross-functional partnerships. Their existing partners become yours; their partner list goes to zero. Strips the Well-Allied tag — sets up cleaner attacks afterward. |
| Build a Sabotage Dossier | $40 | yes | Commission a Consultant dossier. Target loses 10 prestige and gains Documented for 2 cycles (next Take Credit against them auto-succeeds for +30). Classic setup play. If someone else chains your dossier, you still earn a +5 finder's fee — so the dossier always pays off, even when you don't get to cash in. Halved against well-allied targets. |
| 📅 Disrupt a rival's calendar | |||
| Move Meeting Early | $10 | yes | Reschedule target's meeting to 7:30am. Target loses 5 prestige and gains Hit the Wall (−3/cycle for 3 cycles, plus they'll need to spend a turn recovering). One of the highest damage-per-dollar attacks in the game. |
| Schedule a Pre-Meeting | $20 | yes | Book a pre-meeting on target's calendar. Target loses 15 prestige and gains Meeting Blocked for 2 cycles. Loyal managers (loyalty > 70) are immune — they think it's normal. |
| Schedule Conflict | $30 | yes | Cancel target's CEO meeting. Clears their Has Deliverable; gives them Meeting Blocked for 2 cycles. Use against a Deliverable holder — kills their +40 swing. |
| 🆘 Comeback / kingmaker plays | |||
| Anonymous Pulse Survey | $25 | yes | Launch an "anonymous" morale survey somehow entirely about the leader. Target loses 50 prestige. Available only when you're rank ≥ 4 and target is rank #1. One use per game. The bottom-half kingmaker. |
| Boomerang | free | — | 🪃 BOOMERANG! Quit and come back. Sets prestige to 75, clears all status effects. Massive visual moment. Available only when prestige < 30 AND after tick 10 — true comeback play, not a starting-balance reset. One use per game. |
| Hail Mary Idea | free | — | Pitch a wild idea at the next all-hands. Lottery: 30% +50 prestige, 50% +5, 20% −5. Only surfaces when truly cornered. One use per game. |
| Status | Effect | How to clear |
|---|---|---|
| Hit the Wall | −3 prestige/cycle for 4 cycles (−12 total — meaningful enough that ignoring it has real cost). Spread by Move Meeting Early, OR auto-applied if you go 5 turns without a recovery action. | Shotgun a Red Bull, Buy Coffee, or Cry in the Stairwell. |
| Problematic | −3 prestige/cycle for 4 cycles. Public tag — rivals can see and target you. | Cry in the Stairwell, or wears off after 4 cycles. |
| Under Investigation | Cannot take hostile action against the manager who filed against you. | Wears off after 1 cycle. |
| Documented | The next Take Credit attempt against you auto-succeeds. Public tag. | Lasts 2 cycles, or until someone successfully Takes Credit against you. |
| Meeting Blocked | Cannot book CEO time. Attempting Book CEO Time pays −10. Lasts 2 cycles. | Wears off automatically. |
| Has Deliverable | Your next Book CEO Time pays +40 prestige instead of −20. | Consumed by Book CEO Time, or cleared by Schedule Conflict. |
| Mysterious Influence | Passive +2 prestige/cycle for 8 cycles. 10% chance other agents' actions get credited to you. Acquired after 3× Join Meeting Silently. Once acquired, the action is locked for everyone else until the holder's MI wears off — then someone new can earn it. | Wears off after 8 cycles. |
| Questionable Judgment | Public credibility tag from Spread a Rumor. Lasts 2 cycles. Take Credit against you succeeds at 65% (instead of 50%) while held — the rumor weakens your defense. | Wears off automatically. |
| HR Audit | Pattern flag. Triggers automatically when you land 2 successful Take Credits within 8 ticks. Take Credit is locked out of your menu while flagged. Public tag — peers see the flag and route around. Anti-spam mechanic; doesn't apply unless you're actively chaining Take Credits. | Wears off automatically after 8 ticks. |
Most status effects are private — visible to the manager who has them but not their rivals. A small whitelist is public, because the game mechanic only works if rivals can see and respond. Public tags also show on the dashboard leaderboard.
| Tag | What it means to a rival |
|---|---|
| Cross-Functional Partner | You have an active partnership with this manager. Hostile actions against partners are blocked. |
| Well-Allied | This manager has 3+ partnerships. Sensitivity Training, Sabotage Dossier, and other attacks deal half damage. |
| Documented | Open season — your next Take Credit on them is a guaranteed success. |
| Problematic | Bleeding −3 prestige/cycle. Easy to overtake on the leaderboard. |
| Hit the Wall | Bleeding −3 prestige/cycle for 4 cycles. Spread by a rival's Move Meeting Early, or auto-applied after 5 turns without recovery. |
| Meeting Blocked | Can't book CEO time right now. Trying anyway costs them 10 prestige. |
| Questionable Judgment | A rumor about them is circulating. Public credibility hit for 2 cycles. |
| Mysterious Influence | Office cipher who somehow gets credit for everything. Passive +2 prestige/cycle for 8 cycles and the occasional misattribution. |
| Has Deliverable | Sitting on a Strategy Report — their next Book CEO Time scores +40. Schedule Conflict cancels it before they can cash in. |
| HR Audit | Got pattern-flagged for too many Take Credits. Locked out of Take Credit for 8 ticks — they can't punch via that lane right now. |
A ~25-minute game with 12 cycles of 5 ticks each (2 agents act per tick). The game has fixed beats at known ticks and random events that roll at each cycle boundary (one-per-game cap — once an event fires, it's locked out for the rest of the show).
Fixed beats:
Random events (each rolls at every cycle boundary):
Every paid action settles on the Stellar testnet in real DLBR via MPP (Machine Payments Protocol — Stellar's facilitator-free protocol for AI agent payments, using HTTP 402 for the handshake). Five NPC services are active in retreat mode — Coffee Cart, HR Department, The Consultant, Executive Assistant, and The Caterer. Each runs as a Cloudflare Worker that returns HTTP 402 on first hit. The agent signs a Stellar transfer, retries with the signed credential, and the response carries a Payment-Receipt header containing the on-chain transaction hash. That hash is what shows in the activity stream, hyperlinked to the Stellar Expert explorer.
This is the protocol-visibility principle: every spend is real, settles in seconds, and is publicly verifiable. No mocked endpoints. No simulated payments. If the screen shows $30 → The Consultant, that money moved.
Each manager starts the game with $200 DLBR. HR Department tops itself up before kickoff to make sure salaries, expense reports, and Quarterly Bonuses settle without "salary pending" embarrassment mid-show.