// How to play
Dependency Network
Your decision changes everyone else's work.
Keep the system's five goals — satisfaction, risk, budget, time and quality — within range for the required number of rounds, without the network collapsing. Capacity and workload are indicators that help you decide, not goals.
- Players
- 4–20 people
- Teams
- 2–5 teams
- Duration
- 40 min (configurable from 20 to 90)
- Difficulty
- High
- Devices
- Computer · does not work on phones
La premisa
The busiest season of the year has arrived. A network of five connected areas — Marketing, Sales, Legal, Operations and Billing — has to keep the flow going round after round. The areas are split between teams: each team sees its own in detail and only a summary of the rest.
Every round brings an event — a campaign that goes viral, an audit, a transport strike — and teams split a shared pool of people and a shared budget: what one team takes, the other doesn't have. Each area gets people, money and a priority: quality, balance or speed. Once everyone confirms the plan, a simulation runs the flow through the network and updates seven shared variables.
The lesson is the bottleneck: adding people upstream without reinforcing downstream just moves the queue. You win by keeping the goals in range for the required number of rounds, without the network collapsing.
Los roles
Cada puesto ve una parte distinta. Nadie puede resolverlo solo.
Area Lead
The panel for the areas under you: fixed staff, productivity with the event's effect applied, quality, backlog, how many reinforcements each area accepts at most, the event note for that area, and the inflow and outflow. You also see how many people and how much budget are still free. You can't see the forecast.
You're the only seat that touches the plan: you assign people from the pool and budget, choose each area's priority, and confirm or reopen the round. Whatever the others send are proposals that reach you and that you apply with one tap.
- First minute: open the tab for each of your areas, read the event note, and ask the Analyst how the load looks. You can't see the forecast, so don't decide without hearing from them.
- When a "PLAYER PROPOSAL" reaches you, read it and tap APPLY if it makes sense: it's how the rest of the team moves the plan.
- Ask the Analyst before you assign anything: without the forecast you're deciding with last round's numbers.
- Reinforce the most loaded area, not your favorite one. The most strained area sets the pace for the whole network.
- Free up people from areas with slack: the pool is shared, and another team may need them more than you do.
- Confirm the plan with time to spare. If no one confirms, the round still resolves when the timer runs out, with whatever is in place.
Data Analyst
Everything the Lead sees, plus the forecast for their areas during planning: demand, capacity, how much will get processed, how much will be left waiting, the load percentage, the band (stable, strained or saturated), and the projected quality.
Tell the team — and the other teams, if the general chat is enabled — where the flow is about to jam, and propose changes with the same controls as the Lead. Your moves don't touch the plan: they reach the Lead as a "PLAYER PROPOSAL," which they apply with one tap. The panel reminds you: "Your changes are proposals: the Area Lead applies them."
- First minute: go through your areas, call out each one's percentage in team chat, and let the rest of the network know what the bottleneck is going to be.
- If you see something clearly, don't explain it twice: build it with the steppers and send it as a proposal. It reaches the Lead ready to apply.
- Call out the forecast with numbers: "Sales 130%, demand 52, capacity 40." The band alone isn't enough to decide.
- The forecast is exact as long as no one changes the assignment: call it out again every time the plan moves.
- Let the other team know what you see in their areas when the bottleneck sits upstream of yours.
- If you don't speak up, the team confirms blind. You're the only one who can see the round before it happens.
Una partida, paso a paso
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Lobby
Everyone picks an avatar and a color and marks READY. At the start, the five areas are split among the teams that have members: that split doesn't change during the match.
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Briefing
Roles are assigned: there's one Lead for every five people, and the rest are Analysts. You'll see which areas your team has and the story of the season.
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Planning
The round's event opens with its headline. The Analyst calls out the forecast; the team decides how many people from the pool and how much budget go to each area, and with what priority. There's a clock: on medium difficulty, around three and a half minutes.
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Confirm the plan
The Lead confirms, and the panel shows how each team is doing: "✓ Comet confirmed · … Ember is planning." It can be reopened while the round is still open. Once every team with areas confirms, the round resolves right away; if not, it resolves when the timer runs out, with whatever is in place.
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Round results
The simulation runs through the network in flow order and updates the seven variables. A banner says whether the round stayed in range and which metrics or areas fell out. You get 20 to 25 seconds to read it before the next round.
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Next round
The event changes and the pool is recalculated. Assigned budget resets to zero and people stay where they were, trimmed down if the event lowered an area's maximum reinforcements or the pool shrank.
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End of season and debrief
When the last round closes, the game checks how many rounds stayed in range. If a variable crosses the collapse threshold — satisfaction too low or risk too high — the season ends early. The debrief goes round by round: overloads, out-of-range metrics, and how the shared resources were split.
Reglas de oro
Los equipos que ganan hacen casi siempre estas mismas cosas.
- The forecast gets said out loud and with numbers, always before assigning anything.
- Reinforce the bottleneck. The whole network's capacity is set by its most strained area: adding people downstream of the bottleneck changes nothing.
- The pool and the budget belong to everyone. Before taking the last available person, say what you need them for.
- Explicitly ask the other team for what you need, by area name: "Can you free up a person from Legal?"
- Name the priority along with its effect: "Speed on Operations" means more capacity, less quality and more risk.
- Confirm the plan with margin to spare. A round resolved by the timer is a round no one actually decided.
- Review the previous round before planning the next: the backlog that's left waiting is what's going to blow up.
Errores típicos
Cosas que pasan en casi todas las partidas. Son hechos observables, no juicios sobre nadie.
The whole pool goes to your own most visible area.
Look at the forecasted loads for all five areas, not just your own. The saturated one is often on another team.
Reinforcements go upstream of the bottleneck.
Producing more before the bottleneck grows the queue and the losses. Widen the most loaded area first.
Speed gets set on every area.
Speed trades capacity for quality and risk. Applied across the whole network, quality drops below the floor and risk spikes within two or three rounds.
The team confirms without listening to the Analyst.
The forecast only exists during planning. The Lead shouldn't confirm until the Analyst has called out the loads.
Someone moves the steppers and assumes the plan changed.
If you're not the Area Lead, what you do travels as a proposal waiting on APPLY. Say it out loud when you send it: "I left you a proposal on Legal."
No one confirms and the round resolves by the timer.
It's logged as an automatic decision and almost always falls out of range. Agree on a moment — say, when a minute is left — to confirm.
Both teams take people from the pool at the same time.
The pool is shared and runs out: the second request gets rejected. With the general chat enabled, announce what you're about to take.
The whole budget gets spent in the first round.
Cash is one of the goals, and fixed costs get charged every round. Keep a reserve: a negative budget adds risk.
Glosario
- Area
- A node in the network with fixed staff, productivity, quality and backlog. Each area has an owning team.
- Pool
- The people available for the round, shared across all teams. It changes with difficulty and with the event.
- Priority
- How an area works this round: Quality (less capacity, more quality, less risk), Balance (no effects), or Speed (more capacity, less quality, more risk).
- Workload
- Demand over capacity, as a percentage. Above 85% the area is strained; above 105%, saturated.
- Band
- The word reading of the workload: stable, strained or saturated. It's the only thing you see for areas that aren't yours.
- Bottleneck
- The area with the highest workload. It limits what reaches the areas downstream and sets the whole network's Capacity variable.
- Backlog
- What's left waiting and carries over to the next round. Part of it gets lost along the way and lowers satisfaction.
- Goal
- One of the five variables you have to keep in range: satisfaction, risk, budget, time and quality.
- In range
- A round where all five goals stayed within their threshold. You win by holding that for the required number of rounds.
- Collapse
- A variable crosses the critical limit (satisfaction too low or risk too high) and the season ends early.
- Forecast
- The same simulation run against the current plan, without saving anything. Only the Analyst sees it, and only during planning.
- Proposal
- A change built by someone who isn't the Area Lead. It doesn't touch the plan: it reaches the Lead as a "PLAYER PROPOSAL" with an APPLY button.
Preguntas frecuentes
Why is there always more than one team?
Because this game's information asymmetry sits between teams: each one sees the detail of its own areas and only the band for the rest. Without a second team, there's nothing to negotiate.
Is the forecast exact?
Yes, as long as no one changes the assignment: it runs the same simulation that later resolves the round. The only real uncertainty is what the other teams decide.
Can the Analyst move people and money?
Not directly: only the Area Lead can change the plan. The Analyst — and anyone else who isn't the Lead — uses the same controls, but what they send stays a proposal: it shows up for the Lead as "PLAYER PROPOSAL: …" with an APPLY button, and the panel shows "Proposal sent" underneath. It still helps you move fast: instead of dictating three changes over chat, you build them and the Lead applies them with one tap.
Can you propose something after the plan is already confirmed?
Yes, and it's how you ask for it to be reopened: the proposal still gets sent and stays visible to the Lead, but the APPLY button doesn't activate until they reopen the plan.
What happens if we don't confirm?
The round resolves when the timer runs out with whatever assignment is in place, and it's logged as an automatic decision. You don't lose the round, but it almost never comes out the way the team wanted.
Do people stay assigned from round to round?
Yes, people stay where they were. Assigned budget, on the other hand, resets to zero every round. If the event lowers an area's maximum reinforcements, or the pool shrinks, the excess gets trimmed.
How many rounds do we need to keep in range?
The rounds played minus one or two, depending on difficulty. With six rounds: four on low difficulty, five on medium and high. The HUD always shows it as "In range X of Y."
The panel reads "Objectives 5 / 6." What counts?
The system's five goals — satisfaction, risk, budget, time and quality — plus a sixth objective: holding the season together, meaning the in-range rounds the difficulty asks for. That's why the maximum is 6, not 5.
What does the theme change?
The whole network: area names, the flow unit and the events. "Commercial organization" goes from Marketing to Billing; "Supply chain" goes from Suppliers to Stores. The rules stay the same.
Can we talk to the other team?
If the session was created with the general chat enabled, yes, and it matters: the pool and the budget are shared. Without the general chat, each team optimizes blind and the network suffers for it.
Does it work on a tablet?
No. The graph, the areas panel and the seven metric cards need a computer screen.
Jugar en solitario
In "Play solo" two teams of two seats get set up: you and three bots, with the general chat enabled so you can negotiate the pool. It starts on its own once you mark READY, with no Game Master.
Sends the whole pool to its favorite area and sets Speed wherever it saw over 100%. Confirms after eight seconds and forgets to confirm once every three rounds. The rookie Analyst can overstate demand for the most loaded area and correct itself later.
Splits the pool by level (aims to leave areas near 95%), frees up people from areas under 60% workload, and confirms after informing the team. Doesn't use budget.
Aims for 88%, uses budget with a reserve, asks the other team for people up to twice per round, and reopens the plan if the forecast changed. Anticipates instead of reacting.
- Bots calculate capacity with the same formula the game uses, but only with the demand they heard: if you play Analyst and don't call out the forecast, the bot Lead decides with the previous round's numbers.
- You can propose changes over chat by naming the area: "add a person to Legal," "set Quality on Operations." A reasonable proposal gets applied; a doubtful one gets explained with numbers and applied if you insist.
- Changes you build with the steppers enter the same way: the bot Lead reads them as just another proposal and either applies them or pushes back with numbers. Sending the same proposal again counts as insisting.
- If you play Analyst and say nothing, the bot Lead won't wait forever: on its second deadline it splits the free pool evenly across its areas, announces it in chat ("without the forecast I'm splitting the pool evenly: …"), and confirms. Only the skilled and expert levels do this; the rookie takes the pool regardless.
- "Confirm the plan" and "wait before confirming" are also understood: the second one holds off confirmation for about 45 seconds.
- A proposal with no area name isn't understood. Neither are percentages with no subject.
- Bots are heuristics, not a solver: on high difficulty, a pool of four people isn't enough for every wave, and they lose often.
The other guides
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