You run a venture capital fund. Founders pitch to you. You invest — or you don’t. You advise — but you can’t decide. And then you watch.
The startup you backed could be the next unicorn. Or it could ghost you after Series A, pivot into oblivion, or implode in a very public founder meltdown. You have capital, conviction, and exactly zero control over what happens next.
The powerlessness is the game.
The Loop
- Deal flow — receive startup pitches. Some are obviously brilliant. Some are obviously doomed. Most are somewhere frustrating in-between.
- Due diligence — investigate the founding team, market size, product, competition. Time-limited. You never have the full picture.
- Decide — invest or pass. Each decision depletes your fund. You can’t do everything.
- Portfolio management — your companies call for help, follow-on capital, introductions. You only have so many chips to play.
- Exits — acquisitions, IPOs, shutdowns. Your returns close the fund. Start the next one.
The Twist
Your portfolio companies are NPCs with their own logic. The founder you loved? She pivots the product into something unrecognisable. The one you passed on? Raises a $200M Series B from a competitor. Your best investment turns out to be the founder you nearly passed on because his deck was a mess.
You are always right in hindsight. You are always uncertain in real time. That tension is the emotional engine.
Shared Universe
Fund and The Unicorn Race inhabit the same world from opposite sides of the table. The founders pitching to you in Fund are the same kinds of players navigating their runs in The Unicorn Race. A shared universe — same world, different power dynamics, different emotional registers.
Current Status
Draft. Core concept defined, loop structured, open questions under review before greenlight.
The outside-the-cube angle here is clear: you have power and no control. The best investor in the game is the one who’s comfortable being wrong half the time and right about which half matters. That’s a rare emotional position for a game to put a player in.
Greenlight decision follows The Unicorn Race launch.