You are a founder. You have an idea, some cash, and more confidence than the situation warrants. Your job: build a billion-dollar company from nothing, hire people who may or may not be up to it, fundraise from investors with their own agendas, navigate crises that are somehow both random and inevitable, and exit before everything collapses.
Then do it again. With more money, more scar tissue, and slightly better instincts.
The Core Loop
Choose Your Idea → Tune It → Build Your Team → Fundraise → Navigate Events → Grow → Exit or Collapse → Prestige & Repeat
Each run starts from scratch. Each run ends differently. The prestige loop means that losing is productive — exit proceeds fund your next venture, founder reputation unlocks new ideas and investor archetypes, and the game gets bigger with every cycle.
Failure is a designed feature, not a punishment.
Founder Archetypes
Before you name your company, you choose who you are.
| Archetype | Playstyle |
|---|---|
| Visionary | Hype doesn’t decay — it grows. Fundraise hard. Exit before the cracks show. |
| Operator | 20% lower burn. Stable morale. Win on fundamentals. |
| Hustler | Revenue 40% above baseline. The team respects and fears you slightly. |
| Chaos Agent | Events 60% more frequent. Outcomes amplified 1.5x. No middle ground. |
All four are viable. None are optimal. The archetype changes the simulation in ways that compound across the full run.
What’s in Alpha
The Alpha build shipped 23 February 2026 with:
- 4 Founder Archetypes — each with distinct mechanical effects on revenue, burn, hype, morale, and event frequency
- Pivot Mechanic — one per run, expensive, sometimes the right call
- 15 Events — each unique, each with genuine mechanical consequences, none that could appear in a lesser startup sim
- Balance overhaul — £25k starting cash, £2,500/month fixed costs, revenue seeding to escape the zero trap
- 28 tests passing, 0 warnings, 0 errors
Tech Stack
Built on .NET MAUI + Blazor WebAssembly — an unconventional choice, deliberately made. The Unicorn Race is a simulation, not a rendering game. It runs on state machines, data models, and decision trees. .NET and Blazor handle these exceptionally well.
The same C# game logic runs on browser (Blazor WASM), iOS and Android (MAUI Blazor Hybrid), and desktop. One codebase. Multiple targets. No game engine required.
What’s Coming Next
- Economic climate system (Bull / Bear / Mania / Crisis)
- IPO exit path (2x multiplier, highest variance)
- Prestige loop polish and carry-over mechanics
- Archetype-specific event variants
- Advisor system (persistent unlocks per run)
Platform: Browser (itch.io) · iOS · Android Monetisation: Freemium — free core, premium prestige content. No pay-to-win. Ever.