Teacher Guide

A turn-based business simulation your students can run on Chromebooks, in the browser, with no accounts. Each round they set price, production, marketing, R&D, and capacity — then the market decides, and four AI rival companies explain the moves they made.

What exists today, honestly

What's live right now is the single-player demo: one student against four AI companies with distinct strategies, playable end to end in about five minutes. The rival explanations in the demo are scripted from real game data.

The classroom version adds what a class needs: in open beta join-code multiplayer where student teams compete in the same market, in open beta an AI coach that asks each student questions without playing for them, in open beta an automatic teacher debrief written after the bell, and in open beta live AI rivals whose every explanation is checked against what actually happened in the market.

To get classroom access: join the beta from the homepage — we'll send you your classroom entry link. Wide release comes in 2027; the beta is how you run it this semester.

Running the classroom beta

Beta teachers get a console link by email after joining the classroom beta. A class session works like this:

1. Create a session in the teacher console (pick 4, 6 or 8 rounds; set an optional console PIN so a dead laptop mid-class can't strand you).
2. Put the join code on the board. Students open the class page on any Chromebook, enter the code and a team name — no accounts, no emails.
3. Play rounds. By default a round resolves the moment every team has submitted; you can also close rounds manually. Teams that miss a round automatically repeat their last plan — nobody blocks the class.
4. Recover anything. Lost student device: re-issue the team's link from the console. Lost teacher device: recover the console with the join code + PIN.
5. Debrief from the projector. The final screen gives class-wide standings and an AI-written debrief — who started the price war, one line per team, discussion questions with talking points (numbers verified against the game).

No beta access yet? Run it with the demo today

Even with the single-player demo, a whole class can play the same game: every game has a seed number, shown on the final screen. Same seed, same world — so thirty students facing seed 29230512 face the identical market, and their results are directly comparable.

Setup — 5 minutes

1. Put informatist.net/demo on the board. No logins, no installs.
2. Everyone picks 4 rounds (about 5 minutes of play).
3. Optional: have students note the five levers before starting — one prediction each for what will matter most.

Play — 25 minutes

1. First game: play freely. Losing to Slasher is part of the curriculum.
2. Second game: play deliberately — pick one strategy (undercut, premium, or build) and commit to it.
3. Fast finishers: try to beat their own rank with a different strategy.

Debrief — 15 minutes

Have students screenshot or write down their final rank, total profit, and the "biggest gap" verdict from the end screen. Then work the questions below.

Eight debrief questions

1. When a rival cuts price, who actually pays for the price war?
2. Delight often wins while charging above the market average. What lets a company do that — and what would break it?
3. Your forecast said one thing; the market did another. Where did the gap come from?
4. R&D and new capacity both pay off next round, not this one. How did that lag change your decisions — and when did you learn it?
5. Who ended the game with the most cash? Who ended with the highest score? If they're different companies, why?
6. What's the real cost of a unit sitting in inventory? What's the real cost of a buyer you turned away?
7. The AI rivals explained every move they made. Which explanation changed a decision you made afterward?
8. If you played the same world again, what one decision would you change — and what number on the screen tells you it would work?

Concepts covered

In the game	Curriculum topic
Price vs. buyers lost	Price elasticity of demand; competition
Unit cost, margin, break-even	Unit economics; profit & loss
Production vs. inventory vs. lost sales	Supply decisions; carrying costs; opportunity cost
Marketing (this round) vs. R&D (compounding)	Short-run vs. long-run investment; differentiation
Capacity lag	Capital investment; planning under uncertainty
Forecast vs. actual	Expectations, forecasting error, strategic interaction
Score = profit + company health	Stakeholder metrics beyond the bottom line

These map naturally onto standard personal finance / economics / entrepreneurship units (NGPF- and CEE-style course outlines). It's a simulation, not a textbook — it earns the vocabulary lesson by making students need the words.

FAQ

Does it run on school Chromebooks?

Yes. Browser-only, no installation, small download, works on locked-down devices.

Do students need email addresses or accounts?

No. Nothing to sign up for. A game is one anonymous browser session.

What about student privacy?

No accounts, no tracking pixels, no analytics scripts, no ads. Game decisions go to our server to run the simulation and are tied to nothing but an anonymous session id. Student data is not for sale — there is none to sell.

What does it cost?

Nothing, permanently, for teachers and students. Informatist is founder-funded and run as a nonprofit project; the free classroom program is the product, not a trial.

Our web filter blocks it — what do I do?

Send your IT department the one-page allowlist request — domains, ports, and the student-data posture, written for them.

Who's behind it?

Informatist has run browser-based economic simulations since November 11, 2006. The classroom edition is its third act.

Ready to run it with a whole class? Join the classroom beta — we'll send your access, and you get a say in what gets built first.