Down Round

A swipe-card startup simulator: six funding rounds, four meters that kill you at both ends, ten endings.

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You raised the money. Now survive the people.

Down Round is a card game about running a startup. Every card is someone at your door — your co-founder, your CTO, a reporter, the investor who already owns a piece of you. Swipe left or right. Every answer moves four meters: Cash, Morale, Hype, Product. The catch is that all four kill you at both ends. Run out of cash and it’s payroll day; never spend a dollar you didn’t have to, and the board finds someone braver.

One run takes 10–20 minutes, from a garage to a bell you probably won’t ring.

No account. No ads. No tracking. No connection needed to play — the whole game runs on your device.

Key Features

Six Rounds, Garage to Bell

• 326 hand-written cards across The Garage, the Angel Round, Series A, Series B, Series C and the IPO
• Four meters — Cash, Morale, Hype, Product — that end your run at zero and at maximum
• Ten endings, only one of which rings the bell
• A board review at the end of every chapter, with targets that get harder as the money gets bigger

No Two Runs the Same

• 10 company types: AI, fintech, Web3, game studio, health tech, developer tools, marketplace, consumer app, enterprise SaaS, software agency
• 10 founders, each with their own strengths and their own blind spot
• Name the company yourself, or take one of 32 suggestions
• Every pick deals its own private cards into the deck, so no two decks are alike

What Survives the Run

• 14 achievements, each a permanent legacy bonus on every run after it
• A Hall of Fame with your record and a gallery of endings to fill in
• Mid-run saving — close the app on day 43 and come back to day 43

Built by Hand

• 46 original anime-style illustrations
• Every sound effect and every note of the score synthesized on your device as it plays, darkening chapter by chapter — there is not one audio file in the app
• Playable in English, 简体中文, Deutsch, Français, 日本語 and 한국어

Free & Paid

Free

• The Garage and the Angel Round, in full
• All 10 company types and all 10 founders
• The Hall of Fame, achievements and ending gallery
• Your first Bridge Loan in every run

The paywall appears only after you have passed your first board review — never after a loss, because being replaced is an ending too, and it belongs in your Hall of Fame like any other.

One-time purchase

• Series A through the IPO: the remaining four chapters and the rest of the deck
• A single payment, once, forever. Not a subscription.

Bridge Loans (optional consumable)

One Bridge Loan will pull a blown meter back from the edge, buy a board round you came up short on, pass on a card you would rather not answer, or cover a headhunter’s fee to bring someone in early. Your first one in every run is free, and you never need one to reach the bell.

Why You’ll Love It

Most business games let you optimize your way to a win. This one doesn’t have a right answer — every card just moves value between four things you need, and the people asking get harder to refuse the more you’ve already said yes to. You’ll lose the first few runs. The endings are the point.