What You'll Do
Design, build, and manage a portfolio of R&D projects across two years
Design Your Selection Process
Choose who makes funding decisions—decide alone, assemble a committee from ShieldTech's leadership, convene a staff jury, or try other approaches. Decide whether to deploy an AI advisor—Devi—across the game or only for project selection. Then select your evaluation criteria, weighting schemes, and review methods: scoring matrices, expert judgment, or staged gates.
Handle Legacy Projects
Your predecessor left behind ongoing projects in various states. Review each project's history, spending, and political context, then decide whether to continue, pause, or kill.
Navigate Committee Dynamics
Chair a budget committee where members advocate, debate, and react to your leadership. The outcome determines your budget—from $34M to $44M.
Build Your Portfolio
Evaluate projects drawn from a deep database of proposals. Each comes with detailed materials: project overview, development milestones, team profiles, technology readiness levels, IP position, competitor analysis, financial projections, and risk assessment. Build a balanced portfolio from a wide range of options within budget.
Manage Projects Over Time
Review quarterly progress reports and decide each project's fate: continue, accelerate, reduce, or kill. Timing your decisions is critical—act too late and you waste resources.
Respond to Events & Dilemmas
Over 60 management dilemmas: team conflicts, technical setbacks, competitor moves, resource constraints, and stakeholder pressures. Every choice has consequences.
Year 2: New Opportunities
Fresh project proposals emerge at the start of Year 2. Play the Resource Run mini-game to unlock bonus budget, then decide whether to expand your portfolio or stay focused.
See Your Results
The board evaluates your selection accuracy, portfolio ROI, risk balance, strategic alignment, management discipline, and AI advisor accuracy. Download a professional PDF case study of your tenure.
No accounts, no tracking, no ads. Free and open source.