The startup simulator, explained plainly.

TopGoblin is a satirical startup simulator and strategy card game that runs in your browser. You play a founder making seven questionable business decisions while balancing Runway, Users, Hype, Tech Debt, and Sanity. Due Diligence audits the company after the seventh decision and converts those stats into a final valuation.

Yes. Your first three ranked runs are free and do not require a payment card. TopGoblin creates a private guest session so it can verify your score and remember your unique username. Optional purchases only appear for extra runs after the free allowance, additional redraw tokens, and stat boosts.

No. The mechanics borrow recognizable startup ideas, but the game is entertainment and satire—not financial, business, legal, or investment advice. Buying fake users, manufacturing hype, bribing the audit, and protecting founder sanity are jokes about startup culture rather than recommended operating practices.

Start a run and choose one of three cards in each of seven rounds. Each card shows its stat effects, estimated Audit impact, active-modifier triggers, and dangerous threshold warnings before you commit. A Due Diligence memo then explains exactly what changed. You may also discard a bad hand and draw three replacements, with a limited number of free redraws in each run. After seven decisions, the final audit explains the valuation, ending, strongest choice, weakest choice, and complete paper trail.

Runway is the cash available to survive, Users and Hype help increase valuation, Tech Debt reduces the quality of the company, and Sanity keeps the founder functional. A high number is generally helpful except for Tech Debt, where lower is better. The scoring formula combines all five rather than rewarding a single stat in isolation.

The active market rule changes as the run advances. VC Winter affects early fundraising, Engagement Fever changes Growth and Marketing in the middle game, and Cloud Tax makes late Product and Engineering choices more expensive. Founder Traits are separate power-ups drafted during the run. Cards show whenever either rule changes their printed effects.

Yes. Each run includes a small allowance of free hand changes. A redraw discards all three visible cards and deals a replacement hand for the current decision. When the free allowance is exhausted, optional Mulligan tokens can be used. A single decision also has a maximum redraw limit so a hand cannot be rerolled forever.

The live formula is Runway + (Users × 740) + (Hype × 1,250) − (Tech Debt × 980) + (Sanity × 120), never below zero. Cards show their stat effects and active market or founder-trait rules; every audit memo then shows valuation before and after the choice. An S-grade requires at least $170,000 with Tech Debt below 40, while an empty Runway, Tech Debt of 58 or more, or Sanity of 25 or less can trigger different endings. The server replays all submitted decisions before accepting a score, so the leaderboard never trusts a number supplied by the browser.

The leaderboard keeps each player's highest verified valuation and displays the global Top 20. It is an all-time board and does not reset every day. Completing another run can replace your existing entry only when the new verified score is better. When two scores are equal, the earlier filing ranks first.

Your username identifies your personal best on the public leaderboard and makes the result shareable without publishing an email address. Usernames must contain 3–20 letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens, and no two players can claim the same name.

Ranking badges are temporary: #1 is Top Goblin, #2 becomes Golden Grifter, #3 receives Bronze Baron, and positions four through ten join the Pit Elite. Achievement seals are personal and permanent: earn them by filing a first run, keeping Clean Books, building Hype or Users, holding a Cash Cushion, surviving as a Paper Unicorn, or clearing the Top Goblin ending. Your seals remain attached to your username even when rank changes.

Yes. A completed run produces a shareable result, and qualifying leaderboard entries can share their rank, score, and badge. The goal is to challenge other founders to beat the valuation under the same global deck rather than merely posting a generic link to the game.

Optional products include a Goblin Audit for one extra run, an Audit Pack containing multiple runs, a Mulligan Pouch containing redraw tokens, and Due Diligence Bribes containing stat boosts. The exact current price and quantity are shown before Stripe Checkout opens.

Deliberately, yes. Paid boosts can improve stats and paid redraws can improve the available choices. That unfairness is an explicit part of the startup satire, not a hidden competitive promise. The leaderboard discloses paid bribes on a run so other players can distinguish clean books from purchased assistance.

Stripe normally grants credits through a signed webhook after successful Checkout. When the browser returns before that event has finished, TopGoblin also verifies the completed Checkout session directly and grants the purchase idempotently. Refreshing or revisiting the success URL cannot grant the same payment twice.

No daily reset is currently used. Purchased credits remain attached to the guest player session until they are consumed, refunded, disputed, or otherwise reversed under the payment rules. The global leaderboard is also permanent rather than a 24-hour competition.

Payments use Stripe-hosted Checkout, so TopGoblin does not collect raw card details. Duplicate charges, unauthorized payments, technical failures, and mandatory legal rights can be reviewed under the Refund Policy. Used digital credits and dissatisfaction with a score are not automatically billing errors.