Managing Up

Managing Up is a corporate satire game for the browser. You do not write the words. You choose four phrases from a reel, an identity to send them under, and a recipient.

Then you send the message and watch the room react. The words are the easy part. The game is about who reads over whose shoulder.

The campaign holds six mission packs. A tutorial comes first, then five missions at five fictional companies. Each mission introduces one mechanic, and it introduces that mechanic in the story rather than in a menu.

A solver proves every mission is winnable at every difficulty. A mission that fails that test stops the build.

The game runs in the browser and installs to a home screen. After installation it plays offline. It requests nothing except its own files and its own missions.

No language model runs during play. The build scans the output for provider identifiers and for worked solutions. It stops when it finds either.

Missions are data, not code. A new mission is one directory of JSON, and it names no code and no network resource.

An automated suite plays the game on a phone, a desktop, and iOS Safari. One test wins the first mission with only the Tab key, the arrow keys, and Enter.

A playtest harness measures how long each mission takes. The difficulty screen shows that measured estimate.