Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to CEO SIMULATOR (1986)
Hey HN, I built CEO Simulator over the past few weeks. It's a text-based game where you run a startup as CEO and make quarterly decisions. There are 13 possible endings. Only one is good (IPO). The rest range from getting fired by the board to burning out to becoming a zombie company. The game was inspired by the gap between how founder life is portrayed (hustle! growth! disruption!) versus how it actually feels (anxiety, impossible tradeoffs, and a board that's never happy). Technical details: - Next.js + TypeScript - Deployed on Vercel - No backend - everything runs client-side - Daily…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1AF
I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam:…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 2
Startup Company▲105A business simulation sandbox game
2018 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 3
San Fran Sim▲300An isometric startup-tycoon game. Ship features, squash bugs, survive the burn rate — and keep the kombucha stocked. Play free in your browser.
Jul 2026 · sanfransim.com · its alternatives →
- 4
A browser based, retro sandbox game that let
2021 · simulator.money · its alternatives →
- 5
Hi HN We built a tool to help founders understand how modern fundraising (with safes) works, and how much dilution you can expect when raising money. The project is open-source. The code is a mess right now, but it'll get better I promise. You can also help with that. We didn't build this to make money. We genuinely did it because we were looking for it, and couldn't find it. We're in fact in the process of fundraising for a company, and at first glance the process looks simple. Just an excel sheet will do! But then the more we dug into it and tried different simulators, the more we realized…
2024 · fundingsimulator.com · its alternatives →
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I am a solo developer, and I built Core MBA because I was frustrated with the "video course" default in business education. I wanted to build a "compiler for business logic"—a tool where I could read a concept in 5 minutes and immediately test it in a hostile environment to see if my strategy actually compiles or throws a runtime error. The project is a business simulator built on React 19 and TypeScript. The core technical innovation isn't just using AI; it's the architecture of a closed loop between a deterministic economic engine and a generative AI validation layer. The biggest technical…
Jan 2026 · core-mba.pro · its alternatives →
- 8
The Startup Sim That Doesn't Lie
Jul 2026 · foundersim.in · its alternatives →
- 9
Get rich quick as you simulate a businessman.
2016 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 10MA
hi all, I've always wanted to make my own game, but couldn't afford a thousand-dollar adobe (flash+photoshop) license. I'm not a talented programmer, have no degree in CS. But I understand some elements of design. So I got me a copy of ImpactJS, and after about 5 months of steep learning curve (at least for me), I managed to come up with a game. I also integrated it with a highscore and badge system, similar to what you get at Kongregate. You need to login with Google/OpenID to earn badges/scores. link is: http://www.hotbazooka.com/privatejoe hope to hear some feedback/questions from you guys!
2011 · hotbazooka.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Hi HN, I’m a chemical engineer and I manage logistics at a refinery down in Texas. Whenever I try to explain downstream operations to people outside the industry (including my kids), I usually get blank stares. I wanted to build something that visualizes the concepts and chemistry of a plant without completely dumbing down the science, so I put together this 5-minute browser game. Here's a simple runthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is-moBz6upU. I pushed to get through a full product pathway to show the V-804 replay. I am not a software developer by trade, so I relied…
Mar 2026 · fuelingcuriosity.com · its alternatives →
- 12
Free browser-based business and economy simulation game. Trade stock, exchange currencies and run your own businesses.
2017 · moneyga.me · its alternatives →
- 13MT
inspired by Startup School 2011 Link: http://chrome.private-joe.com
2011 · chrome.private-joe.com · its alternatives →
- 14
Hi HN, I’m a former C++ dev turned Product Manager. I’ve noticed many engineers struggle with the "politics" side of things when they become Leads. To help with this, I’m building a text-based simulator. It is NOT an AI chatbot. It is a hand-crafted, branching narrative (logic tree) based on real experiences. I just launched the first scenario: "The Backchannel VP." The Setup: Your VP Engineering is bypassing you and giving tasks directly to your juniors, causing chaos. Your Goal: Stop the backchanneling without getting fired. It’s a short, specific puzzle. I’d love to know if you think the…
Jan 2026 · apmcommunication.com · its alternatives →
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This weekend I participated in my first hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt, and built an HTML5 game with a few people that I met at the event. We got honorable mention, putting us in the top 6 teams of 104 competing. I'm looking for some feedback on the game, so here it is: http://venturecrapital.us Source: https://github.com/wylieconlon/Venture-Crapital https://github.com/dmitric/venturecrapital-server
2011 · venturecrapital.us · its alternatives →
- 18AB
Hi HN, Can current AI systems actually run a business? There’s a growing belief that LLM agents can already manage entire teams, replace the entire software stack or even act as an AI CEO. So we built a controlled, measurable environment to evaluate this premise. Why did we build this benchmark? A modern enterprise operates in a dynamic environment with high uncertainty and incomplete information. The CEO has to deal with delayed consequences, staffing/resource tradeoffs and death by a thousand cuts of failure modes. If we ever want AI systems that can meaningfully make operational or…
Nov 2025 · its alternatives →
- 19
BrandPrix▲32Race your startup to the top of the leaderboard
Sep 2026 · brandprix.racing · its alternatives →
- 20
Series A? More like Series Ashes 💸 Pre-revenue. Pure chaos
2025 · its alternatives →
- 21
High-speed combat and a simple mining company simulation
2015 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Trade & compete in the next-gen trading simulator
2022 · stockmarketgame.net · its alternatives →
- 23
Tech CEO layoff decision simulator | can you survive?
Dec 2025 · thresholdtest.online · its alternatives →
- 24
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →