Game manual

Your first company #

Opening creates a $5,000.00 starter loan. The bakery costs $4,500.00, leaving $500.00 cash. The starter bakery is ready immediately. All your buildings share this company's cash and inventory.

Buy flour from Brook Mill, start bread production, then sell finished loaves to Corner Café. Buying, producing, and selling are separate decisions. Check the quantity, cash cost, completion time, and available customer demand before confirming.

Guidance and founder progress #

The guide introduces Operations and Accounting. Hide, resume, or review it at any time; your confirmed actions determine progress.

Completed production earns 10 founder XP per production hour before company speed, with shortened progress time for early quick bread. Achievements reward confirmed milestones. Founder progress and completed-contract history survive company failure. After a paid bread sale, complete one full standing or deadline order (specialist path), or own a flour mill and produce flour (integrated path). Farming is optional.

Starting a run #

Each facility runs one job at a time. Starting consumes the quoted ingredients and operating cash. Their combined carrying cost stays in work in progress until completion, then moves into the output. Ingredients made by your own company retain their cost.

Longer runs repeat whole recipes; building level scales inputs and outputs. Check the run quote for quantities and operating cost. Early quick bread runs have shorter tutorial times; this does not discount their nominal operating cost. Once a run starts, its completion time stays fixed.

Staff and active operating costs #

Staff cost $40.00 per staff member for 24 nominal hours of active work. Charges are prepaid, proportional to duration, and rounded once to cents. Idle buildings have no payroll. Production speed changes waiting time without reducing the operating cost.

Staffing grows with building level: base staff × level, plus base staff ÷ 10 × level × (level − 1) ÷ 2, rounded upward to a whole person. Capacity grows linearly, so an upgrade can increase cost per unit. Compare the preview before investing.

Queues and offline work #

Your company can hold 24 unstarted runs. Each planned run expires 8 real hours after planning. Planning reserves no ingredients or cash; the first run in each facility’s queue starts when its requirements are met. Cancel or reorder unstarted work within its facility.

Missing ingredients, cash, cold capacity, or unlocks block the first run. Upstream completion can unblock it before expiry. Expired work cannot restart; a job started before expiry finishes normally. Facilities sharing ingredients and cash start queued work in a fixed order.

On return, committed work settles in time order. Retail shifts and explicitly enabled automatic standing-order deliveries can sell while away. Ordinary NPC sales and deadline deliveries require your action. Creating a production plan buys no ingredients and delivers no orders. The return summary explains completed, blocked, expired, and remaining work.

Slots and unlocks #

Founder level sets your total building slots. Each independent building uses one slot; the ice cream maker included with a parlour shares the parlour’s slot. Each building also has its own unlock requirement. Dairy, creamery, and owned café purchases require a completed specialist or integrated growth path.

Buildings operate independently and can be renamed. Check buyers, ingredient supply, and operating cash before purchasing. More capacity creates no additional customers.

Construction and upgrades #

Paid projects take 30 nominal minutes for each $1,000 of quoted cost, rounded up in $1,000 increments, capped at 24 nominal hours, then adjusted for company speed. Construction must finish before use. Upgrades require cleared queues and finished work, and keep the building unavailable during the project.

Building level 2 requires founder level 3; level 3 requires founder level 5, continuing at two founder levels per building level. An upgrade costs the base purchase price × (target level − 1) ÷ 2. The included maker upgrades with its parlour.

Selling a building #

Finish projects and active work, and clear unstarted queues before selling. A level 1 building refunds its recorded investment in full. An upgraded building refunds half its recorded investment, rounded down to cents; the remainder is a disposal loss. Selling frees its slot.

The included maker cannot be sold separately. Cold storage cannot be removed if remaining capacity would be insufficient for frozen stock, allocations, and committed production. Review the sale quote; proceeds are cash, and a refund does not repay debt automatically.

The grain and bakery chain #

At building level 1, bread turns 1 kg flour into 2 loaves. Croissants use 2 kg flour and 1 kg butter for 20 croissants. Butter cakes use 2 kg flour, 1 kg butter, and 1 kg sugar for 4 cakes.

A crop farm grows wheat from seed. A flour mill converts 20 kg wheat into 16 kg flour per base recipe. Use bought flour before owning a mill, or bought wheat before owning a farm. Internal transfers create no revenue or profit.

Further chains and purchased supplies #

Dairy turns feed into milk; a creamery turns milk into butter. Orchards supply fruit for preserves, buns, juice, and ice cream. Bottling uses fruit or milk plus bottles. Corn, sugar, and packaging make boxed cereal. Ice cream requires the parlour's included maker and enough cold capacity.

Seed, orchard seedlings, feed, sugar, empty bottles, and cereal packaging come from NPC suppliers; there are no owned factories for these supplies. Available NPC offers also let you buy intermediate ingredients. Most produced goods have bounded external buyers; boxed cereal is sold through a supermarket.

Finite company markets #

Buy goods through supplier offers and sell finished stock through customer orders. NPC availability and company supply/customer budgets both limit trades. Company budgets refresh in UTC daily windows, with scale fixed when that day's window opens. Missed days do not accumulate supply or customers.

Suppliers share product supply limits; related wholesale products share family demand; retail outlets share customer budgets. Switching sellers, products, outlets, or reloading cannot recreate exhausted demand. Other players have separate markets.

Prices, shifts, and menus #

Choose a nominal retail duration from 15 minutes to eight hours in 15-minute steps, then set stock quantities and prices. Company speed changes the waiting time shown in the preview. Lower prices increase potential demand; higher prices reduce it. Sales are limited by whole customers, allocated stock, service capacity, and remaining company demand. A longer shift costs more operating cash.

Starting commits stock and prepays the fee. Those goods become unavailable to other channels. When the shift settles, actual sales and goods costs are recorded; unsold goods return at their carrying value. Mixed menus share outlet capacity. Supermarket shelves, freezer space, and checkout capacity impose additional limits.

Standing orders and deadlines #

Standing orders offer recurring bounded demand and allow partial delivery. You can enable automatic delivery to Northside Grocer; the displayed commission is deducted. Signing an order alone does not authorize automatic sales.

A deadline contract reserves customer demand when accepted, without charging cash or reserving ingredients. Allocate finished stock explicitly, then deliver it. Partial deliveries earn base pay; full completion strictly before the deadline earns the accepted completion reward. If you miss the deadline, remaining allocated stock is released and you keep earned base pay, but earn no completion bonus and the contract does not count as completed. There is no cash fine. Unaccepted opportunities have no penalty.

Reviewed plans show shortages, required cash, and estimated completion. Margin and timing are estimates; buying ingredients, allocating stock, and delivering orders remain your decisions.

How stock carries cost #

Inventory holds quantity and total carrying value. Purchases add their actual cost; production adds consumed ingredient value and prepaid operating cost. Mixed purchases pool their values. Removing part of a holding removes its proportional cost, with whole-cent rounding; selling recognizes that cost as cost of goods sold.

Profit, cash flow, and book value #

Revenue less goods cost gives gross profit. Selling commissions, retail fees, and other operating expenses reduce operating profit; interest and disposal losses reduce net profit. Sale receipts explain individual results, while company reports include financing and wider expenses.

Cash flow also includes ingredient purchases, building investment, borrowing, and principal repayments. Borrowing increases cash and liabilities without creating profit. Buying a building converts cash into an asset. Unsold production can consume cash while remaining an asset.

Book value is assets less loan principal and accrued interest liabilities. Assets include cash, stock, allocated goods, work in progress, and recorded building investment. It is an accounting value, not a promised sale price. Use daily, weekly, or monthly reports and product, building, and channel views to locate costs and bottlenecks.

Starter credit and expansion loans #

The starter loan charges 0.5% per real day once founder level 5 enables interest. Repaid starter principal restores headroom up to $5,000.00 outstanding. Draw restored credit explicitly; it requires no collateral and does not restart interest grace.

Expansion capacity depends on positive book value, founder level, and total outstanding principal, including the starter loan. An accepted expansion loan has a fixed rate based on leverage and active credit strikes. Review its rate, first payment, and cash impact. Overdue interest, receivership, wind-up, and post-rescue recovery restrict borrowing.

Collection and cash reserves #

Interest accrues with real time and is collected from available cash at UTC midnight. The first payment is due at the first UTC midnight at least 24 hours after interest eligibility or taking out an expansion loan; later payments are daily. Company speed does not accelerate debt. Unpaid amounts remain overdue; paying interest does not reduce principal.

Voluntary principal repayments require cleared overdue interest and must leave at least $500.00 cash. Automatic interest collection and manual arrears payments can use that cash. Raw-material purchases also protect the smallest next operating fee among installed unlocked facilities. These reserves do not fund an entire future production plan.

Missed payments and receivership #

An interest obligation still unpaid one real day after its original due time records a credit strike. Seven days overdue triggers receivership. Partial payment does not reset its age. Seven full clean UTC days rehabilitate one active strike; further strikes need further clean periods.

Receivership freezes new commitments and cancels unstarted queues and commercial commitments. The receiver uses cash, liquidates available inventory for half its carrying cost, and sells eligible buildings under their refund rules to clear arrears. Already-paid work finishes and recovery is reconsidered. Clearing arrears restores control; borrowing then waits for seven full clean UTC days.

If arrears remain with no paid work pending after available assets are exhausted, the company winds up. Start another company to continue; founder progress survives. Before trouble escalates, sell finished goods, stop excess input purchases, finish work, and review saleable buildings and restored starter headroom.

Common questions #

• Why is production blocked? Check the first queue item, shared ingredients, operating cash, cold capacity, unlocks, and active projects. Later runs cannot skip the first run in that facility’s queue.
• Why can I not sell stock I own? It may be committed to a shift or deadline contract, demand may be exhausted, or that channel may not support the product. Boxed cereal needs a supermarket.
• Why did work stop while away? Plans are finite and expire. Retail shifts end, and automatic standing orders still need finished stock and demand. Review the return summary before creating more work.
• Why can I not buy a building? Check its founder level and growth-path requirements, available slots, cash, and the reason shown in the purchase quote.
• What happens when I reload? Confirmed actions and committed work are saved. Returning settles elapsed work using server time. If a request loses connection, reconnect and check confirmed state before making another commitment.
• Can I remain a bakery specialist? Yes. You can buy inputs and fulfill a complete order instead of owning every upstream building.

Glossary #

• Carrying cost: recorded cost attached to goods.
• Work in progress: inputs and operating fees in unfinished production.
• Allocation: goods committed to one sales channel.
• Contribution: proceeds less goods cost and selling fees, before financing.
• Nominal time: costing duration before company speed adjusts waiting time.
• Principal: borrowed money still outstanding.
• Arrears: interest that is due but unpaid.
• Working capital: cash and stock supporting continued operations.
• UTC: Coordinated Universal Time; daily market and collection boundaries use midnight UTC.