The Weekend
Sixty-two hours to Tokyo's open. You cannot save everyone — and one of them you cannot lose.
The brief
It is 6pm on Friday and a hedge fund you have never heard of has just failed to meet a margin call. By Monday morning, when Tokyo opens, the financial system will either still be standing or it will not, and the person who decides which is you. On the wall is the whole system — twelve institutions and the exposures wiring them together. When one goes down, the damage travels the wires. You have sixty-two hours, a finite amount of public money and a much more finite amount of public patience, and every rescue you grant makes the next one cost more. Save the wrong things early and you will reach Sunday night unable to afford the one institution the system genuinely cannot lose. Somebody has to be allowed to fail. Choosing who is the job.
How you play it
The board is a live contagion network: click the institution you'll act on, then choose the instrument. What you don't hold up falls, and takes its neighbours with it.
The job: Crisis Committee Chair — The seat somebody occupies for a handful of weekends a century: deciding, in hours, which institutions the financial system is allowed to lose.
What the committee actually decides →What you're judged on
Every decision is marked to market server-side. These are the meters that move — run one to zero and the simulation ends there.
What it tests
No trivia — the simulation only asks what the chair actually has to know.
Where you learn this
This one is the arcade's own boss — it isn't the finale of a single game, it's what the whole arcade has been teaching. Liquidity, leverage, bank runs, systemic risk and moral hazard all arrive in the same sixty-two hours, and nothing gates it: sit down now, get overrun, and go find out why.
Browse the courses →Other chairs
The Structurer
Every note is a bond plus options. Pick the wrong shape and the client finds out at maturity.
The President
Every policy has two halves: what you do, and who pays. The bond market grades the second one.
The First Year
Twelve months on your own. No perfect month — only wiser and poorer ones.
The Newsroom
One shift on the data desk. Every story is a stats trap in disguise.
Mission Control
No options to pick — do the math, key in the number, bring them home.
The Policy Chair
You are the central bank. One rate, every quarter, a whole economy on the line.
The CFO's Chair
You run the firm's capital. Ten board meetings, one question every time: where does the cash go?
The Pit
You run the book. The tape moves, the Greeks bite, margin is real. Survive the session.
Your Own Worst Enemy
The market can't hurt you. You can. Ten moments, one enemy — the one making the decisions.
The Desk
Run a derivatives desk for one week — it does not stay calm.
Rotation Day
Ten desks, one stack of cards each. Sort them right — and never, ever misfile ethics.
The Expert Witness
Ten regression tables enter evidence. The significant one is usually the trap.
The War Room
The VaR says you're fine. The tail says otherwise. Ten audits — read which one is lying.