Live at 6 · Day 01 of 10
Run a local TV newsroom. Every station in town gets the same five stories. What you lead with, what you kill, and what you actually finish decides who this town trusts.
The game
No board to travel. No turn order. No dice. Every morning you make one secret decision — and every night, everyone airs at once. What separates you is what you lead with, what you kill, and which stories you bothered to finish. Because you can't finish them all.
How it plays
01 · 7:00 AM
Five stories hit the board, and every station sees the same five. Each one tells you three things: how big an audience it draws, and what it does to your trust with a crew on it — or without.
The tag color is the risk. Grey is safe. Red always costs you.
02 · 9:30 AM
You get one crew a day. A crew gets the other side of a story, so it airs confirmed instead of thin. Drag the token onto the story that needs it most — and don't waste it on a story with nothing to confirm.
Short-handed? Hire a freelancer for $10K.
03 · 4:45 PM
Four slots. Five stories. An Exclusive that wants in. The lead counts triple. The kicker at the end never costs you trust, so it's a safe place for something juicy. Something dies every night.
Hold any story to see what it's worth in each slot.
04 · 6:00 PM
All rundowns reveal together. Lead with what everyone else led with and the audience splits. Run a story thin while a rival confirms it, and you're scooped — you lose it. Then it's tomorrow morning.
Ten days. Then the ratings book closes.
How you win
WFTC 4 drew the biggest audience in town and finished second. Trust multiplies everything. It starts at 1.0×, climbs with every confirmed story, and never tops out — the honest strategy never stalls. It just slows.
Ratings Score Sample game
Read the card
Every number on a card is labeled. The big one is rating points — how many people tune in. The two underneath are what it does to your trust, confirmed and thin. Card values match what the headline actually is: a tornado has no other side, a city contract always does.
Confirmed
Crew on it.
You got the other side. Full ratings, and the card's confirmed value to your trust.
Thin
First on air.
No crew. A one-point speed bonus to ratings — and the thin value to your trust.
Scooped
Lost it.
You ran it thin and a rival ran it confirmed the same night. The story scores nothing, and it costs you another point of trust.
SCOOPEDTabloid is a treatment, not a topic. Crime, health and consumer stories are legitimate news — it's the viral, the tease and the gossip that cost you.
Exclusives
Every morning you draw a private lead off the tip line. Hold up to two. They're big, they're yours — and about a third of them have a twin in a rival's hand. If they air it first, yours is dead. Hold it too long and you'll find out the hard way.
Technical Difficulties
One card a day, every station. Most of it is newsroom life — somebody microwaved fish. Some of it costs you a crew, or the money to fix it. And once in a while the transmitter goes down and your lead scores ×1. Pay to make it go away, or ride it out.
Ratings Window
Days 4–5 and 9–10. The whole market knows it's coming. Plan for it.
Ways to play
Solo
Three rival stations run by bots, each with its own habits. One chases the tabloid lead every night. One won't air anything it hasn't confirmed. Learn them, then beat them.
Online
Start a room, read out a six-digit code, and everyone joins from their own phone. No accounts, no downloads. Rundowns stay secret until the reveal.
Big screen
Open the big screen on a TV or laptop and it becomes the control room monitor: the lobby with a QR code to join, the live scoreboard, and every night's reveal for the whole room.