The ones people actually ask after losing their first term.
Real, but simplified to about six equations. The relationships are the ones central banks genuinely reason about: the Phillips curve trade-off between inflation and unemployment, a transmission lag, inflation expectations that can come unanchored, and a neutral rate that moves. The starting numbers are real August 2026 figures, and the largest shock is scaled on what actually happened in 2022.
What it is not is a forecast. The Bank's own model has hundreds of equations and still gets it wrong. This one is built to make you feel the trade-off, not to predict anything. Every parameter is written out in how the model works.
No — that is the most important thing in the game. A rate change bites the following quarter, never the one you are in.
This is true in reality and worse: the Bank reckons a rate change takes somewhere between one and two years to have its full effect. It is why the MPC forecasts rather than reacts, and why "wait and see" is such a dangerous instinct in the job. If you only move once inflation is visibly out of control, your medicine arrives a year after the illness spread.
The neutral rate — economists write it r* — is the interest rate at which policy is neither stimulating the economy nor restraining it. Above it you are squeezing; below it you are stimulating.
You cannot see it because nobody can. It is not measurable, only estimated, and the estimates disagree with each other and get revised. Hiding it is not a difficulty setting, it is the actual condition of the job. It also moves during your term, as world interest rates drift, so a Bank Rate that was right two years ago can be quietly wrong today.
Because that is the job. The Bank has a legal target of 2% inflation, and a secondary duty to support growth and employment. Hitting either one alone is easy: crush the economy and inflation falls, flood it with cheap money and unemployment falls. Doing both simultaneously is the entire difficulty, and the reason the role is hard enough to be worth a game.
UK inflation peaked at 24.2% in 1975. So yes — though you have to misplay a crisis badly to get there.
The route is the wage-price spiral. Once inflation runs high enough for long enough, people stop believing the target and start setting wages and prices off what they can actually see. At that point inflation feeds itself and rate rises alone take years to break it. In the game, expectations only re-anchor while you hold inflation inside the band — which is why getting it down and keeping it down matters more than one dramatic hike.
The eight other members each price their own preferred rate off the data and the true neutral rate, plus a standing hawkish or dovish bias. So when the vote comes back "8 members wanted it far higher", that is the game telling you something you cannot otherwise see: your rate has drifted away from neutral.
They only advise. The decision is always yours, and you can overrule them every quarter for five years if you like. It is usually expensive.
No spoilers on the exact numbers, but three things separate good terms from bad ones:
In outline, yes. Nine people on the Monetary Policy Committee meet eight times a year and vote on Bank Rate, each getting one vote, with the Governor's carrying no extra weight. If inflation misses the 2% target by more than a percentage point in either direction, the Governor writes an open letter to the Chancellor explaining why — which is the penalty the game charges you for going above 3.5%.
What the game leaves out is most of the toolkit: quantitative easing, forward guidance, financial stability, banking supervision, and the small matter of a real committee arguing with real economists for days.
It is built for a phone first — a term takes about three minutes and every control is thumb-sized. Your career, best score and medals are saved on your own device, not on any server, so they survive closing the tab but not clearing your browser data. There is nothing to sign up to. If your browser blocks storage, the game still plays; you just start fresh each visit.
Free, with adverts, and no account required. See about for who built it and how to get in touch — questions about the model are genuinely welcome.
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