How to play

The goal

You are Halloran Group’s AI Value Council for one fiscal year: four rounds of four seat turns. Five AI projects are running, one in each region. Each has a hidden profile: what it costs in tokens, what else it costs, and what value it really delivers.

You win if the year ends without a loss. Your score is the net benefit to Halloran Group in millions of dollars: value booked (a saving counts the same as new revenue) minus the total cost of AI.

Three ways to lose, at once

• The Breach track reaches 7.
• An overrun cube must be placed and that project’s budget is empty.
• Frontier lock-in: after Close 2 or later, all live projects but one sit on the Top tier.

A project still unfiled at Year End is not a loss: it books nothing, pays its full cost and costs $15M.

The board

Thirty Halloran sites in five regions, each a ring of six, with links inside and between regions. Every region has a colour and a shape, and its project’s overrun cubes carry both: North America blue, square, Latin America yellow, triangle, Europe green, diamond, Middle East and Africa orange, hexagon, Asia-Pacific purple, circle.

Overrun cubes are cost overruns. A city holds at most 3 of a colour. A 4th cube is a breach: +1 on the Breach track, and it starts a cascade: one cube of that colour in every linked city, each city once per cascade.

A seat turn

1. Take up to 4 actions. The active seat decides; each other seat may offer one tip.
2. Draw 2 Evidence cards. A Quarter Close card resolves at once. The hand limit is 7.
3. Flip Overrun cards equal to the rate. Each adds one overrun cube to its city. A Growth card raises its project’s demand.

Actions any seat can take

Drive

Move along one link.

Fly

Discard a city card to go there, or your own city’s card to go anywhere.

Hub hop

From a Review Hub to any other Review Hub.

Contain

Remove 1 overrun cube where you stand, or all of that colour once its project is filed.

Stocktake

In any city of a project’s region, before filing: its baseline is measured, so it books in full.

File, or re-file

At a Review Hub (below).

Build a Gateway part

Both personas of its pair in one hub, 2 cards between them. Tagging comes first.

Reading and filing: the chain

Each project is read in five steps, and the table screen shows each project’s progress: Tag, Read, Baseline, File, Decide.

1. Tag: the Tagging part is live and the project’s region has a Review Hub.
2. Read: when your pawn stands in a project’s region (or at any hub, once it is tagged), your phone shows your half-facet of it. Tell the table; don’t show your screen. Each tile needs one of its halves heard.
3. Baseline: Stocktake before filing. Otherwise the baseline is reconstructed: it books half and the dial shows a range.
4. File: at a Review Hub, discard 2 cards of the project’s colour (Product: 1), pooled from everyone at the hub. Then 20 seconds of silence while the four tile owners place their tiles on their phones: Initiative (Leadership), Outcome and floor (Product), Destination (Finance), Cost driver (Capacity). The dial reads the project through those tiles.
5. Decide: at the next Quarter Close, the vote.

Decoys mislead in known directions: an input metric (Adoption rate, Tokens per user) reads a band greener, a real but wrong outcome a band redder, the Token count driver a band greener. At every Close, wrong tiles flip red; each red tile drops 2 cubes at the project’s home until it is re-filed.

Quarter Closes and Year End

1. Raise the Overrun rate one step.
2. Spike: the bottom Overrun card takes 3 cubes, and the hype pull moves that project one tier toward Top.
3. Review: the twist on the card; the audit (wrong tiles flip red, right frameworks are Verified); then the vote.
4. Book each project’s value minus its total cost of AI. Close 1 is a dry run, read aloud, not booked.
5. Re-stack the recent hot spots on top of the Overrun deck.

The vote

Everyone raises a flag at once on their phone. Green: Scale needs both key holders (Enable and Fund) green and no red from Build or Supply. Red: Stop needs two reds including a key holder. Anything else is Amber: Rework, naming the lever the Cost-driver tile points to. Stopping is never free.

Year End comes when the Evidence deck runs out, after seat turn 16. The final booking counts twice, every profile is revealed, and each standing decision is graded: +$15M if right, −$15M if wrong.

Seats and personas

There are always four seats taking turns in order: Enable, Build, Fund, Supply. Each seat has two personas. At 4 players each of you holds a seat; at 8, one persona each; in between, some seats are split (each persona then takes at most 3 of the 4 actions).

Your phone’s “My roles” tab explains your personas in full.

Score and grades

Net benefit adds the bookings (Year End twice), ±$15M a standing decision, −$15M for each project unfiled at Year End, −$15M a booking for a fixable project stopped, and −$5M for every 3 overrun cubes left on the board.

• Bronze, “Kept the Lights On”: a win below $50M.
• Silver, “Value Engine”: $50M or more.
• Gold, “Portfolio of Record”: $225M or more with Practice at Run.

The 8-minute teach

1. 0:00
   The year. You are Halloran’s AI Value Council for one fiscal year. Win by surviving; score in net benefit. Point at the three losses.
2. 0:45
   A seat turn. 4 actions, draw 2, flip Overrun cards. A 4th cube breaches and cascades along the links. Each project’s budget is its cube pile.
3. 2:00
   The chain. Tag, Read, Baseline, File, Decide. Two players read one project’s halves aloud.
4. 3:15
   Filing. 2 cards of the colour at a hub, 20 seconds of silence, four tiles, the dial. Decoys read greener; wrong tiles flip red at a Close.
5. 4:30
   The rule and the vote. Both keys green and no veto red to Scale; two reds with a key to Stop; otherwise Rework.
6. 5:30
   Optimize. Only the lever that fits works. Cheaper work grows: bank it in a commit, cap it, or eat the surge. Gateway parts are built in pairs.
7. 6:45
   Personas. Each player reads their “My roles” tab aloud: powers, reaction, blind spot. Power runs out first.
8. 7:45
   Go. The active seat decides; each other seat may offer one tip a turn.