Since Ian wrote an email suggesting we make a video game, the correspondence has continued, and everyone has been giving ideas for what kind of game to create. Many of the suggestions resembled Worms Armageddon, a game we played the entire previous year. It seemed that everyone wanted to make a game like that. In that game, players control their worms, with each player having four worms. The worms have a wide range of weapons, from bows and arrows, pistols, bombs, and grenades, to rocket attacks. The player whose worm, or worms, is the last remaining on the battlefield wins. Since the game is multiplayer, the idea of playing it online wasn’t bad at all. A player who is alone at home could find opponents. It might be the perfect online game. Of course, the theme would have to be changed so that we wouldn’t be making a copy.
However, there was a problem. Such a game has a lot of graphics and animations. For an online game with a small team and one designer, a better idea would be to create a management simulation. Games where the player is a manager of something are much less graphically demanding.
The first suggestion came from Ian, a few days after his first email.
Ian’s email:
Subject: Mobbing Tycoon: The Ultimate Power Trip Simulator
Hey team,
Strap in, because I’ve got an epic pitch for our game: Mobbing Tycoon. Think Mafia meets Championship Manager, but instead of building gangs or teams, you’re crafting the ultimate web of corporate chaos. The player? A villainous general manager of a public company or institution. Yeah, we’re flipping the script and putting the player in the bad guy’s chair.
Here’s the core gameplay loop:
The player starts with a roster of employees and two critical lists:
- Party pals who need cushy jobs.
- Family members who think nepotism is their birthright.
The challenge? Fit all these “favorites” into the system. Open positions? Sweet. No openings? No problem—make some. Or better yet, free some up by ejecting non-party folks or opposition party hires. Efficiency isn’t the goal; domination is.
Gameplay mechanics:
- Every employee has a profile: stats, traits, and a menu of “boss moves.” Want to fire someone? Don’t just hand them a pink slip—turn it into an art form.
- Overload them with pointless tasks.
- Deny vacations with the classic “Oh, that was approved in February, not July” line.
- Gaslight them into thinking they suck at their job.
- Assign them wild tasks way outside their JD (Job Description? More like Joke Description).
- Employees belong to factions: union members, board members, disciplinary committee folks, etc. The board of directors is the big cheese—they’re your main currency for favors. Each board member has “credits” you can earn by hiring their nephew, rigging something in their favor, or just being shady. Spend credits when you need their votes. It’s all about managing that debt ledger.
Extra villainy features:
- Contracts: The player can hire temp workers with zero job security—perfect pawns for your schemes. Scared employees are compliant employees.
- Union infiltration: The player controls at least one union leader. Grow your union army by bribing members with different Barbarian Olympics like party BBQ, weird office gatherings or outright bribes.
- Discredit the resistance: Anyone brave enough to stand up to you? Drag their name through the mud—fake disciplinary actions, smear campaigns, you name it.
And yes, the database logs EVERYTHING—votes, credits, debts—so players can track their shady empire with precision.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We can bolt on extra chaos mechanics, like “office rumors” that spread to lower morale or a “PR crisis” mini-game where the player spins scandals to avoid getting fired themselves.
Let me know your thoughts, tweaks, or add-ons. I’m hyped to hear your takes, but let’s be real—this idea is already in god-tier territory.
Let’s make it happen. Ctrl+S on this genius before it’s lost to the ether.
Peace and packets,
Ian
In the responses, everyone agreed the idea was interesting and new. However, it seemed like it would appeal to only a small audience. We still didn’t know much about workplace bullying, and Ian got the idea from Uncle Milan, who had told us about such experiences at work. I had only occasionally heard such stories from Milica’s sister, Anna, but she didn’t talk about it much either.
Elena commented that what is exciting in real life could be boring in a game, and Maxim was adamant it wasn’t a game that could reach a wider audience, so we abandoned the idea.
I also had a suggestion for a management simulation game. I sent an email.
My email:
Here’s something I’ve come up with. In the game I imagined, the story takes place in a country that has just come out of war. There are international peacekeeping forces stationed in the area to maintain peace. There is a large number of sexually frustrated peacekeepers.
The player is also a manager, but here, they manage a nightclub with dancers. The dancers will have attributes and ratings that will be stored in a database. I won’t go into the details of these attributes in front of Elena, but since she works with databases, we’ll have to find a solution. Elena can store attributes like: smile, charm, photogenicity, dancing skill, gracefulness, and we will use these simplified attributes in other parts of the application, encrypting the actual attributes into these and sending them to the database.
The player must invest in the dancers. The price guests are willing to pay depends on their qualities. There will be a balance here, which is important in a management game. As with any game, the more you invest, the more money you’ll collect.
The guest structure is important as well. Of course, the most important guests are the soldiers, but we shouldn’t neglect the locals. Just avoid the kids who have a couple of bucks in their pockets and are just there to see what it’s all about.
Like in every game, there will be things the player can buy and invest in. The player can invest in dancers, client interaction rooms, security, regular medical checkups, choreography, etc.
At the start, everything will be in bad condition, and the dancers will be unattractive, but the player needs to build a business empire through constant care and hard work.
I think this could be a good foundation for a game.
Elena replied to this email.
I’m a big girl now, you know. You don’t need to hide anything from me. And what you suggested is not politically correct.
I wanted to write that life isn’t politically correct, but I stopped myself—it wasn’t worth debating right now.
Elena’s suggestion was that the player manages a donut shop and later opens a restaurant that they continue to improve, expanding the menu, adding floors, and building a terrace. Ian’s second suggestion was that the player manages a cannabis farm. Yanko didn’t have a suggestion but participated in the discussions.
After all the suggestions, there was a selection and persuasion process. In the final round, there were the cannabis farm game (working title Momo) and the restaurant game (Krofnichke). Maxim was the only one in favor of the turn-based strategy option, similar to Worms. The rest were in favor of one of the management simulation ideas. I don’t know how, but Maxim convinced all of us to go with the turn-based strategy. He was persistent, and it seemed like there was no other option without an argument. He said it could be easier to develop graphically, and there is a whole genre of such games, with a loyal audience. He had played more such games, not just Worms, so we eventually trusted him and agreed. We gave Maxim two weeks to develop his idea.
Once we finally decided what to make, enthusiasm appeared, because soon we would start working, and now everything seemed quite real. Until now, it was just a story.
Maxim is going on a trip, but he says he can prepare the game while he’s away. Ian will use that time to finish Petar’s website with photos. Elena will try to finish two websites. I have one to finish too, but during these fourteen days, I need to play ten seasons of a game. When I overdo it with gaming, I get bored, and then I can fully focus on something else. So, when the game development starts, I’ll focus only on that. We will all think about the game’s name.
The bad news is that everyone is going to take an Italian course. Maxim has been learning Latin for two years, so he thinks it will be easy for him. Ian, probably, because twice a week he will have an opportunity to secretly drink cola outside the controlled home environment. Now they are going to force me to learn Italian too.
