Grounded
“Scented water in a glass bottle. It smells nice.”
- Sale value
- ×1.00
- Trust target
- 75
- Controv. / sale
- +0.00
An idle business satire · Now on Google Play
Wellness,
at scale.
Choose the promise on the bottle, then run the company that has to live with it. The product stays put. Trust, hype and growth do not.
Android: free on Google Play. iPhone: with Apple’s reviewers, who are reading the labels.
This product does not exist. The game does, and this is what your marketing choices do to it.
Aura Spray · 50 ml
Suggestive
On the bottle
“Designed to support the atmosphere you were hoping for.”
Choose the claim
The bottle stays. The business changes.
Designed to support a clearer atmosphere.
- Sale value
- ×1.35
- Trust target
- 60
- Controv. / sale
- +0.02
- QUESTIONS FORM AN ORDERLY LINE OUTSIDE WELLNESS SHOP
- MOON WATER FOUND TO BE WATER
- CAN A MIST HAVE LEADERSHIP QUALITIES?
- ’STACK’ FOUND TO OPTIMISE MAINLY REVENUE
- CLAIM RATING: TECHNICALLY NEAR A CLINIC
- NATION ASSESSES FOUNDER’S GENERAL ENERGY
- RETROGRADE CONDITIONS EXPECTED IN AISLE TWO
- WHEN, IF EVER, MAY ONE INTERRUPT A GONG?
- CUSTOMS OPENS CRATE, FINDS SEVERAL TECHNICALITIES
- CALM PRICE WAR ENTERS POLITE THIRD DAY
- REPORTER ADVANCES TO POSITION 4,809
- FOUNDER DESCRIBES FORTUNE AS ’MOSTLY A FEELING’
- SAME BOTTLE, FURTHER AWAY, CONSIDERABLY MORE
- LOCAL WELLNESS BRAND’S PICKET LINE MISTAKEN FOR PRODUCT LAUNCH
- WELLNESS BRAND NOW LEGALLY OBLIGED TO DEFINE WELLNESS
- JUDGE ASKS WELLNESS FOUNDER WHICH CLINIC. COURT ADJOURNS FOR AN ANSWER
The actual product
You don't buy the spray.
You run the company that sells it.
Build a wellness empire, manage the people inside it, and discover how much truth your brand can afford before the public decides for you.
14Cities on Earth
2That aren't
8Endings
0Banner ads
A very calm feedback loop
Easy to learn.
Hard to live with.
Every system feeds the next. Every shortcut leaves a receipt.
-
01
Stock the shelves
Source ingredients, build stations, stock the shelves, and keep the machines moving.
-
02
Ride the hype cycle
Trends fade. Creators move on. Yesterday's cure becomes tomorrow's apology.
-
03
Choose your claim
Sell the truth, suggest a little more, or say the thing that makes the graph go up.
From the game
The company follows you everywhere.
Captured from the current build on a phone-sized screen. Swipe for more of the company.
Straight from the game data
Four claims. Four economies.
Aura Spray’s authored copy and shipped claim values. No marketing translation.
Suggestive
“Designed to support the atmosphere you were hoping for.”
- Sale value
- ×1.35
- Trust target
- 60
- Controv. / sale
- +0.02
Pseudoscientific
“Tuned to 432 Hz and misted at a particle size of 40 microns.”
- Sale value
- ×1.90
- Trust target
- 45
- Controv. / sale
- +0.08
Outrageous
“Clears the room of everything the last meeting left in it.”
- Sale value
- ×2.80
- Trust target
- 25
- Controv. / sale
- +0.20
The catalogue
Twenty-one products.
Each does exactly what the label says.
Every product ships with four possible labels. Below are the two furthest apart, word for word from the game.
Aura Spray
“Clears the room of everything the last meeting left in it.”
Scented water in a glass bottle. It smells nice.
A finely misted reminder that you own a shelf.
Listening Candle
“It hears every word and repeats none of them.”
An unscented candle. It burns for forty hours.
Unscented. It has been in the room for all of it.
Focus Drops
“Two drops and the meeting ends thirty minutes early.”
Moss extract in a dropper bottle. Tastes of moss.
For meetings that could have been an email.
Moon Water
“The moon remembers you drinking it, and approves.”
Water. It was outside overnight.
Left out overnight under a moon. Priced in the morning.
Clarity Chews
“Chew one and remember where you put everything, permanently.”
Charcoal in a chewable form. It is black.
A bold statement, orally delivered.
Presence Mist
“One spray and the room defers to you until sundown.”
A face mist. It is cold and slightly floral.
Confidence, decanted for people who say "circle back" without blinking.
Boundary Pearls
“Nobody can ask you for anything until the water goes cold.”
Bath oil in a shell. It dissolves in warm water.
A firm no, dissolved slowly while the calendar fills anyway.
Parasocial SPF 50
“Strangers still recognise you but can no longer say why.”
Sunscreen. SPF 50. Reapply every two hours.
Broad-spectrum protection from followers who think they know you.
Inbox Elixir
“Declares every message answered. The senders agree.”
A bitter herbal drink. The emails remain.
Declares every unread message energetically resolved.
Sleep Substitute
“Eight hours in one swallow. Investors never see you blink.”
A bedtime drink. Sleep sold separately.
Rest, reformulated as a productivity input and billed monthly.
Cleanse Gummies
“The feed forgets you exist and has to start guessing again.”
Fruit gummies. Pleasant. Not a detox.
A digital detox sold exclusively through targeted ads.
Earthrise Mist
“One spritz and your problems are 384,000 km away.”
A facial mist, transported at great expense.
A change of perspective, applied topically.
First-Contact Serum
“Whatever arrives will negotiate on your terms, or not at all.”
A serum. Nothing has made contact. It is a serum.
For establishing mutually profitable personal space.
Boundary Cream
“Nothing gets through it. Not weather, not requests, not Gary.”
A moisturiser. Two pumps, morning and night.
Two pumps, morning and night. Nothing gets through except the calendar.
Ritual Lip Oil
“Every word you say lands exactly as you meant it.”
A lip oil. It is shiny and slightly sticky.
You will be looked at for ninety minutes. This covers the first twenty.
Third Eye Cream
“Nobody will ask if you slept, or whether you read it.”
Eye cream. It is cold, and there is very little of it.
Independently reviewed by the company selling it.
Soft Power Blush
“Wear it once and the meeting votes your way.”
A cream blush. It adds colour.
Nobody notices it. Everybody agrees with you afterwards.
Burnout Primer
“You will look rested for as long as you keep buying it.”
A primer. It smooths the surface. Nothing else.
It does not fix the fourteen-hour days. It photographs them better.
Grounding Foundation
“Full coverage, including the part of you that wanted to leave.”
Foundation. Sixteen shades. Buildable coverage.
Sixteen shades. One of them is the colour you were before this job.
Brand Face™
“Wear it long enough and the founder narrative becomes true.”
A full set of cosmetics in a heavy box.
A complete face, optimised for the founder narrative.
Recovery Ritual
“The board remembers a strong quarter regardless of the quarter.”
Four products, one tray, applied in order.
Everything needed to appear rested at the next governance review.
The atlas
Build locally.
Apologise globally.
Start with one London shop, then expand across fourteen Earth cities. Each market changes the rules, and Singapore opens the route off the planet. Every picture below is a fully bought venue, captured in the game.
14Earth cities
2Off-world venues
Included
London · The original ritual
The Soft Launch
Hand-painted sign, month-to-month lease. The landlord has priced the hand-painting.
$75K
Santorini · Boutique foot traffic
The Boutique
Whitewashed to the last shelf. Two ferries a day decide the entire month.
$400K
Paris · Bookable experiences
L'Atelier
Sessions are booked six weeks out. The window display has not changed in eleven.
$900K
Lagos · Word of mouth
The Referral House
Nobody arrives here from an advert. They arrive holding a name.
$1.5M
New York · Influencer surges
The Flagship
Three floors, one lift, and a queue that photographs better than it moves.
$3M
Tokyo · Automation only
The Vending Annex
Open every hour of every day. Staffed for none of them.
$4.5M
Shenzhen · Factory distribution
The Self-Actualisation Works
Four hundred metres of line, and a lunch room with a mural of a beach.
$6M
Los Angeles · Festival weekends
The Festival Popup
Built on the Thursday, spiritually significant by the Saturday, gone by the Monday.
$8M
Bali · Group retreats
The Retreat
Guests arrive in groups of nine and leave with the same nine opinions.
$11M
Seoul · Trend velocity
The Glow Lab
The window display is changed on Mondays. By Wednesday it is a period piece.
$15M
Dubai · Grand surge events
The Grand Flagship
The ceiling is nine metres high so the launch has somewhere to go.
$20M
Mumbai · Heritage cohorts
The Heritage House
The building is a hundred and forty years old. The brand has been here since March.
$30M
Singapore · Global Margin Engine
Global HQ
Nothing is sold here. Everything sold anywhere else is decided here.
$65M
Reykjavik · Regulated market
The Clean Claim
Every label is read twice here. Only the second reader can fine you.
Any city
Second venue · Spa
The Spa
Treatment bays, specialists and a reception desk. The treatments are priced with confidence.
$150M
Moon · Low-gravity logistics
The Earthrise Studio
The window faces home. Guests photograph it and buy something on the way out.
Opens once you own the Singapore Global HQ and have earned $300M. Ingredients cost fifteen times as much. The view is included.
$750M
Mars · First-contact retail
The Red Retreat
The queue forms early and does not fidget. Some of it is not human.
Requires the Moon and $1.5B earned. Customers buy less often, pay three times as much, and take bold claims twice as personally.
Later, in Singapore
Take it public.
Let the market have opinions.
Own the Singapore Global HQ and earn $40M, and Good Vibes Inc. can list as $VIBE at $10 a share. From then on the share price reads your revenue, Trust, Hype and Controversy, and so does everyone else.
- Founder-Led
- Sell 20%
- Advised
- Sell 30%
- Maximum Interest
- Sell 40%
An investor will offer a private deal first. Signing it closes the IPO for the rest of the run. One of the eight endings is the founder exit.
The people you'll hire
Every one of these is a real job in the game.
Spa specialists, with the hiring price and the effect exactly as the game states them.
Eight endings
Eight ways it ends.
One of them is honest.
Which one you reach depends on what you printed, what you sold, and who you sold the company to.
-
01
The Founder Exit
Your lock-up period is over. Your opinions are now advisory.
-
02
Exit to Source
The brand becomes everything you pretended it wasn't. Its first currency-pack ships next Tuesday.
-
03
The Compound
The bread really is extraordinary. Nobody is allowed to leave before Sunday, for scheduling reasons.
-
04
Optimised Away
The lamp is just a lamp, and you are exactly as old as you are.
-
05
The Public Reckoning
The case study became a documentary. The documentary has excellent lighting.
-
06
The Genuine Article
Growth was slower. Sleep was better.
-
07
The Lifestyle Conglomerate
The candles are lovely. The margins are lovelier.
-
08
The Quiet Studio
A small, strange, mostly honest shop. The empire can wait.
Honest about money
A game about dishonest marketing should not be sold dishonestly.
- No banner ads or forced interstitials.
- No paywall between you and any city.
- Rewarded ads are optional and daily-capped. They play only when you ask for one.
- Purchased funding never counts toward earned-revenue milestones.
- Core play works offline. No gameplay account, login, or cloud save.
Frequently asked
Questions the company would rather you did not ask.
Does Aura Spray work?
No. It is scented water in a glass bottle. It smells nice. The game is about what happens when you say otherwise.
Is any of this medical advice?
No. Nothing in the game is medical advice, including the parts that sound like it. Those parts especially.
Is it free?
Yes. Every city is reachable through ordinary play. Alignment, the premium currency, is optional, and purchased funding never counts toward earned-revenue milestones.
What about ads?
Rewarded ads only, and only when you ask for one. There are no banners and no forced interstitials. A single one-time purchase, Claim Instantly, lets you claim every reward without watching anything.
Does the company keep going while I am away?
Yes. The company continues without you. This is not reassuring.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no login and no cloud save, and core play works offline. The company does not need to know who you are. The ads have a rough idea, and the privacy policy says exactly how rough.
When is the iPhone version out?
It is with Apple’s reviewers. They are reading the labels. We have made no claims we cannot support.
Who made this?
Franz Health Ltd, a real company selling a fictional one. Questions go to support@playgoodvibes.com.
Out now on Android
Build the brand.
Live with the copy.
Free on Google Play today. The iPhone version is with Apple, who are reading the labels.
AndroidAvailable on Google Play
iPhoneIn review at Apple
Free to play. Optional purchases. No banner ads.