Game Design · Development · AI
The Rivals
The Rivals is a business simulation built end to end by SANA, from the first economy sketches through to the production game people play today.
Results
- 01Designed and developed end to end by SANA
- 02AI opponent that adapts to player strategy rather than following a script
- 03Used in university teaching and corporate training programmes
- 04Continuously evolved after launch from player feedback
01
Economy first
The Rivals started on paper. A business simulation where the dominant strategy is obvious after twenty minutes is a spreadsheet with better lighting.
02
An AI that watches you
Instead of a fixed difficulty curve it reads what the player is actually doing, undercutting on price or racing on quality, and answers it. The same opening does not work twice.
03
Numbers you can read
Underneath it is a market model. On the surface a player has to know whether they are winning without reading a number twice. That took more iterations than the economy did.
04
Still moving
Balance changes and new mechanics come from how sessions actually run, not how we assumed they would. It is the first of three simulations we have built on this platform.