Games for learners · research
Questions and sources
Realism here is geometry, not a tax-rate lookup table. These are the questions that survived, the settings the table actually uses, and sources that still earn a click.
Questions the cards have to answer
- What is the stack, in order, that you cannot skip? Materials and power → fabrication → compute → weights → distribution. If a card lets App touch Sand, the lesson is false.
- What do you pay when you do not own the next door? Rent. In the game: 1 point. In the world: foundry margins, cloud bills, store cuts, default-placement deals.
- What happens when you lock a chokepoint? You score, and you become visible. Hits are the public, not “lose a turn.”
- How do taxes bite? A bill you pay now or defer at a worse rate — not a ten-turn jail track.
- When is a boycott a mechanic? When it stops the rent until your next turn.
- What is an incentive that is not a trophy? A Grant bypasses a toll. Job Credit pays only if you are smaller.
- What is scarce in 2024–26? Light machines, training clusters, foundation weights, home-screen defaults. Those are the 7s, in kid words.
Shipped settings
| Knob | Crude ask | Shipped |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | 60–90 min | ~25 min including teach |
| Players | 2–4 | 3 default, 2–4 legal |
| Cash | $10,000–$20,000 | 0. Score from tolls and one lock |
| Monopoly | 3 identical components | Own two stretches that touch |
| Tax | Percents; jail after 10 | −2 now or −3 at the end |
| Deck | 130–180 + a board | 54 cards. Road is five cards. |
Resource links
- OECD global minimum tax— why “pay now or later” is the tax verb.
- US DOJ v. Google (search defaults)— Home Screen as a legal object.
- EU Digital Markets Act— gatekeepers; the public as a Hit.
- ASML on EUV lithography— why Chip 6 is a Light Machine.
- TSMC— Foundry Slot, Whole Fab.
- Stanford HAI AI Index— who can afford a Frontier Run.
- Epoch AI— Cloud as a door Model must pass.
- Epic v. Apple (opinion)— App Store cut; Side Store as a noun.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework— Hack / Breach as operations.
- US BIS export controls— why Sand and Chip are political.
The crude 2020 vendor list is history: WEF jobs reports, Gartner “state of AI,” cloud explainers. Use them for vocabulary, not for rules. Do not add a quiz. If a seminar needs facts, they sit here. The table still plays THE TOLL.