Design a one-session economy budget
Snapshot
~80 sec
A one-session economy budget is a planned earn and spend plan for a single sitting. If leftover piles without a next decision, or sinks empty the wallet mid-session, the rates on paper are lying about how play feels.
You will learn
- Name earn ceiling, spend opportunities, leftover risk, and starvation risk for one invented sitting.
- Spot when a session ends flooded or starved instead of still choosable.
- Adjust one rate so the sitting leaves a readable leftover signal.
Target outcome
You can sketch earn and spend for one sitting and judge whether the leftover still supports a next choice.
Visual walkthrough
Visual walkthrough
~6 min
Four numbers that define a sitting
Earn ceiling
How much of one invented currency a focused sitting can add.
Spend menu
Legitimate sinks available before the sitting ends.
Leftover risk
Currency that survives the sitting without a next decision to spend toward.
Starvation risk
Sinks that empty the wallet before the sitting's main choice is reachable.
Open faucet versus budgeted sitting
Approach Readability Next choice Week-scale risk Earn freely, sink vaguelySources drip all session; sinks exist but are optional noise. The player cannot tell what a good leftover looks like. The sitting ends with a pile, not a decision. Piles compound into inflation symptoms across weeks. Earn against a spend menuEarn ceiling and spend opportunities are designed as one sitting plan. Leftover or empty wallet is a readable signal, not an accident. The player still has at least one legitimate spend before exit. Week-scale inflation is easier to spot because session leftovers are intentional. One sitting, five checkpoints
Read this as a sitting cycle. The leftover is not waste - it is the renew edge that joins this sitting to the next.
Session start
Player begins with a known wallet for one invented currency.
opensEarn window
Sources add currency up to the sitting's earn ceiling.
fundsSpend decision
At least one legitimate sink is reachable before exit.
commitsSpend
Currency leaves through a choice the player can explain.
revealsLeftover signal
What remains should still point at a next sitting decision.
next sittingLeftover signal → Session start
Read this as a sitting cycle. The leftover is not waste - it is the renew edge that joins this sitting to the next. Reading order
- Session start
Player begins with a known wallet for one invented currency.
- Earn window
Sources add currency up to the sitting's earn ceiling.
- Spend decision
At least one legitimate sink is reachable before exit.
- Spend
Currency leaves through a choice the player can explain.
- Leftover signal
What remains should still point at a next sitting decision.
Connection explanations
- Session start → Earn window (opens)
The sitting only opens an earn window if sources are intentional, not infinite.
- Earn window → Spend decision (funds)
Earn funds a decision; it is not success by itself.
- Spend decision → Spend (commits)
A budgeted sitting requires at least one reachable spend choice.
- Spend → Leftover signal (reveals)
Leftover is the bridge to the next sitting - design it, do not ignore it.
- Leftover signal → Session start (next sitting)
A readable leftover closes the cycle by giving the next sitting a known starting wallet and a named next decision.
Judge a sitting plan
An invented token earns 40 per sitting. The only sink costs 80 and appears once per week. Is this a budgeted sitting? Why or why not?
Expected reasoning
No. Inside one sitting the player can earn but cannot reach a legitimate spend, so the wallet piles by design. A budgeted sitting needs at least one reachable sink before exit, or an explicit leftover that points at a named next decision - not a silent weekly gate alone.