faction-plugin-founders-trail

The Founders Trail

Startup Parody of Oregon Trail

Lead your founding team from the garage to unicorn status. Make decisions about rewrites, board pivots, SOC 2 requests, and the agent platform that just ate your main feature. Team members take advantage of the unlimited PTO policy. The VC Emeritus narrates your ruin.

At a glance

// 3 campaigns · 37 events

// 10 stages · 6 outcomes

// 15 achievements

// 1 VC Emeritus narrator

Install

faction plugin install faction-plugin-founders-trail

// Slash command: /trail

Highlights

▸ 3 campaigns: The SaaSpocalypse, The AI Gold Rush, Web3 Winter
▸ 37 hand-authored events with 111 narrator outcome passages
▸ 10 stages from The Garage to Unicorn
▸ 15 achievements across Milestone / Performance / Variety / Narrative
▸ Run history + fastest-unicorn tracking per campaign
▸ Auto-generated cofounders from a diverse name pool
▸ Dignified team departures ("took advantage of the unlimited PTO policy")
▸ Markdown + TOML event authoring
▸ Six possible endings: Unicorn, Acquisition, Acquihire, Bankrupt, Pivot to Agency, Abandoned

Campaigns

· The SaaSpocalypse — Build SaaS while AI agents eat features (14 events)
· The AI Gold Rush — Build AI while everyone else builds AI (13 events)
· Web3 Winter — Build a protocol during a crypto downturn (10 events)

Stages (Garage → Unicorn)

· The Garage — MVP scope, cofounder picks, first commit
· The First Demo — ship it ugly or polish?
· Pre-Seed Pitch Circuit — rejection montage
· MVP Launch — Hacker News or crickets
· Seed Round — term sheet negotiations
· Hiring Spree — double the team, double the problems
· Series A — product-market fit or premature scaling
· Scaling Crisis — triage mode
· Series B — board wants a pivot
· Unicorn — or one of five other endings

Signature mechanics

· Auto-generated cofounders with burnout and motivation levels
· Members leave via "unlimited PTO," FAANG offers, or the PhD whose subject is you
· Every event has 3 choices with distinct narrator outcome passages
· Tech debt accumulates from shortcuts, affects future event severity
· Runway is the terminal stat — 0 means bankruptcy
· Achievement unlocks surface inline with synthesis

Quickstart

$ /trail campaigns

$ /trail start the-saaspocalypse

$ /trail travel

$ /trail decide approve

$ /trail achievements

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// Open source. PRs welcome. All six games ship as installable Faction plugins.