The Field Guide

IThe core loop & the day

You revive a shuttered ski area: clear terrain, string up lifts, make snow, and give skiers a reason to drive up, all while the books stay in the black.

Time runs in winter seasons. Each operating day, skiers arrive in waves, check in, ride, ski, eat, and head home on their own schedules. Overnight the books settle, the weather rolls, snow and grooming update, and lift reliability gets tested. Between seasons the hill pauses for an off-season build break.

IIBuilding the mountain

IIICleared terrain & named runs

A lift is useful only when its top connects through skiable terrain to somewhere guests can continue. Skiers travel across cleared, snow-covered terrain. A named run marks and manages a chosen route through that terrain.

Build a named run

1. Open Build, choose Terrain, then Lay out a run.
2. Drag a corridor from a lift-served high point toward the base or a useful connection. The build quote includes terrain work the corridor requires.
3. Name it and post the difficulty guests will see on the sign.
4. Open the Trail Board to edit its route, change the sign, set grooming priority, or inspect its rides and operating status.

Posted difficulty is a promise. If the terrain skis harder than its sign, mismatched guests are more likely to struggle, wipe out, and complain. A wide, connected return is usually safer than a clever-looking thread that pinches off.

• Snow matters: thin cover can close a route until weather or snowmaking restores it.
• Terrain matters: pitch determines the measured slope rating. The sign does not change the mountain underneath it.
• Glades are a distinct promise: they preserve a wooded expert character instead of pretending every run is a cleared piste.

IVSnow, grooming & snowmaking

Snow depth

Snowfall and storms deepen the pack. Settling and thaw reduce it, usually hurting low terrain first. Too little cover closes terrain.

Snow quality

Guests feel more than depth. Fresh snow, groomed corduroy, and thawed or icy surfaces change trail satisfaction and pace.

Snowmaking reach

The fleet covers a share of all cleared terrain. Coverage is assigned from the base uphill, so newly cleared acreage can dilute the percentage and leave the upper mountain outside the fleet's reach.

Snowmaking intensity

Off, Economy, Normal, and Aggressive trade overnight top-up against the snowmaking bill. More intensity does not extend the fleet's footprint. More guns extend reach; intensity changes work inside it.

Grooming priorities

Snowcats cover a limited amount of connected skiable terrain each night. Priority posted runs go first, gentler terrain goes before steeper terrain within the same group, then the fleet uses any remaining capacity elsewhere. Marking everything priority does not create more grooming capacity.

VWeather & the warming climate

Each night brings a forecast for the day ahead. Weather changes snow, demand, what price feels fair, and which lifts can operate.

Clear

Calm weather is easy to operate, but brings no fresh snow and the pack keeps settling.

Snowfall

Fresh snow improves the base and can draw a larger crowd, especially once the hill is known.

Storm

Heavy snow closes open-air lifts, including surface lifts and chairs. Gondolas, telemixes, and funiculars are storm capable. The next morning can bring a powder rush and avalanche risk on steep terrain.

Regional wind hold

Chairs and quads stand down. Ground-hugging surface lifts and enclosed or all-weather lift types can keep moving.

Thaw

Warm weather melts cover and worsens the surface. Grooming can help quality, while snowmaking protects only terrain inside its reach.

The climate warms over the years

Career weather slowly warms season after season. Low, southern hills lose reliable winter first. Snowmaking can defend a valuable core, but it cannot create cold weather. The lasting portfolio answer is elevation and latitude: expand toward colder mountains while deciding what role a warming hill can still play.

VIThe lifts

Capacity emerges from carrier size, carrier spacing, speed, and line length. A nominally large lift can still load in batches or leave a long wait if demand overwhelms it.

Surface lift

The cheap short-haul choice. It hugs the ground during a regional wind hold, but closes in a storm.

Chairlift

The workhorse for medium terrain. It is exposed to wind and storms.

High-speed quad

Faster and roomier than a chair, with a larger operating bill and the same exposed-weather limits.

Gondola

Long reach, large enclosed cabins, and storm operation at a premium build and operating cost.

Telemix

Alternating chairs and enclosed cabins combine strong capacity with storm capability. It sits between a quad and a gondola in role.

Funicular

Two large counterbalanced railway cars serve a shorter, steep fixed line in all weather. Its batch loading and high price are the tradeoffs.

Availability: telemixes and funiculars do not appear in Daily Challenge. Career introduces them on mountains where they are signature lifts.

Construction price: every lift combines a fixed terminal cost with a line-distance cost. The build catalog shows the cheapest legal starting price. After the first station is placed, the preview shows the distance and price before you place the second station. Longer lines cost more, while a shorter feeder no longer pays the same construction price as a mountain-spanning installation.

Lifts age. Older equipment needs more maintenance and faces greater breakdown risk. Closing a lift saves its crew and power for the day, but does not erase age or the underlying maintenance need. Replacing it resets its age.

VIIVillage, venues & guest development

Village Character

Character grows from the number and diversity of venue types, varied decor with diminishing returns, village surfacing, venue grades, and the lodge tier. Recent settled guest satisfaction then strengthens or weakens that built foundation. Higher Character gives arriving guests a better first impression. Village Character is not used in Daily Challenge.

Every venue has a job

Chalet

A mid-mountain rest and meal stop. Guests must pass near it and choose the diversion. Its food covers and revenue belong to that chalet.

Restaurant

A higher-capacity base meal with stronger revenue and satisfaction, balanced by a longer visit and a larger investment.

Cafe

A quick, affordable base meal and warm-up. It serves traffic faster but earns less per cover than a full restaurant.

Rink

A once-per-day base leisure stop. It creates satisfaction and occupies capacity without restoring ski energy.

Shop

The on-mountain home for rentals. Renting guests stop at the nearest shop on their way from the drop-off lane to check-in. That visit and the rental revenue already booked for that guest are attributed to the shop without charging the guest a second time.

Lounge

A later, higher-end farewell stop. It opens at 14:30 and can host the après band.

Bar

An earlier après farewell stop for guests heading out. It opens at 13:00 and can host the band.

Ski school

A lesson operation that attracts reserved students as staffed capacity grows. It advances Beginners to Intermediate and returning Intermediate regulars toward Expert, while still accepting organic walk-ins when unreserved seats remain.

How guests choose a venue

A candidate must serve the guest's current need, be open, affordable, reachable from the guest's location, and have free capacity. Among candidates, archetype tastes and concept tags matter, as do menu price and price sensitivity. A great venue on the wrong side of the mountain or full at lunch is not a usable venue.

Meal demand is finite. Breakfast and meal guests choose among suitable places; a chalet can also divert a skier during a descent. A second similar venue can add seats, but it does not manufacture a second lunch for every guest. If the existing venue was not full, similar price and tags may simply split the same meal pool.

Venue economics and payback

An open venue carries its own daily staff cost. Food, drink, and rental sales also collect guest transaction tax, while payroll tax and shared hill costs remain in the main books. The venue inspector therefore labels its direct contribution honestly: revenue after that venue's staff, before taxes and resort-wide costs.

Traffic matters as much as menu price. A room has to be reachable, open when guests want it, and large enough to take the crowd. Time inside is also time away from skiing, so a long meal or rest can trade lift laps for a better guest experience. More capacity helps only when the room was filling up in the first place.

The inspector compares the venue's settled winter pace with the capital invested in the building and its upgrades. A healthy, well-placed venue should normally earn back that investment over a few solid winters, not in one lucky day. If a venue is losing money, improve its traffic, hours, fit, or staffing before expanding it. Ski school is read with its resort-wide lesson and instructor lines alongside the room's own desk contribution.

The six venue concepts

• Burger Shack: fast, familiar food with more seats and stronger take, without an extra satisfaction lift.
• Farm to Table: slower, higher-value dining with more satisfaction and fewer covers.
• Crunchy & Healthy: a higher-value meal that adds satisfaction without changing the room's pace.
• Bakery & Coffee: quick, lower-ticket service that turns more seats through the day.
• Craft Taproom: premium drinks and satisfaction at the cost of capacity.
• Cocoa & Cider Hut: a wholesome, lower-ticket drink concept with more capacity and stronger satisfaction.

Food concepts belong to restaurants and cafes. Drink concepts belong to bars and lounges. Their tags also meet different guest tastes.

Grades, happy hour, and the band

Eligible guest venues progress from Standard to Well-kept to Beloved. Grades improve the guest operation, including capacity, revenue, and satisfaction. Shops and ski schools do not use this grade ladder. Every grade is available without a lodge prerequisite.

Happy hour is a paid, same-day promotion on an eligible venue. It adds a booked resort amount and a satisfaction boost per cover, while affordability still uses the menu price the guest sees. A Venue Manager charges a daily retainer when there are venues to manage, learns from recent covers, considers tomorrow's demand, and may book happy hour automatically when the projection supports it.

The après band starts at 10:30. At restaurants, bars, and lounges it raises the menu price, the resort's take, and visit satisfaction. It also makes an already-present après guest more likely to choose a band venue. It does not create a new arrival wave or directly raise mountain demand.

The Resort Hub

The built-in lodge advances through Warming Hut, Base Lodge, Mountain Lodge, and Grand Lodge for a total investment of $750,000. The three steps cost $125,000, $225,000, and $400,000. Lodge upgrades do not unlock other content. Ski school, concepts, rental tiers, and venue grades are available on their own merits.

Instead, each tier amplifies the businesses the hill already has. At the full Grand Lodge, pre-cap demand is 20% higher, arriving guests gain 12 satisfaction points, and 65% of eligible lodge check-ins receive a concierge referral to a live venue. Dining and après rooms book 70% more per visit and seat 75% more guests. Rental bookings rise 75% with 50% more booked per rental, while lesson uptake rises 60%.

The Resort Hub panel shows what it can amplify now, referrals made and completed, rentals and lessons influenced, added money, added arrival satisfaction, extra guests wanted and admitted, and current winter payback pace.

Hub demand amplification applies to ordinary mountain demand. Ski-school reservations are added afterward and keep first claim on lesson seats and arrival capacity. The Hub's lesson-uptake boost applies only to organic walk-ins, since reserved students already committed to a package. Hub- attributed lesson money is a labeled subset of Ski School lesson receipts, not a second revenue line.

Rentals and ski school

Rental tiers are resort-wide. Basic gear is the starting offer. Performance gear raises uptake, price, and rental satisfaction. Demo gear is a more selective premium offer, especially appealing to weekend warriors. More shops raise the resort-wide rental value with diminishing returns and improve beginner check-in mood. Each shop shows its own visits and attributed rental revenue, while all rental income still appears once in the resort-wide Rentals ledger line.

Each instructor supplies 20 core lesson spaces before Development bonuses. The school targets reservations from 45 percent of staffed capacity, with Welcome School and ticket price able to improve that target up to 75 percent. Reserved students take shared arrival slots ahead of unreserved demand and their package includes tuition. Organic walk-ins still need enough personal spending money and an unreserved seat.

A Beginner graduates to Intermediate after one completed Foundation lesson. An Intermediate needs three separate Progression clinics to graduate to Expert, and only regulars retain that progress between visits. Beginner recreational choices are green; Intermediate choices add blue; Expert choices add black, double-black, and glades. Trail signs govern eligibility, so a misleading posted rating can still expose a skier to harder measured terrain. Transfers and safe trips back to the base remain available at every ability.

Open the ski-school building to see students promised and still due, completed reserved lessons and walk-ins, named graduates, terrain they unlocked, trained race and guide participation, student satisfaction, current regular progress, and the direct contribution from lesson sales plus school-attracted tickets after instructor and desk costs. A skier's card and diary show current ability and clinic progress; the Locals Book preserves those facts for returning regulars.

VIIIGuests, regulars & reputation

Every skier has an ability, budget, energy level, day plan, tastes, and a drive home. They arrive with an initial mood, then react to the actual queues, runs, snow, variety, price, venues, activities, and incidents they experience.

Why a skier leaves

• Planned wave: their sampled stay is complete.
• Energy: they are too tired to keep skiing.
• Closing time: lift service or après has ended.
• Drive-home buffer: they leave early enough to finish the trip home before the operating day settles.

An early departure is not automatically a protest. Open the skier card and read the trip diary before treating it as a capacity or satisfaction failure.

Locals and regulars remember

Especially memorable great or poor visits can create a regular. The Locals book keeps their name, home, visit history, satisfaction memory, quirks, memorable moment, and whether they learned here. A returning regular arrives with mood influenced by that remembered satisfaction. The book's return suggestion is based on the person's quirk and recent experience, not a generic checklist.

High satisfaction makes a warm regular relationship more likely, and ski school can strengthen it, but regular formation is not guaranteed. A memorably bad day can also produce a dissatisfied local who remembers.

Satisfaction, reputation, and demand

Individual satisfaction settles into the day's average. Reputation moves gradually toward that result instead of snapping to it, and reputation then compounds into future demand. Returning regulars are a second, personal memory path: their own satisfaction history shapes their next arrival. A good day therefore helps both the public stars and the chance of familiar faces coming back.

Old reputation at reopened hills

A reopened hill can carry reviews from before you took over. Those old ratings weigh on its public stars at first, but every real guest visit replaces part of that history. Run good days, earn better reviews, and the old reputation eventually disappears.

IXOperations

The General Manager

The GM controls three departments: lifts, staffing, and snow. Delegate all three or keep any domain manual while the GM runs the others. Lift delegation handles openings and routine lift decisions; staffing delegation adjusts the crew policy; snow delegation manages grooming and snowmaking decisions. The controls live in Operations.

Maintenance and closure prevention

The maintenance policy trades recurring cost against age-related breakdown chance: Deferred is cheaper and riskier, Routine is the middle, and Preventive spends more for reliability. A separate seasonal maintenance plan is stronger: once purchased, it prevents age-related lift breakdowns for the rest of that season and can be set to renew when the next season begins. Neither choice repairs a lift that is already broken.

Staffing and combined payroll

Lean, Standard, and Extra guest-service crews change the combined wage line and the mood guests bring through check-in. The combined payroll covers operating crews across lifts, venues, patrol, race and cross-country activities, and delegated management. Some specialist lines, such as instructors and Development hires, remain separately legible where their system owns the cost.

Ski patrol

Patrol improves arrival confidence, prevents the morning avalanche event after storms, and reduces the chance that a wipeout becomes an injury. If an injury happens, staffed patrol responds without the outside-help charge. Patrol Training matters only when injury incidents are enabled.

Season-boundary business notices

Career hills can receive one business notice when a winter begins. The card stays open while the hill runs and gives several operating days to decide. Ignoring it applies the conservative default shown on the card.

A claims-priced insurance renewal can be accepted, paired with a paid season-long risk package, or exchanged for a higher deductible. The risk package starts claims cooling early and caps growth. The higher deductible lowers the daily general-liability premium but raises the existing cash response costs if another injury occurs.

A regional energy spike raises the existing power and snowmaking lines for a limited window. The hill can absorb it, hold the existing snowmaking dial at Economy for the window, or buy a winter supply contract that caps the increase. Economy snowmaking lowers both cost and snow output, so thin coverage can still cost visits. Finance names the active window and the season review records how the choice played out.

Night skiing

The one-time lighting install covers T-bars and regular chairlifts, plus their served runs. Day skiing continues until 20:00, cross-country stays open until 19:00, and après ends at 20:30. A separate after-work wave pays a reduced ticket. Unlit lift types close at dusk. Extra crew and power for each lit, operating lift are folded into the usual wages and power lines rather than printed as a separate night-skiing expense.

Ticket price and demand elasticity

Guests judge price against context, not one permanent ideal. Storms and thaws weaken the context; powder, holidays, and a strong park can support more. Raising price reduces the number who want to come and hurts price fairness when it outruns the day on offer. Lowering it can fill the hill while surrendering revenue per guest. The Report and Daily Ops Meeting show whether a price change is helping or hurting.

Drop-off, queues, and the arrival rail

The drop-off lane brings shared ride groups into the village without a buildable parking cap. Every arrival pays the flat Gate fee shown in Finance. The lift network supplies both a comfortable carrying level and a harder daily arrival rail. Guests served above comfort can mean crowding and queues; demand beyond the hard rail is turned away.

Marketing and information

Marketing campaign

Paid demand support for a limited run of days. Auto-renew can buy the next campaign when the current one expires and cash allows.

Billboard

Immediate sponsor cash in exchange for a small reputation cost. The roadside has a limited number of sponsor slots.

Press Stunt

A founder-specific once-per-season move that boosts the next day's demand. It is a short spike, not permanent reputation.

Data tracking

A one-time Operations purchase that unlocks the downloadable workbook of recorded decisions and outcomes. Use it to compare your recorded choices and results.

XActivities, rivals & goals

Terrain park

Guests use features they encounter on a compatible run. A completed feature passage adds trail-variety satisfaction, while the number and diversity of built feature types raise overall park quality. Repeating one object and building a varied park are therefore different strategies. Park quality also improves arrival appeal and the price context. Pond skimming is a late-season, low-mountain feature and expires at rollover.

Race course

A valid downhill course needs lift access and a skiable finish below its start. Non-beginners can enter. Racing begins at 13:00, takes entries until the window closes or the field fills, and charges no entry fee. Finishing creates satisfaction; the top three receive extra podium satisfaction. Owning a course also adds a daily race-crew wage, even on a quiet card.

Cross-country and biathlon

Draw a valley cross-country loop from the build palette. Eligible guests can take one outing before wind-down, paying the lap fee and receiving completion satisfaction. The crew costs money each operating day; climbing terrain makes the outing slower.

Biathlon is an upgrade to an existing cross-country loop, not a separate trail. A subset of cross-country guests skis repeated laps, detours to the range for a prone shooting stop, then rejoins the loop. The shooting lap adds satisfaction. Other guests keep using the ordinary loop.

Apex pressure

The Career rival can create several distinct incidents:

• Hotdogger accident: an immediate insurance cost and reputation hit tied to expert traffic.
• Price war: if a coming holiday finds your ticket above its context, rival discounting suppresses demand for that one day.
• Staff poaching: the retention choice stays open for three days. Paying keeps the crew; declining or letting it lapse raises the wage line for seven days.
• Expansion news: an immediate reputation shock on a hill below the loyalty threshold. A strong reputation absorbs it.
• Buyout: sustained distress can bring an immediate lowball for the whole operation. Success offers arrive after a three-day rumor, target one hill, and remain open for four days.

A success offer reflects the target hill's recent earning power, reputation, assets, and attached debt. Before you confirm, the card shows the headline offer, then a transparent 20% total cut: 8% broker fee, 5% legal, escrow, and filings, and a 7% earn-out holdback. The net wired at closing is shown underneath.

Accepting a targeted offer transfers that hill and keeps the rest of the portfolio running. Its operating income, caretaker revenue, and upkeep end; Apex takes the attached debt; earned peak-star gates stay open; and operations move if it was your active hill. The sale and full closing breakdown enter the Career ledger. Accepting an offer for your only hill is a deliberate cash-out: the net proceeds and history survive, one winter passes, and you return to the region to buy again. If the treasury is below the re-buy floor, the failsafe immediately returns the founding hill and may charge cash above the survival reserve. Refusing a qualifying offer instead awards the Independence badge, provided you have never sold to Apex.

Goals and founder legacy

A goal with several clauses is checked as one package at nightly settlement. Its clauses must be true together on that check; partial progress is not banked as separate completed clauses. Peak-reputation clauses use the hill's remembered high-water mark, while cash, debt, capacity, and built-project clauses use their current values. Once the complete goal latches, it stays complete.

Founder legacy uses its own ladder. The highest rung whose full set of clauses is true can latch, so a strong operation may skip past an earlier celebration. A clause in one legacy rung does not substitute for a missing clause in another.

XIReading the hill

The four Conditions views

Snow depth

A heat map of the snow actually lying on visible terrain. Use it to find the low or thin part of a route, not just the hill-wide average.

Snowmaking

Separates cleared cells inside tonight's gun reach from cells with no coverage. It maps reach, not the intensity setting.

At risk

Combines the forecast with current cover to distinguish terrain forecast to melt out, terrain close to opening, terrain holding, and neutral ground.

Slope Rating

Shows computed pitch as easy, intermediate, or expert and also marks route blockers such as missing lift service, thin snow, and the base. It is the terrain's measured difficulty, not your posted sign.

Trail Board versus Trail Map

Trail Board is the management list for named runs: edit a route, change its posted rating, set grooming priority, and read rides and status. Trail Map shows those routes on the mountain. Use the Board to change a run and the Map to see how the whole trail network fits together.

Buildings, Finance, and Report

Buildings

Answers: what does this individual asset do, is it being used, and is its direct guest operation carrying its approximate cost?

Finance

Answers: where did resort-wide cash come from and go, what do the operating levers cost, what debt is outstanding, and what can cash support next? Taxes and Insurance each appear as one roll-up. Open either line to see what drives its component costs.

Report

Answers: why did guests come, what did they experience, what moved satisfaction and reputation, and where is the operating bottleneck?

Building details and the resort ledger

Venue and Buildings panels show visits, attributed revenue, daily upkeep, and return on investment. Lift panels show today's riders against daily capacity. Use these figures to diagnose an individual operation; Finance remains the complete resort-wide ledger.

Chalet meals stay with the chalet that served them. Rental income appears once in the resort-wide Rentals line, while shop panels show which shop served each guest. Ski-school lessons, student tickets, instructor wages, and desk costs are resort-wide totals. When several schools operate, each school panel clearly marks that shared total.

Demand is not served arrivals

Demand is how many people want to come after reputation, weather, price, marketing, events, and other appeal are applied. Served arrivals are those admitted after the lift network's daily rail and any mode-specific limit. The difference is turned-away demand. The lift network, rather than a parking-lot upgrade, owns that served cap.

What the satisfaction rows mean

Report gives a complete cause breakdown across 13 rows: Arrival experience, Price fairness, Crowding, Ski patrol, Lessons & guides, Lift queues, Runs & trail fit, Snow conditions, Trail variety, Falls, Races, Cross-country, and Venues & dining.

Each per-visitor figure includes every guest who arrived that day, including guests who already left. The live satisfaction mean answers a different question: it averages only the guests currently on the hill. The two figures therefore do not have to match while a day is underway.

XIIMoney & solvency

Cash flow is not profitability

Operating profit is the day's revenue minus recurring operating costs, including wages, power, maintenance, snowmaking, grooming, and interest. Cash also moves when you build an asset, receive loan principal, repay principal, buy a seasonal plan, or sell something. A profitable hill can have a negative cash-flow day because it built a lift. An unprofitable hill can show more cash after borrowing. Read both the operating net and the cash balance.

Net worth is the headline

Net worth answers whether the operation is building lasting value. It is cash, plus the depreciated book value of lifts, buildings, and equipment, minus outstanding debt principal. In Career it also includes hill and area rights at their historical cost, and subtracts bank, SBA, and inherited debt. Borrowing raises cash and debt together, so a loan draw does not make you richer. Building converts cash into an asset, whose book value then declines over its useful life.

Book net worth is not an offer price. The separate What Apex would pay read uses earning power and an EBITDA multiple for a market-side view. Keep the two questions separate: what the books say you own, and what a buyer might pay for it.

Filed statements

Career Finance files income, balance sheet, and cash flow statements for each hill and for the consolidated portfolio. The archive retains the latest 40 filed winters. Its year line and selectors show the exact oldest and newest winters still available.

Buying and selling career hills

The deed price is what you pay in cash or finance through an SBA note. The SBA note only reaches the smallest hills on the coast: anything with more than 300 feet of vertical is past what that lending program covers, so the region's seven real mountains are cash or petition purchases. The Region panel keeps the Finance button visible on those hills and says why it is closed. A hill's fuller appraisal still drives caretaker income and its books. An unimproved hill sells for the lower of what you paid and its appraised value, less the sale fee. Improvements add their built value on top. The Region panel also subtracts attached debt in the net amount you will receive.

Loans and interest

A bank loan supplies cash now and charges interest each settlement until repaid. Early repayment saves future interest but consumes cash today. Some founder or Career financing conditions block a new hill-level loan; Finance keeps the control visible and explains the restriction. Loan proceeds and principal repayment change cash, while interest changes both cash and profit.

Taxes

The hill keeps four tax ledgers. Property tax follows the book value of lifts, buildings, and equipment. Payroll tax follows every wage line, including instructors. Guest transaction tax is collected on food, drinks, and equipment rentals, while lift tickets, lessons, and gate fees are outside the local tax base. Income tax accrues on positive pre-tax income each day. Its payable is visible in Finance and leaves cash at winter close.

Insurance

General liability coverage follows skier visits and terrain-park exposure. A winter with injury incidents raises the following winter's premium, while clean winters gradually bring it back down. Property and casualty coverage follows plant and equipment book value. Workers comp follows wages. Career hills have modest local rate differences, so a community hill and a destination resort may not quote the same premium. The Insurance & risk row in Finance shows the live claims multiplier and explains an active renewal choice.

XIIIThe Deeper Game

The career Playbook opens when you take on your second hill. Boston is for learning the basic game, so it awards no talent points and shows no talent tree. Once open, the Playbook belongs to your whole career: learn a talent once and bring it to every hill.

Mountain Operations

Precision systems, visible Big Iron, and hands-on old-school operations. The complete dependency map stays visible, and every node shows whether it is learned, ready, or still locked.

Guest Experience

The Guest Services Manager, lodge tree, venue concepts, grades, rentals, and the Venue Manager live in one strategic department.

Skier Development

Once a school and instructor establish the director function, the department can develop new-skier, racing, patrol, and mountain-skills programs where their prerequisites are met. Its summary connects capacity growth to reservations, graduations, harder-terrain use, race eligibility, and direct contribution.

Team (Career mode)

Career keeps one shared roster of up to six captains across your whole portfolio, three professions deep: a Mountain Operations Director, an Executive Chef, and a Snowsports Director. A paid, profession-specific search brings three named candidates the next career morning, each showing plain 1-to-5 ratings for Job Skill, Leadership, and Teaching, plus a stated strength, weakness, signing cost, and daily wage.

A hired captain posts to one owned hill at a time, and reposting them elsewhere is immediate. Only one captain from each profession can be posted at any single hill, though several of your hills can each carry their own. Wherever a captain is posted, their full benefit travels with them: a Mountain Operations Director trims nightly hill maintenance, an Executive Chef lifts booked guest-venue revenue, and a Snowsports Director adds lesson spaces per instructor. A hill without a posted captain keeps operating and earning caretaker income normally; captains sharpen a portfolio, they do not gate it.

A posted captain can also run a paid, multi-day local crew training project at their current hill, advancing it through three stages. Each finished stage leaves a smaller version of the captain's benefit behind permanently at that hill, even after the captain later moves elsewhere. Moving a captain away pauses an unfinished project without losing its progress; training continues on inactive hills during the nightly career close.

Basic Snow and Coverage reporting is part of Operations. Mountain Operations talent points buy permanent capabilities one at a time. The Guest Services Manager unlocks detailed What Skiers Want reporting and charges a daily wage, and improves information rather than demand.

Big Iron

This branch leaves steel and pipe in the world. Capital is only the beginning: staffed plant, power, closures, and concentrated outage risk remain operating choices.

• Pump House and High-Pressure Loop: extend an existing finite snowmaking fleet beyond its ordinary low-elevation reach and choose which named run gets priority. Pump House adds reach, not output, so upper work can delay lower openings.
• High Lead: one new aerial mainline may exceed its kind's ordinary length or cross one existing lift only with a verified support and vertical-clearance plan. The engineering quote is separate, the line is permanent, and its extra exposure can increase breakdown risk.
• Storm Spine: choose one chair for reduced-capacity service during storms and high wind.

Three simple views

Playbook

The complete career-wide map. This is where you spend points.

This Hill

Only learned talents, with their readiness and controls at the current hill.

Team

Regional captains and the current hill's development payroll.

Talent points: how they are earned and spent

Talents are the long game inside the Playbook. The Playbook shows every talent, prerequisite, and effect. The highlights below explain the shape of each branch.

Points are earned by guest-serving operating days, not by calendar days and not by cash. A day the hill served nobody pays nothing. Your second hill opens the Playbook with one point. One more arrives for every three guest-serving days across your career. Moving hills never resets the meter or grants another starter point. All three departments spend from one shared pool, so every purchase is a choice among the three branches. Most nodes cost one point; each talent card shows the cost before you buy.

Mountain Operations: Precision and Systems

This branch buys information and control rather than steel.

• Weather Station: a staffed station shows you more days of forecast everywhere the forecast appears.
• Shop Class: every lift becomes less likely to break, and the effect stacks as you buy its ranks.
• Sensors in the Snow: an instrumented snow zone reports its own depth and its own risk instead of a mountain average.
• Seven-Day Book: keeps a week of traffic, grooming and closures, and opens the week-ahead crowd outlook.
• Smart Guns: aim snowmaking by zone instead of always filling the base first.
• Load Forecast: the projection desk works in exact numbers, giving tomorrow's crowd and profit by fare plus a nightly draft lift schedule.
• Control Room: set one objective and one spending ceiling for the night, and the crews work to it.
• Leave It Running: snowmaking follows standing orders while you do something else.
• Tuesday's Breakdown: a paid service takes permanent wear off a lift and can get a broken one running again the same day.
• Every Pass Has a Purpose: point the same grooming budget at one objective, such as the busiest route.
• Mountain OS: the plan runs itself, opening lifts and committing snow and grooming, with every override you make recorded.

Mountain Operations: Big Iron

This branch leaves steel and pipe in the world, and each piece carries operating consequences described in the section above.

• Pump House: your guns reach higher up the mountain on nights the base is already covered.
• High-Pressure Loop: pick one run that gets snow first instead of always building from the base up.
• High Lead: build one oversized aerial lift, long enough or high enough to cross another lift.
• Storm Spine: one chair keeps running through storms and wind holds at half its carriers.

Mountain Operations: Old School

The hands-on branch, built around a shop that keeps old iron alive.

• The Lot Out Back: buy used lifts each winter, with their age and wear shown before you install one.
• Parts Bin: retire an old lift for a workshop credit instead of selling it for cash.
• The Good Half of Two Lifts: retire one old lift to give another a full overhaul that counts toward a classic.
• Nothing a Wrench Can't Fix: reopen a closed lift the same afternoon, whether it broke down or the diggers closed it.
• They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To: a cared-for veteran lift stops aging, and regulars go out of their way to ride it.

Guest Experience talent highlights

This department buys the village's identity, its circulation, and its evening life. Its branches cover venues, village improvements, rentals, itineraries, and staffed automation.

• Table and Tap: the Farm to Table and Craft Taproom concepts become available.
• Hill Fuel: the Crunchy Healthy and Cocoa and Cider Hut concepts become available.
• Feed the Rush: the Burger Shack and Bakery and Coffee concepts become available.
• The Guest Book: send a guest on a planned route through up to three venues in one day.
• Last Chair Local: book live music at your venues.
• Village on Ice: build an ice rink as its own destination.
• Second Bell: turn on night skiing, with lit lifts, evening arrivals, and cheaper night tickets.
• Village Streets: pave the village in cobblestone or shoveled brick.
• House Favorite: unlocks the Loved Landmark renovation for your best venues.

Skier Development: Learning Mountain

The school branch, which turns first-timers into regulars who keep coming back.

• Learn Here: your ski school gets real students, with reserved beginner lessons that graduate into returning regulars.
• One More Class: after 1:00 PM, unclaimed lesson seats open to walk-ins.
• Community School: more people in the area want lessons here.
• Instructor Bench: room for two more instructors on the payroll.
• Student Body: booked students can fill a larger share of the day's visitors.
• Office Hours: each instructor runs two intermediate clinics a day.
• Home-Mountain List: regulars who learned to ski here come back more often.
• Class Split: choose the winter's student mix from beginners, balanced, or clinics.

Skier Development: The Mountain Teaches

Teaching that happens on the hill itself rather than in a lesson.

• Woods School: sell guided glade trips in a real, capacity-limited group.
• Mountain Skills: more trained skiers join the guided glade trips.
• Storm School: prevents some injuries outright and gets patrol there faster, though it never replaces patrol.

Skier Development: Race Works and Nordic

The competitive and club side of the department. Park features remain available without spending a talent point.

• Set the Gates: unlocks the race course and a daily race.
• Gate Crew: four more racers start each race, for an added crew cost.
• Race Team: sell paid coaching to named racers, out of your school's seats.
• Race Pipeline: a coached race finish can make a learned-here intermediate an advanced skier.
• Nordic Track: unlocks the drawn cross-country course and its trail passes.
• Nordic Club: sell paid club sessions that only count once the skier finishes a lap.
• The Range: unlocks the biathlon range upgrade.

The Playbook shows the complete career-wide map. Each node carries its current learned, ready, or locked state.

XIVThe Daily Ops Meeting

The meeting opens after each settled operating day. It is the bridge between what just happened and what you choose for tomorrow.

• Recap: guests served, completed runs, revenue, costs, operating net, cash, satisfaction, reputation, the strongest tracked rating mover, and the day's notable event.
• Outlook: next weather, expected served arrivals, important demand factors, thin or at-risk terrain, and the operating lever most exposed by that forecast.
• Decisions: day-ticket price, automatic pricing, and snowmaking, staffing, and maintenance policies. These decisions update the same ticket price and operating policies used across the hill.
• Department briefs: Snow and Coverage and What Skiers Want appear when their Development hires are on staff.

Closing the clipboard leaves the hill paused so you can build or inspect. Opening the next day closes the books and starts the morning at normal speed. The meeting explains causes and consequences, then leaves the final call to you.

XVThe game modes

Career

Choose a founder, revive a first hill, then acquire and operate a regional portfolio through changing winters, rival pressure, goals, and founder legacy.

Daily Challenge

The same mountain and conditions for everyone, scored over a set number of operating days. Some tools are unavailable so every player faces the same challenge.

Winter Carnival

A busy showcase network, ready to wander and study.

Quick Play

Open-ended building on a starter hill with a comfortable budget. It silently starts on Bunny Hill, the easiest place to learn the physical mountain loop.

Six difficulty tiers

Difficulty changes the economy and operating pressure. Blue Square is the classic ruleset.

Bunny Hill

Governors handle the routine work, and bankruptcy cannot end your hill. Just build and watch. Relaxed.

Green Circle

Simple tools and gentler pressure, but no bailout. Automatic pricing is available when you want it. Easy.

Blue Square

The classic game. A fair fight.

Black Diamond

The numbers stop being kind.

Double Black Diamond

Run every part of the mountain with tight margins and real consequences. Master this and you might be ready to run a real ski hill. Expert.

Glades

One life in the trees. Hitting a tree is unforgiving: go bankrupt once and you drop to Double Black, permanently. Hardcore.

XVIGetting around & saving

XVIIThe founders

Career founders change tools, constraints, crowd mix, and legacy. Difficulty is a separate choice and owns the broader economic pressure. The selection cards show the exact founder effects before you commit.

The Penitent

Uses the shared economy and measures redemption through regulars who return across the portfolio.

The Liftie

Repairs lift breakdowns overnight for free, but cannot take a bank loan. Finance keeps the control visible and explains the lock.

The Preservationist

Standing forest builds appeal and loyalty, while clearing costs more and harms reputation. Protest events cannot fire.

The Snow Scientist

Gets more from snowmaking and grooming and sees farther into the forecast. The legacy follows engineered coverage across the coast.

The Hotdogger

Draws experts, rewards hard laps, and earns more from venues. Beginner demand falls and accident risk remains.

The Suit

Starts with a larger bankroll and pursues a solvent regional portfolio. Difficulty still owns the wider economy.

XVIIIThe lost areas

The Career map starts low and warm, then opens paths toward higher, colder, snowier mountains:

• Boston Hill
• Chickley Alp
• Brodie
• Temple Mountain
• Mount Whittier
• Mount Rowe
• Stanton Slopes
• Evergreen Valley
• Newport
• Enchanted Mountain

Each hill's story and local history arrive through the Career itself.

XIXWhen you are stuck

Skiers ignore my new lift

Check that they can reach its bottom and ski a continuous, snow-covered route from its top. The inspector's Show me action points at the operating cause.

My posted run says open, but nobody can use it

The named route still depends on the physical network. Check lift access, thin cover, and whether it connects to a useful descent.

I cannot tell where snowmaking reaches

Use Conditions: Snowmaking. Coverage starts at the base and climbs, while intensity changes overnight output inside that footprint.

Everyone leaves early

Read a skier card first. The cause may be their planned stay, energy, closing time, or drive-home buffer rather than anger.

Demand is high but arrivals are lower

Compare demand with served arrivals in Report. The lift-network rail can turn guests away when demand exceeds what the operating network can serve.

I keep losing money

Separate operating net from cash flow, then inspect the largest recurring line. Close unneeded lifts, review crew and maintenance policies, avoid duplicating unused venue capacity, and price for the day actually on offer.

The game stopped or a season will not start

Reload the page. If it repeats, send feedback from the pause menu and include the build version shown on the title screen.

My save changed after I signed in

Use Quick Continue or the slot screen. Browser saves sync into the signed-in account, and downloaded backups remain available to import.