Your first good ski day
You are reopening a New England ski hill. Start with a complete trip: a lift guests can reach, a snowy way down and enough cash to open tomorrow.
- Pause and look around. Find the base, gentle terrain and a sensible return route.
- Complete the loop. Check the bottom station is reachable and the top connects to terrain your guests can ski.
- Let the hill run. Follow a guest. Inspect the queue and watch where people struggle. You can build while paused.
- Make tomorrow's plan. Read the closing result, then choose the fare and operating plan before opening the next day.
Named runs are optional. Use Build → Terrain → New run when you want to draw, name and manage a trail.
What should I build?
Build to solve a need you can see. Long queues call for a transport check. Full meal venues may need more seats. Thin cover calls for a snowmaking check. More buildings bring more costs as well as possibilities.
Use the illustrated cards to compare a building’s job, when it helps and what can hold it back. The in-game placement preview is the final guide to where it fits and what it costs.
Keep the drop-off apron, village street and reserved Nordic ground clear. The move tool can relocate many objects; demolition returns only part of the investment.
What satisfaction really means
Satisfaction is how a guest feels about the visit. Arrival mood, ticket value, crowding, queues, snow, falls, lessons, activities and venues all contribute. A good cafe cannot erase a difficult day on the mountain.
Tap a skier for their mood. In Simple, read the night recap or Hill Office → Home → Last night's report. In Complex, open Guests on phone or Report on desktop for the live mood and cause breakdown. Let another day run after a change before judging it.
Reputation is the longer view. Good visits help earn a following. Village Character is a separate ingredient: venue variety, decoration, surfacing, grades and lodge tier influence mood on arrival. These measures describe different parts of the same visit.
When to upgrade the lodge
Your lodge starts as a Warming Hut. Upgrading it strengthens the businesses and services you have: better arrival mood, more dining and après seats, higher spending, more rental demand and more lesson uptake.
Upgrade a working village. If your food venues are empty or your lifts cannot support more guests, solve that first. Demand bonuses apply before arrival limits, so a larger lodge does not guarantee that many more visitors.
The base upgrade prices are $125,000 for Base Lodge, $225,000 for Mountain Lodge and $400,000 for Grand Lodge. They are successive purchases, totaling $750,000 before any pricing modifiers. The game shows your actual quote.
Lodge upgrades do not unlock ski school, venue concepts, rental tiers or venue grades. Those have their own requirements. Concierge referrals send eligible lodge guests to operating venues; the lodge’s attributed sales are part of your sales, not a second cash payment.
How your career grows
The Playbook opens on career day one. Guests using the mountain and completing activities earn experience. You start with one talent point; later levels add a point to a shared pool, up to 70 points. Your career can rise one level per night. Learned talents travel between hills.
There are 70 one-point talents across Mountain, Village and People. Follow each talent's prerequisites. Branch ultimates require six other talents in that branch plus their named prerequisites. Complete the six members of a themed set to activate its bonus from the next morning.
Simple follows a fixed crew order. Two to a Bar comes first and Rope Tow second. The crew does not skip a talent because its building is missing: the effect waits until your hill has what it needs. Open Level → Talents to see your progress.
Complex lets you choose. You can reset your talents when you have a reset credit. Credits arrive at levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60, plus the first switch from Simple to Complex. Unused credits wait for you. A reset returns your spent points; your level, titles, buildings and paid conversions remain. Talent effects and set bonuses pause until you learn the talents again.
A slower career has a safety net: one point per 16 guest-serving operating days sets a minimum pace. It tops up a career that has fallen behind; it does not add a second point to every level.
Read today, improve tomorrow
Guests arrive, ride, ski, visit the village and head home throughout the day. A visit can end because time or energy ran out, the lifts closed or the drive home is long. An early departure is not automatically a failure.
At closing, read the operating result and guest satisfaction. In Simple, choose a ticket fare and a Snow and service budget; your crew handles the work and talent choices. In Complex, set the detailed operating plan yourself.
Overnight work prepares the snow, grooming and lift condition for tomorrow. The winter review closes the books at the end of the season. There is no separate off-season building period. Leave an operating reserve as you expand.
Give every skier a way down
Guests use connected terrain even without named runs. A lift needs a continuous skiable descent, and beginners need slopes they can handle. A gap, steep pinch or thin patch of snow can break a promising route.
Choose Build → Terrain → New run. Draw downhill, then choose Review. Check the measured difficulty, lift service and clearing price before Post the sign. On a phone, tap Draw before tracing the corridor. Your posted routes appear under Trails in the desk.
A trail sign is a promise. Calling a steep slope green does not make it easier; guests can struggle and fall. Glades retain trees and offer a different challenge from cleared runs. Watch actual trips before adding another lift.
Depth, quality and coverage
Depth keeps a route open. Snowfall builds the base; settling and thaw reduce it. Quality changes the ski. Fresh snow, corduroy and ice affect the experience. Grooming improves the surface, but it does not replace missing snow.
Guns cover ground; intensity sets output. Ordinary snowmaking coverage works from the base uphill. Add guns to extend reach. Raising intensity makes more snow inside the current reach. Check the Snowmaking overlay after expanding terrain.
Snowcats have limited nightly capacity. Priority runs receive attention first, but marking every run priority does not create a bigger fleet. The Snow talent branch adds targeted tools such as Trail Guns, Night Shift and Half and Half.
Protect your useful core before spreading equipment thinly across the whole mountain.
The mountain will test you
Weather changes turnout, fair ticket value, snow and lift availability. Thaw attacks cover, especially low down. A storm brings snow but can close open-air lifts. Enclosed and all-weather lift types have different limits.
Regional wind holds affect chairs and quads; the current Wind Watch talent lets those lifts run at half rate during a wind hold. Surface lifts stay close to the ground but can still close in storms. Read the lift’s current status.
Across a career, warming makes low, southern hills less reliable. Higher, colder mountains bring opportunities along with new operating costs and terrain challenges. Snowmaking helps when conditions allow; it is not a cure for every warm day.
Useful access before bigger capacity
A lift is useful only if guests can reach the bottom and ski a viable route from the top. Check its operating status before replacing or expanding it.
Surface lifts suit short routes. Chairs and quads move guests across more terrain; their speed, seats and line length affect the ride and queue. Gondolas add enclosed transport at a larger cost. Telemixes and funiculars are specialized options whose availability depends on the mode and mountain.
A lift quote includes terminals and distance. Preview the whole line before buying. Longer and larger is not always better: operating costs, aging and maintenance continue after construction.
Talents change the equipment you use. Six-Pack refits quads overnight; Express speeds chairs and quads; Lift Barn slows lift aging. A talent that helps a gondola will wait for a gondola.
Build businesses guests can use
Each venue has a job. Cafes and restaurants feed guests; chalets offer a stop on the mountain; shops handle equipment; a school supports lessons; bars and lounges catch the departing crowd. An inn sells overnight stays. Rinks and other activities add reasons to linger.
Guests choose suitable venues based on need, access, hours, room, budget and preferences. A full or unreachable room cannot serve them. Similar venues may divide the same customers rather than create new demand.
Concepts and grades
Food and drink concepts change price, serving speed, capacity and appeal. The base menus include Burger Shack, Farm to Table, Crunchy & Healthy, Bakery & Coffee, Craft Taproom and Cocoa & Cider Hut. The Food tree adds Steakhouse. Eligible venues can improve from Standard to Well-kept to Beloved; shops and schools do not use those grades.
Look at the business, not just the building
Read visits, revenue and staff costs in the inspector. Direct contribution is revenue minus that venue’s staff cost, before taxes and shared hill costs. Ski schools also need instructors. Inns need guests willing to book at the offered rate; inspect vacancies and priced-out guests before expanding.
Après music and promotions can improve spending and visits. The new Nights branch adds shows, hockey, later service and headliners. Learn the talent, then check the facility and operating conditions it needs.
Who chooses the menu? In Simple, your crew picks venue menus and the venue card names the current one. In Build and Run, you can choose available concepts; changing an existing venue can cost money. A website preview does not unlock a concept in your save.
Your fare and tomorrow's plan
Demand is not the same as capacity. Reputation, weather, price, the lodge and your mountain's offer help decide who wants to come. Access, working lifts and usable terrain decide what they can enjoy once they arrive.
The fare presets are Cheap, Balanced and Expensive. Each shows the fare it will set for your hill. A price you set yourself appears as Yours. Check the result alongside guest satisfaction and costs: a busier hill can still be a poor business.
In Simple, Snow and service offers Minimal, Mid and High. It covers snowmaking, grooming, staffing and upkeep. The displayed quote shows the cost and whether the plan applies today or tomorrow. A higher budget does not add equipment or repair a disconnected descent.
In Complex on phone, Operations holds the fare and cost controls; Money shows the books and Guests shows the guest breakdown. On desktop, look in Finance and Report. Improve the bottleneck you can see before attracting another crowd.
Profit, cash and the cost of growing
Operating net tells you how the day’s business performed. Cash flow also reflects money spent building and other cash movements. A useful construction project can make cash fall on a profitable day.
Recurring costs include staff, lift operations, maintenance and snow work. New venues and equipment add obligations. Before buying, keep enough reserve to survive quieter or warmer days.
Use the business inspector to compare current-winter results with the investment. Start with an underused room or an unnecessary open lift if costs are winning. Debt and interest add pressure; loan availability also depends on your founder.
Choose how much to manage
Build the Mountain (Simple): place the lifts, trails and village, choose the fare and Snow and service budget, and let the crew carry out the plan and learn talents.
Build and Run the Mountain (Complex): choose the detailed operating settings and talents yourself. The in-game style switch explains access for your account. Both styles share the same career.
Career grows from a hill into a portfolio. Quick Play / Sandbox is for experimenting. Daily play has its own rules and does not use your career's talents, lodge bonuses or Village Character.
Daily play differs by app version. The iOS 1.4.5 app includes the new rotating daily games. The web 1.4.6 release retains the earlier Daily Challenge. Read the rules shown inside your game.
Find your bearings
Pause whenever you need time to plan. Select a building, lift or guest to inspect it. The Build menu shows the tools currently available on your hill.
For a lift, choose the bottom station and then the top. On desktop, the second click builds the lift and spends the quote. On a phone, review the placement and tap Build lift. Cancel leaves an unfinished line unbuilt.
Open Menu for settings, saving, help and feedback. On desktop, Esc opens it; on mobile, use the upper-left menu. The in-game lessons give instructions for your device.
Keep your mountain with you
Use the same account on both devices. Save on the original device and wait for Saved online before switching, then download that save on the other device. A local save can finish even when the online upload does not. Signing in alone does not replace choosing the right saved career.
Use Menu → Saved games to manage careers and make a downloadable backup. If the wrong progress appears, keep the original device's data intact. Contact support before overwriting the copy that may still contain your mountain.
Purchases and save progress are separate. For a missing purchase, check the account and restore options in the game; for a missing mountain, check the saved career and its date.
A different owner, a different challenge
Your founder changes the tools, restrictions and goals of the career. Difficulty adds a separate layer of economic pressure. Read each selection card before deciding.
For example, Alex Francis, the Lifer, repairs broken lifts overnight but cannot take a bank loan. The Preservationist rewards a standing forest and makes clearing a more consequential choice. Choose a founder whose tradeoffs sound interesting to you.
From one hill to a region
The career begins on a small, warmer hill and opens routes toward higher, colder mountains. A new property is another operating business, not just a larger blank canvas.
Talents stay with your career, but a hill still needs the facilities and terrain that put them to work. A great racing school on one hill does not create a race course at the next.
When you leave a hill, its caretaker calculates daily earnings or costs from the mountain you built and the conditions it faces. You can return to improve it. Keep the whole portfolio healthy as winters pass.
Find the next useful move
Start with the problem you can see: one guest, one queue, one venue or one day's accounts. Make one useful change, then watch another day.
If the game stops responding, save if possible and reopen once. If it repeats, use Menu → Help → Send feedback. Include what you were doing and your device. Keep original save data intact when progress is missing.
When the last chair comes around
New free players start with 21 game days. The bank belongs to your account or device, not to each career. Your day bank gains 14 days at each local midnight, up to 28. These are days on the mountain, not hours on the clock. The game shows what you have left.
If you reach Last chair, you can come back after the refill or use an access option shown in the game. The Night skiing access option gives 24 real hours of uncapped career play from purchase. It is separate from building lights and operating your mountain after dark.
The Region and Pro both include unlimited career game days. Some existing players already have uncapped access. Follow the limit shown for your own career; an older save may behave differently from a new player’s account.
Put your hill in the Hill Cup
The Hill Cup is a weekly showcase for the hill you have built. Enter the nominated hill from your career. Your entry is a frozen snapshot, so you can keep playing without changing the submitted hill.
You have seven votes a week, with one vote per hill. A vote is final. Voting closes Saturday night Eastern time; the top three earn medals. Check the current week's entry and voting screen in the game before submitting.
Keep a little of this winter
At the winter review, choose Share this winter to make a keepsake of the season. Preview the card before saving or sharing it.
A keepsake is a picture of your progress. It does not back up your career; use Saved games for that. A Hill Cup entry is a separate submission.
The village gets a little busier
In iOS 1.4.5: the village has new paths, parking and street crossings. Paving shapes the walking routes; guests use crossings around cars. Parking lots belong on their marked sites, and Complex lets you set a parking fee while Simple parks free.
As your hill earns it, the east access road becomes a separate expansion. Check its in-game requirement and quote before buying. Keep the drop-off, street and reserved ground clear when placing buildings.
These additions are not in the web 1.4.6 gameplay release. Android and Steam players should check their installed version; the manual marks this as an iOS addition until the same update reaches them.
A different little challenge each day
In iOS 1.4.5: daily play includes a rotation of short games inspired by life on the mountain. Open the day's game, read its goal and try its controls. Scores and rules belong to that game; they do not spend your career talents or reshape your saved mountain.
On web 1.4.6: Daily Challenge still uses the earlier mountain-management format. Follow its on-screen build, play and leaderboard instructions. A website guide for the new rotation should not be used as the rules for this version.