I Played a Top-Secret Early Build of ‘AAA Simulator’ — Featuring Shades of Dystopic ‘Balatro’ (Early Demo Impressions)

Balatro, to this day, is considered one of indie gaming’s champions — and rightfully so! Everybody’s been taken by the roguelike deckbuilder at one point or another. But today, I have a different honor to bring to y’all. I was invited to play an early build of an upcoming roguelike management sim with Balatro roots: AAA Simulator. So, bear with me because we have a lot to talk about.

First and foremost, I won’t bury the lede: I planned to play AAA Simulator for an hour. I sat down at around 7:00 PM, and before I knew it, it was 9:30. That’s when I knew developer Whitelocke Media had something special cookin’ in the game development kitchen.

AAA Simulator, in elevator pitch form, is a Balatro-inspired management sim with classic Tycoon undertones. Even within the early build I played, there was room for different synergies, tactics, and unsavory (but profitable) methods. Oh, right, should’ve mentioned that at the top. You’re the CEO of a AAA game studio. You inherited the company from your father, and your aunt is one of the shareholders. No commentaries there at all!

‘aaa simulator’ is the perfect representation of what i always imagined the aaa development meat grinder to look like

I was introduced to AAA Simulator‘s core mechanics. Your ultimate goal is to meet your shareholders’ Quarterly Profit Goals within a certain number of turns. You fail to hit the mark, you lose — plain and simple. Ideally, you want to make as much money as possible. “Making a game” is good, sure, but who cares about all that game development stuff? As long as Numbers Go Up, we’re sitting pretty, baby!

At the start of each turn, one of two things could happen. A Random Event could pop up, which could be any number of good or bad circumstances. Maybe some random streamer highlighted your game, giving your company a needed Hype boost. Perhaps the Marketing department has a new idea they want to implement — but it costs money to make that happen. In most Events I encountered, I had a decision to make. Hire? Or Fire? You hire too many people, the profits can’t be reasonably met. You hire too few people, you push your game’s launch date back. Which could chip away at your Hype as players wonder when the game is releasing. Again, AAA Simulator has nothing to say about modern AAA development. Nope. Never.

Random Event or not, that leads you to the Balatro piece: the Labor Market. Here, AAA Simulator‘s roguelike chops are showcased in full force. You’ll have to purchase either Experts, all with varying effects — making sure a department works twice as hard, for example — or Favors. Experts are permanent buffs, but they ain’t cheap as each person has an initial Hiring Cost and Monthly Salary.

trust me, it’ll click when you sit down with it

Favors, on the other hand, are one-time consumables that could turn the tide of a bad AAA Simulator run. Maybe you want to buy a $100,000 Overtime Favor, which doubles everyone’s productivity, getting you closer to a game’s launch (while making that sweet, sweet money). Or perhaps a few of your employees need to be more “indie-minded.” Yeah, at those companies, everyone has to jump between roles — so why not here, too? Suddenly, Jeff from Marketing is now doing Coding, Designing, Art, and whatever else you tell him to do! With no additional pay!

Unfortunately, you have to deal with pesky Morale issues. Turns out that choosing to fire a bunch of people after hiring folks to make the most of an Expert’s buffs makes your employees upset. Who would’ve thought? So, on top of a game’s Hype, which you need to balance for end-of-the-month multipliers, Morale, which can stop a game’s production in its tracks, and measuring Daily Sales against the threshold of your Maximum Profits? AAA Simulator isn’t playing around. It’s Balatro if Balatro hated you, basically.

‘aaa simulator’ made me one with my inner corpo scumbag

After the Labor Market, choosing Favors and Experts, you can upgrade your departments! Which, again, ain’t cheap. AAA Simulator, in short, is the happiest I’ve ever been to be an anxious mess. It’s hard to hit your Quarterly Profit Goals. It’s a never-ending cycle of min-maxing spending vs. profits. Even if you’re lucky enough to find a rhythm and hit your Profit Goals for a quarter, the shareholders double or triple the financial expectations for next time.

Everything in AAA Simulator is arranged for you to fail. You aren’t destined to win. You’re meant to continue until the shareholders’ demands inevitably become too much for you to handle — and they will. Your employees become inconsequential names — overworked, likely underpaid (or, if you use the Internship Favor, not paid AT ALL), ultimately defined by the colors of their clothes and how “useful” they are.

At a point, you genuinely begin to see people as inconvenient ants. Their wants, needs, and dreams are irrelevant. All that matters is the money. And when you finally bottom out? Well, you have connections! You’ll be fine! The prompt to begin your next run? “On To The Next Company!” For your employees, being fired and disgraced is most assuredly one of the most tragic and traumatic events in their lives — which they may never recover from. But for you? It was Tuesday.

AAA Simulator will release a Steam demo during Steam’s June 2025 Next Fest event, with a full release scheduled for September 2025! Go throw it on your Wishlist if you’re interested!