About Budget Battle

Why this game exists

Public budgets are the largest decisions a democratic government makes, and the least playable. Almost every voter has a view; almost nobody has had to choose between a €9bn indexation freeze and a €2bn fraud crackdown while a prime minister watches the polls.

Budget Battle exists to close that gap. It is a simulation, not a manifesto: it does not tell you which budget policy is right, it shows you what each one costs you.

How the simulation is calibrated

The macro frame is a €3,060bn economy with debt at 118% of GDP and a starting deficit of 5.9%. Fiscal yields in the measure catalogue are in the range published in real budget documents, and the mechanisms that matter — indexation, refinancing costs, growth feedback, parliamentary arithmetic — are modelled explicitly rather than fudged with a difficulty multiplier.

Where the game simplifies, it says so: four scenarios, fifteen measures, one chamber and five ministerial portfolios is a model, not a country.

How it is funded

Playing is free and the pages are supported by advertising plus an optional one-off premium unlock that adds hard-mode dossiers and saved-run analytics. There is no subscription, no data sale and no requirement to create an account.

Contact

Bug reports, classroom licences, corrections and press enquiries all go to the same address and are read by a human. If a number in the game is wrong, that is a bug and we want to know.