Choose a guide by the decision you need to understand
The complete collection contains 31 free guides: fourteen small-business guides, six restaurant guides, five motel guides, five indoor sports-facility guides, and one ride-hailing guide. Each explains the relevant simulator mechanics, useful performance measures, controlled tests, and limits of the simplified model.
New to the simulations? Start with a baseline run and record the initial settings. Choose one decision to change, predict its effect, and keep other inputs as stable as the simulator allows. After the test, explain the result with evidence from demand, capacity, quality, cost, and cash—not revenue alone.
Small-business strategy guides
Use these guides to investigate unit economics, staffing, service capacity, inventory, quality, waste, repeat demand, and cash discipline. The best starting guide is usually the one matching the simulator you just played.
- Auto Repair Simulator guide — diagnostics, parts, bays, trust, and comeback work.
- Bakery Simulator guide — production, freshness, morning capacity, and waste.
- Bookstore Simulator guide — inventory fit, events, recommendations, and slow stock.
- Car Wash Simulator guide — packages, bay flow, memberships, supplies, and uptime.
- Childcare Simulator guide — enrollment, staffing coverage, safety, quality, and capacity.
- Coffee Shop Simulator guide — pricing, queues, staffing, quality, attach rate, and waste.
- Dry Cleaning Simulator guide — backlog, turnaround, stains, rework, and equipment condition.
- Fitness Studio Simulator guide — membership demand, classes, churn, and equipment.
- Food Truck Simulator guide — location, menu focus, prep, weather, permits, and service.
- Grocery Store Simulator guide — format choice, assortment, freshness, labor, and margin.
- Hair Salon Simulator guide — appointments, walk-ins, chairs, retention, and product sales.
- Landscaping Simulator guide — routes, crews, contracts, fuel, maintenance, and seasonality.
- Lemonade Stand Simulator guide — recipe, weather, promotion, ice, capacity, and cash runway.
- Pet Store Simulator guide — retail stock, grooming, cleanliness, care, and staffing.
Compare several local-business models on the small-business simulation games page, or use the pricing and profit collection when the main question is unit contribution or break-even volume.
Restaurant strategy and model guides
Begin with the complete Restaurant Simulator guide for the operating loop, then choose a model guide to study how format changes demand, service, channel mix, labor, and capacity. Compare models with contribution and margin measures as well as revenue.
For lesson planning and a side-by-side format comparison, continue to the restaurant business simulator resource or the hospitality and food-service collection.
Motel revenue-management model guides
These five guides compare balanced roadside demand, discount positioning, weekday travel, premium lodging, and seasonal leisure demand. Track occupancy, average daily rate, revenue per available room, channel cost, operating contribution, and cash together.
- Family Roadside Motel model guide
- Budget Motor Inn model guide
- Airport Express Motel model guide
- Boutique Lodge model guide
- Beachside Motel model guide
Use the complete motel simulator comparison to select a model, then use the lodging revenue management lesson for a structured classroom investigation.
Sports-facility and ride-hailing guides
Facility guides focus on booked court-hours, rate, memberships, wear, maintenance, and expansion readiness. The ride-hailing guide instead focuses on trip selection, time, fuel, rating, fatigue, net contribution, and net earnings per hour.
Use the racket-court business simulator comparison for facility selection. Treat the ride-hailing model as an educational time-and-cost exercise, not a forecast of actual platform earnings.
Turn a guide into an evidence-based investigation
- Run a baseline. Record the starting decisions and at least one outcome, one operating driver, and one guardrail.
- State a prediction. Explain what one change should affect and why. Avoid changing several decisions at once.
- Repeat under comparable conditions. Use the same model, time window, and success measure whenever possible.
- Diagnose the chain. Ask whether demand reached the business, capacity served it, quality held, costs stayed controlled, and cash remained safe.
- Write a bounded recommendation. Say what the evidence supports, what remains uncertain, and what you would test next.
The formula and vocabulary reference supports the calculations. Students can record conclusions in the decision brief, simulation report template, or evidence portfolio.
Responsible-use boundaries
The simulators deliberately simplify markets, regulations, taxes, employment obligations, safety requirements, customer behavior, platform rules, and unexpected events. Guide calculations describe the simulated model only. They are not professional legal, financial, employment, health, safety, or investment advice.
Do not present a simulated result as a guaranteed real-world outcome. Do not use the guides to justify misleading advertising, unsafe shortcuts, discriminatory decisions, invalid traffic, or attempts to manipulate ad engagement. Real organizations must verify current local requirements and use qualified advice where appropriate.
Frequently asked questions
Are all xdage business simulator strategy guides listed here?
Yes. This directory lists all 31 simulator strategy and model guides currently published by xdage Creations, grouped by business type.
Should I read a strategy guide before or after playing?
For a first attempt, play a baseline run before reading detailed recommendations. Then use the guide to plan one controlled change and compare the new evidence with the baseline.
Do the guides promise real-world business results?
No. The simulators simplify business decisions for learning. The guides explain the simulated model and do not promise income, investment returns, employment outcomes, or real-world regulatory compliance.
Can teachers use these strategy guides in class?
Yes. Teachers can pair a guide with the controlled experiment method, a printable worksheet, a decision brief, or the assessment rubric. Short, full-period, and no-device routes are available in the linked classroom resources.
How do I compare two simulator models fairly?
Keep the time period, decision rule, and success measure consistent. Compare rates such as margin, utilization, contribution per order, or profit per available unit instead of relying only on total revenue.