Fyx
A money simulator that runs in real time.
Fyx is a free money and business simulation game for Windows that looks like a banking app and runs on your actual clock. You start with $5,000. Bills land on the 1st. Markets move minute by minute. Friends text you. Nothing is sped up, and nothing is pretend about the decisions.
A simulation game with no fast-forward
That is the whole idea. A minute in Fyx is a minute in your life, which means every decision has the weight of waiting for it.
The clock is your clock
Stocks trade Monday to Friday, 09:30 to 16:00. Crypto never sleeps. Bills leave on the 1st. Close the app and the world keeps going; open it and you get a summary of what you missed - money in, money out, who emailed, what needs you.
News is the signal
Six fictional outlets, some far more reliable than others. A rate cut lifts stocks and shrinks your savings interest. A scandal sinks a company. Most stories matter. Some are noise. Reading carefully is the edge.
Consequences, not game over
You can lose money. You can be overdrawn, margin-called, or scammed by an email that looked real. You cannot lose the game. Work is always on the board; the only way out is through.
Inside the app: investing, work, people and a place to live
Every screen is a real part of a financial life - money, work, people, a place to live. Click through each section for a demo.
Where you stand, right now
One number that matters - net worth - and the honest story behind it. Click today's change and Fyx shows exactly where it came from: the task you finished, the bill that hit, the stock that slipped.
- Needs you - a to-do list the app writes for you: emails waiting on a reply, work decisions, bets closing soon, an overdraft you should fix.
- Coming up - the next 7 days: bills, deposits maturing, results days, friends who said they'd be in touch.
- Bills covered - how many months you'd survive with no income. Under 1 is red.
- Income this month counted the honest way: profit on a sale, not the sale.
Real life shows up here
Fifty-plus scenarios written like real email, from people and companies that feel real. Some need a reply. Some are bills. Some are lies. Every one is a decision that gets logged and, later, scored.
- Personal - a friend needs a loan, a cousin has a "sure thing", a relative asks for help with rent.
- Offers - a client proposes a retainer, a landlord offers a discount for paying early, a bank pitches a promo rate.
- Bills & notices - fines, energy tariff changes, a duplicate charge you can dispute.
- Unknown senders - prizes with processing fees, "your account is locked", hot tips. Most land in Junk. So, now and then, does something real.
- Ignore a request long enough and it resolves itself - rarely in your favour. Follow-ups arrive days later with what actually happened. Every 1 January: your year in review.
People who text you back
Fyx has no avatar, but it has a cast. They message you in real time - typing indicators, replies that land on a seconds clock - and you pick what to say. How you treat them changes what they share, what they ask for, and what the app can do.
- They notice what you do. Put 30% of everything into one stock and Vye texts. Hit a ten-task streak and Dax wants the trick. Go overdrawn and Mrs. Okafor has a number for you.
- Vye, your partner, is online whenever you are. Ask her about any stock, coin or prediction and she'll text you a read - three a day.
- Six main characters unlock as you grow. Earn their trust and they introduce you to their people - a wholesaler, a founder, a bank manager, an editor - each with something real to offer.
- Group chats, birthdays, a profile with the full history between you. Relationships have a temperature; let one go cold and the tone changes.
Everything with a date on it
Bills on the 1st, deposits maturing, results days, predictions closing, birthdays, public holidays and your own reminders - grouped by day, up to 90 days out. The world has seasons now, and the market takes holidays.
- The stock market closes on eight public holidays a year. Crypto never does. Consumer stories cluster before the holidays; mortgage stories in spring.
- Every contact has a birthday. Send something on the day and it's remembered. Forget, and that's remembered too.
- Set a reminder - "sell before results", "check Dax repaid" - and it arrives through the bell, and as a Windows notification if Fyx is in the background.
Fast cash, if you're sharp
Timed micro-jobs from a task platform: total an invoice, spot the duplicate, convert a currency, work out the tip, find the odd one out. Twenty-four kinds, generated fresh, paid on the spot.
- Each task pays a few dollars and takes under a minute. New ones post through the day.
- Get it wrong and the task is gone. Three mistakes in a day and the platform locks you out until tomorrow.
- Streaks raise your pay. It's the floor under everything else: you can always earn your way back.
Design retainer ........ $1,250.00
Hosting (3 mo) ......... $89.97
Rush fee ............... $175.00
Discount ............... -$62.50
Six outlets. Not all of them honest.
Stories publish through the day and move the world: rates, sectors, single companies, coins. The Ledger Post is nearly always right. The Daily Signal runs whatever gets clicks. Learning who to trust is half the game.
- Full articles: the story, background on the companies involved from live prices, what to watch - and a plain-English line saying what the piece suggests, for readers new to this. Turn it off once you don't need it.
- World events run over days: a run on your own bank, an exchange freezing withdrawals, a snap election. News chapters, a prediction question, one real choice by email, and your friends arguing about it.
- Some stories are early. Some are wrong. Vye can badge sources by reliability once you've earned it; June hears what's landing before it lands.
Bet on what happens next
Yes/no questions on upcoming news and prices. The price is what the crowd thinks; the story is what's true. Read the news closely and you know more than the crowd - that gap is yours.
- News questions - will the cut happen, will the takeover close, will results beat? The answer is hinted at in the News tab.
- Price questions - will this stock close above $X on Friday? Priced off real volatility, re-evaluated hourly.
- Buy YES at 62c and get $1 a share if it happens. Sell back before close to lock a gain or cut a loss. Your trades move the price like a real market.
- Max $250 a question. Enough to matter, not enough to bet the rent.
A market that moves like one
Thirty stocks across seven sectors, ten coins, all ticking minute by minute with volatility that fits the company. Dividends land quarterly. Earnings days move things. Sectors swing together, then apart.
- Stocks trade market hours only; crypto never stops. Stake coins for yield, if you trust them.
- Margin - borrow against your holdings at a floating rate. A drop can force a sale. It says so. People do it anyway.
- Price alerts and limit orders so you don't have to watch. Alerts can reach you as Windows notifications.
- Ask Vye about anything on the board. She'll text you a read based on the news she's seen - not the future.
Write it down before you find out
A watchlist, notes on anything - a stock, a coin, a prediction, a person - and calls: "up" or "down" by a date. When the date arrives, Fyx grades the call against the price on the day you wrote it. You can't edit a graded call. That's the point.
- Watch up to twelve assets with the price when you added them and the last thing you wrote about each.
- Calls under 0.5% either way are a wash. Everything else is right or wrong, and the record is on your Stats page.
- Add a note straight from any stock, coin, prediction or contact profile. Friends get notes too.
The boring tab that decides everything
Checking, savings and a credit score that remembers. The interest rate moves with the economy - and with the news you read about it. Overdrafts cost 29%. That is not a typo; it's the lesson.
- Savings & term deposits - lock money for 30, 90 or 180 days for a better rate. Lock before a cut and you win.
- Loans & credit lines - offers priced on your score. Miss a payment and the score drops; pay on time and it climbs.
- Standing orders and round-ups - automate the saving. Insurance - a monthly cost that sometimes saves you.
- Tax - 20% on realised gains and interest, billed every January. The estimate is always visible. You saw it coming.
Contracts, clients, and eventually a studio
Freelance work is the steady income. Pick jobs from a board, deliver them over real hours, and build a reputation that unlocks better-paid clients. Then the client emails mid-project. Then, one day, you're the one hiring.
- Jobs run in real time - a 6-hour contract takes 6 hours. Run several at once, up to your capacity.
- Decisions land while you work: scope creep, a rush request, a client who wants a discount. Each has a cost and a consequence, and a 6-hour clock.
- Your studio. At reputation 60, incorporate. Hire from a weekly pool of candidates, hand them jobs from the board, keep the rest. They draw a salary on the 1st whether they worked or not, and some of them will let you down.
- Your network feeds it: Mara's cousin is the most reliable hire in Thornwick, if you've earned the introduction.
Where the big numbers live
Back small private companies - a bookkeeping app, a cleaning firm, a coffee roaster. Each has a hidden quality and visible clues: growth, founder notes, sector momentum. Money is locked in until they exit or fail.
- Valuations drift monthly with quality and sector. Some pay distributions. Some get acquired. Some cease trading.
- Read the pitch, read the founder note, read the sector news. The clues are there. They're just not certain.
- Rafi brings deals when you're big enough. Some of them are real.
Rent is your biggest bill. Do something about it.
Where you live is a real place with a landlord, a deposit, and an annual review you can negotiate. Six streets in Thornwick, each with a rent, a price, and one small honest perk. Move to a cheaper one, a nicer one, or buy.
- Renting: a month's deposit up front, back when you leave minus whatever the landlord "finds". Gerald emails once a year. Ignore him and the increase goes through.
- Buying: 10% deposit, 25-year mortgage at the base rate plus 2% - less if you know the bank manager. The payment replaces rent. The house counts in your net worth and moves with the property market. The boiler is now your problem.
- Perks are small and real: halved trading spread above the market, better-paid quick tasks near the co-working space, fewer surprise bills on a quiet cul-de-sac.
Every dollar, in and out
A full transaction ledger, categorised and searchable, with the running balance after each line. Fyx separates moving money from making money, so the totals are the ones an accountant would sign.
- Filter by category: Freelance, Task, Dividend, Interest, Bills, Trade, Prediction, Venture, Tax, and more.
- Buying stock is a transfer between pockets, not a cost. Selling at a profit is income - the profit, not the proceeds.
- A monthly statement email on the 1st: earned, spent, best day, worst day, and a one-line note from your partner.
Your track record, with receipts
Every call you made - the email you replied to, the bet you placed, the startup you backed, the friend you helped - and how it turned out, with the money attached. Regret isn't the point. Patterns are.
- Hit rate, total won, total lost, and a net figure that's honest about it.
- Pass on a deal and Fyx still tells you, later, what it would have done. Those never count against you - they're just there.
- New outcomes light up the tab. Read them and it clears.
Personal bests, goals, and what people say about you
Peak net worth, best and worst day, longest streak, real income all time, hit rate, call record. The numbers that show what kind of investor you actually are - not what you think you are.
- Goals you set yourself - three months of bills covered, $50k, owe nothing - ticked off automatically. Your friends notice when you get there.
- Standing: how Thornwick talks about you, worked out from what you've actually done. It quietly changes job pay and which founders call first. No number to grind - just behave.
- 26 achievements, from "First invoice" to "Survived a margin call". Everything here is on your machine. Export the save and take it with you.
The story is how the app grows
Fyx has no avatar, but it has people. They text you in real time, you pick your replies, and how you treat them changes what they share, ask for, and unlock.
- VyeYour business partner. 24, back from a year abroad, reads everything so you don't have to. Online whenever you are. Ask her about any stock, coin or prediction and she'll text you a read - three a day, no hidden information, more candid the closer you are.
- DaxHer brother. Best burger for forty miles, worst accounting. Appears at $10k.
- Mrs. OkaforRan a logistics firm for 31 years. Up at six. Will ask you for a number. $25k.
- RafiFounder. Charming, fast, rounds up. Brings deals; some of them are real. $50k.
- JuneJournalist. Hears what's landing before it lands. $100k.
- Aunt LouFamily. Doesn't understand any of it. Trusts you with what matters. $250k.
Conversations unlock tools: Vye's source-reliability badges, Okafor's three-month rule, June's "shape of things" panel. Group chats appear when the right people have met.
Learn how money works without being lectured
Fyx never tells you what to do. It shows you what you did, in plain English, with the money attached.
Plain English everywhere
"Price vs profit" instead of P/E. "Bills covered" instead of runway. Every page has a "How this works" box, and every bit of jargon has a ? that actually explains it.
Real income, not proceeds
Selling shares is not income; the profit is. A repaid loan is not income; the interest is. Fyx counts it the honest way, on the Overview, on your monthly statement, and in your Decisions log.
The right kind of hard
Scams that look real. Tips that are right 70% of the time. Outlets that are sometimes early and sometimes wrong. Nothing in Fyx is rigged against you - it's just as uncertain as the real thing, at real speed.
Free, and staying free while it's built
Fyx is in early development. It is playable end to end today - the economy, the markets, the inbox, the cast, weeks of story - and it is being built in the open with the people who play it. There is no paid tier, no unlockable content, no account, and nothing phoned home except a check for new versions.
Why free?
Because the thing being tested is whether a money sim on a real clock is a good idea at all. That needs players, not customers. If Fyx ever charges for anything, the version you have keeps working.
What "early" means
Rough edges. Numbers that will get tuned. A story that's still being written. Also: your feedback actually lands. The bug you hit this week is usually fixed in the next build.
Updates are painless
Fyx tells you inside the app when a new version is out. Download, run the installer over the old one, and you're back where you were - your save, your settings, your friends still waiting on a reply.
On the list
- Playable economy: 30 stocks, 10 coins, rates, sectors, dividends, earnings
- Inbox with 50+ scenarios and delayed consequences
- Six-person cast with real-time texting and unlockable tools
- Prediction markets with real price impact
- Decisions log with counterfactuals
- Friends who react to what you do, and introduce you to their people
- Your own studio, a home to rent or buy, a notebook that grades your calls
- Multi-day world events: bank runs, exchange freezes, elections
- Weekly challenge: one shared world, no accounts
- More story chapters and group scenes
- A mobile app, so the clock is always in your pocket
- Mac and Linux builds
One world. Everyone. This week.
Every Monday a new seed. Start a world from it and you play the exact same Thornwick as everyone else: same prices, same news, same emails, same bank run. Play the week, then copy your scorecard from Settings and compare. No accounts, no servers - the seed is worked out from the date, so the app and this page always agree.
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Settings → Weekly challenge → Start this week's world. Resets -.
Download Fyx free for Windows
Version 0.1.5 for Windows 10 and 11. About 111 MB. Free, with no account and nothing to buy.
%APPDATA%\fyx\fyx-save.json. You can export and import it from Settings whenever you like.Frequently asked questions
Is this real money?
No. Every company, coin, outlet and person in Fyx is fictional. The only thing that's real is the clock, and the way you make decisions under it.
Is it really free? What's the catch?
It's free, there's no catch, and there's nothing to buy inside it. Fyx is in early development and the point right now is to find out whether it's good. No account, no ads, no telemetry. The only network request it makes is to check this site for a newer version.
How do I update?
When a new version is out, a banner appears in the app's sidebar and in Settings. Download the installer and run it - it replaces the old version and keeps your save.
Do I have to keep it open?
No. Close it and the world keeps going. When you come back you get a "while you were away" summary, and anyone who messaged you is still waiting. If you'd rather, it can hide to the tray and keep ticking, with Windows notifications for messages and price alerts.
How long does it take to "finish"?
There is no finish. There's a partnership goal you set with Vye in year-two planning, a storyline that unfolds over weeks, and a net worth that either goes up or teaches you something. Most people check in a few times a day for a few minutes.
Can I go broke?
You can go to zero and below. You can't lose the game. Quick tasks and work are always available, and your friends are surprisingly forgiving - up to a point.
Is there a Mac or Linux version?
Not yet. Fyx is built on Electron, so it's possible; it just hasn't been packaged or tested on other platforms. It's on the list.
Where is my save?
In %APPDATA%\fyx\fyx-save.json. You can export and import it from Settings, and start over from there too.