Story mode is the game's guided campaign — and the best way to learn. You pick it when creating a game (the Tutorial box, ticked by default).
Victor Garnier, the investor who lent you your starting capital, guides you from the empty building all the way to demanding enterprise customers. He always explains why before how: you only buy a piece of equipment once the problem it solves has shown up. 🧑🏫
This page only gives an overview, with light spoilers. The exact events of each chapter are left for you to discover!
¶ 📱 Your phone
Take your phone out or put it away with T. It has three apps:
| Home screen | Messages | Objectives |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
- 💬 Messages — your conversation with Victor. Each step starts with a message; some wait for you to answer Got it. Victor's messages are voiced: you can pause, resume or replay them.
- ✅ Objectives — the chapters, the current step and its progress, a link to the matching help topic, and the chapter's optional challenges.
- 🎵 Music — the game's soundtrack: pause, skip or pick a track (also available outside story mode).
With the phone put away, a card at the top right of the screen keeps the current objective in sight, and a notification announces every new message.
¶ 🎯 "Where do I click?"
When a message is not enough, the game shows you where to act:
- in menus, the element to use is circled by a pulsing blue outline (the Order button of the products to buy, the Accept button of a prospect…);
- in the building, a blue chevron floats above what you must reach: the delivery zone, the box to pick up, the rack slot, the socket to plug… It is visible through walls, and when it is off screen, an arrow at the edge of the screen shows its direction and distance.
¶ 📚 The chapters
| # | Chapter | Themes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 👣 First steps | Build the minimal kit, sign the first customer |
| 2 | 🚪 Opening to the public | A second server, prospects who come and go, negotiation |
| 3 | 💥 First failure | Repairs, spare parts, migrations |
| 4 | 💼 Going pro | The electricity market, the power grid, outages and batteries, Pro customers |
| 5 | 🌡️ The heat | Air conditioning, GPU servers, a heat wave |
| 6 | 📈 Business | Traffic spikes, a faster network, solar power, redundancy |
| 7 | 🏢 Enterprise | Fibre and 100G, a generator, redundant cooling, Victor's audit |
Each chapter (after the first) follows the same rhythm:
¶ 🔓 Unlocked step by step
So you don't have to learn everything at once, the game opens up gradually:
- 🖥️ Console pages — a locked page shows a padlock.
- 🛒 Shop products and cables — you start with simple 1 Gb/s copper hardware; faster hardware comes through Research and Development.
- 🚪 Rooms — locked rooms have a red light above the door, and the badge reader beeps when you approach. The light turns green when Victor starts talking about them.
- 📐 The first server room starts small, closed by temporary partitions, and grows chapter after chapter.
- 🔬 R&D — opens in the energy chapter.
- 🏷️ Customer tiers — a tier unlocks at the end of the chapter that introduces it.
¶ 🛡️ Protection while you learn
During the first chapter, the game protects you: no failures, no outages, no overheating, and the first prospect waits patiently. Time is paused while you build — it only runs when you need to wait (for a delivery, or for a day of service).
The protection is then lifted in stages: first prospects behave normally, then random failures come back, then random outages… From the heat chapter onwards, you play exactly like a player without the tutorial.
¶ ⚠️ Staged incidents
Victor does not just tell you what can go wrong: at some steps, the game stages a real incident so that you live through it while being guided — a server failure, a broken disk, a power outage, a storm, a heat wave, a traffic spike…
- An incident happens once, when you enter its step (reloading a save does not replay it).
- It is not bad luck: it is an exercise, designed to be recovered from.
- But it counts for real: your customers do feel it. React quickly!
¶ ⏱️ Trials
Some steps are trials: instead of building something, you must hold a situation for a while — keep every customer happy, keep your rooms cool, pass Victor's audit…
- The countdown only runs while the situation holds. If it breaks, the countdown restarts from zero.
- A failed trial is never lost: fix the problem and the countdown starts again.
- Trials run in game time: speeding up time makes them go faster (but keep an eye on your customers!).
¶ ⭐ Optional challenges
Each chapter offers up to three optional challenges, one star each — for example no SLA penalty during the chapter, don't lose a single customer, or stay under a spending cap. A challenge is measured over the whole chapter; once broken, it is missed for good. Missing one never blocks you: it just doesn't earn its star.
¶ 💸 Victor's loan
In story mode, your starting capital is a loan from Victor, repaid in regular installments once your first customer is signed. Miss too many installments in a row and it's bankruptcy — unless you ticked Relaxed mode. See Money and Finances for the details.
¶ 🏁 After the tutorial: milestones
Once the tutorial is finished (or quit, or in a game without it), the Objectives app shows milestones that never run out, on three tracks:
| Track | Measures |
|---|---|
| 📈 Growth | Your number of customers |
| 💵 Revenue | Everything your contracts have billed since the start |
| 🏦 Profitability | Your net result per hour |
A milestone, once reached, stays reached.
You can quit the tutorial at any time from the Objectives app (two clicks): everything unlocks at once. It's final for that game — and Victor's loan still has to be repaid!