Bandwidth Barons
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
It's 1999. You just bought a tiny dial-up internet provider, and your customers are about to learn what "up to" means.
Bandwidth Barons is a satirical ISP management game. This free demo is the whole first era, from dial-up to the day you cash out.
- Run the modem pool. Buy modems before the busy signals start. Busy signals are provided at no extra charge.
- Invent fees. Legal hands you packages like the Customer Appreciation Fee, the Paperless Billing Fee and the Cancellation Maze. Switch them on and watch your cash and your customers' rage climb together.
- Put out fires, or don't. Backhoes cut your T1 lines, squirrels chew the copper, the billing system crashes, and Y2K is coming. Pay to rush the fix, or let it ride.
- Staff the Help Desk. Your call is important to us.
- Read the Feed. It shows what your customers say about you online. It isn't kind.
- Survive your rivals. Depending on the city: a cut-price one, a posh one, and a copycat that charges a nickel less than you.
- Set your price. Raise it and your customers get angry, then get used to it.
- Cash out. Stash money offshore, buy yourself a Gold-Plated Modem, and pull the golden parachute.
- Play a real city: New York, London or Istanbul, on their real districts.
The demo ends when you cash out, or when the bank does it for you. The holding company and the cities around yours are in the full game, coming soon to Steam. Your demo save carries over.
- About 30 minutes to the end at normal speed
- English and Turkish
- Windows, macOS, Linux and Android
The builds aren't signed yet. On Windows, SmartScreen may warn you: click "More info", then "Run anyway". On macOS, right-click the app and choose Open, or allow it under System Settings → Privacy & Security. On Android, allow installing apps from your browser when it asks.
Fictional companies only. The joke is on the ISP, and that's you.
Terms and conditions apply
Download
Development log
- Nobody buys your modems for you anymore4 days ago
- Google Play wants 12 testers before it lets me in4 days ago
- I built a bot that plays as badly as I do5 days ago
- Otto Pilot has been let go6 days ago
- The demo now ends with a golden parachute7 days ago
- Now you can overcharge customers from the bus!8 days ago
- My ISP doubled my bill, so I made a game about it8 days ago
Comments
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same as last poster i did it in one run and forgot the time haha, its a good game and im intrested to see the full version. Only thing i can think of was the montly report that came up well every month and at the end of the game when monney is not a problem at 4x speed it popps up like all the time, found out i can just minimize it.
keep up the good work :D
Thanks for playing, and for losing track of time! That’s the best thing anyone can say about an incremental game.
You found the trick: once the Monthly Report is minimized, it stays down. Each new month updates it in place, and its taskbar button blinks instead of popping the window up again. You can minimize it with Esc, or by clicking its taskbar button while it’s in front. Marge in Finance insists on handing you one every month, even after the money stops mattering.
The full version is on its way, and the Steam page is coming soon. Thanks for the kind words :D
Fun game, played through to the demo screen, loved the gameplay, I kinda felt like all the things that needed to be monitored towards the end got a bit cluttered and I wish there were a small tutorial/message when you unlocked or bought a new thing, I feel like the would help with confusion, at least for me, everything else was perfect!
Thank you so much for playing all the way to the end of the demo and for writing this up. It’s our first comment here, so it really made my day!
The clutter is kind of on purpose :D Too many things to deal with and too little time is pretty much what running a real ISP feels like. But you’re right that new stuff shouldn’t sneak up on you. New apps get a setup note, but upgrades you buy for a window you already have only make its taskbar button blink, and that’s easy to miss when everything’s going on at once. I’m going to give those a short note too, and pause the game while you read it.
Tip in the meantime: F1 opens the company’s intranet wiki on whatever window is in front, if anything stops making sense.
Thanks again for playing!