Play
Tycoon Sims
Management games about money — lemonade stands scaled up to the point of moral compromise. Every one of them is about the same lesson.
15 sites
Buy aircraft, plot routes and slowly discover that fuel price is the only variable that ever really mattered.
- 1 hr+
A famously unforgiving airline simulation that keeps running in real time whether or not you are logged in to watch.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
Run a coffee stand for fourteen days, adjusting recipe and price daily, and learn more about margins than from any lecture.
- 10 min
The two-person studio behind the entire Papa's restaurant series, with the back catalogue and the odd non-cooking game too.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
A stock market simulator with real prices and imaginary money, which is very much the correct order to learn that in.
- 10 min
- Desktop
A text-based village of kittens that grows into a civilisation over weeks, with a spreadsheet's soul and startling depth.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
The 1979 economics lesson still intact — buy lemons, read the forecast, set a price, discover the weather has opinions.
- 10 min
Virtual trading contests running on live market data, playable against colleagues without anybody risking actual money.
- 10 min
- Desktop
Run a country by answering one absurd policy dilemma a day, then watch your statistics drift somewhere you did not intend.
- 10 min
The 1999 virtual pet site whose real game was always the economy — shops, a stock market and genuinely vicious restocking.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
Build sundaes to order under mounting time pressure, the most polished entry in a series about the dignity of service work.
- 10 min
The original of the Papa's series, where tips fund your upgrades and customers absolutely notice an undercooked base.
- 10 min
A browser railway empire where the whole server races to reach the same era of engines before anybody else does.
- 1 hr+
A persistent economic simulation where thousands of players genuinely supply each other, so prices move for real reasons.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
A business simulation MMO run at a genuinely grim level of detail, with real competition for the same finite customers.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
How we picked these
Every entry in Detour is hand-sorted rather than scraped: filed under one category, given one to three moods, and placed in a time band for how quickly it pays off. The practical facts — cost, sign-up, sound, device and whether it is safe at a desk — are recorded per site and shown on every card, so you can rule things out before you click.
Tycoon Sims: questions
How many sites are in Tycoon Sims?
15 sites, each hand-sorted by category, mood and how long it takes to pay off.
Which of these sites are free with no sign-up?
6 of the 15 are free and need no account. None of them are paid.
Do these sites work on a phone, and are they safe for work?
7 of 15 work on a phone; the rest are desktop only. 15 are safe for work and 15 work with the sound off.