Ampwright

Start as an apprentice pulling wire. Finish with your name on the city.

  • You start out working real jobs for one of the city’s electrical shops
  • Every day is an eight-hour shift, and you decide how to spend it
  • Four years as an apprentice, then you choose your trade
  • Run your own contracting shop, engineering firm or power utility
  • Halverton is about to boom, and the players are the ones who build it
  • Free, in your browser, on your phone or your computer

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How it works

The same way it works for a real electrician. You put in your hours, you learn the trade, and one day the jobs are yours to run.

  1. 1. Work your shift

    Eight hours a day to spend. Pull wire with a journeyman, go to class, or shadow the foreman. Overtime gets more done, but tired crews make mistakes.

  2. 2. Climb the ladder

    Four years as an apprentice, then the journeyman exam. After that you pick your trade: build it, design it or power it.

  3. 3. Build the city

    Every job you work goes on Halverton’s permit record with your name on it. The city grows because players showed up.

What a job looks like

Every job in Halverton, from a dentist’s office to a hospital, goes through the same five steps. Your crew’s hours go in every day, and you watch them against the plan.

  1. 1 Rough-in
    Boxes, pipe and wire go in while the walls are still open.
  2. 2 Inspection
    The city inspector checks the work before the walls get closed up.
  3. 3 Trim
    Outlets, switches, lights and the panel go in.
  4. 4 Energize
    The power company sets the meter and turns the power on.
  5. 5 Closeout
    Labels, testing, the punch list and the paperwork.

Things go wrong. You make the call.

  • The drawings put the new panel on a wall that isn’t there. Wait for the engineer, or move it yourself and hope the inspector agrees?
  • The owner wants eight more outlets. Charge for them, or do them free and earn a reputation?
  • The inspector flags your work, and the fix costs hours you never planned for.
  • The power company is two days late, and every day the job stays open costs you money.

Every choice is explained in plain words, with what it costs right next to it.

Three ways up

Everyone starts as an apprentice. Pass the journeyman exam and you choose your trade. All three work on the same jobs, so the engineer whose drawings you’re cursing might be another player. You can switch later, but you start the new trade at its first rank.

Contractor

Build it

  1. Journeyman
  2. Lead hand
  3. Foremanruns a crew
  4. Estimator
  5. Master electrician, with your own shop

Engineering

Design it

  1. Designer
  2. Engineer in training
  3. Project engineerruns a crew
  4. Professional engineer
  5. Principal, with your own firm

Utility

Power it

  1. Groundman
  2. Lineman
  3. Crew chiefruns a crew
  4. Operations supervisor
  5. Division director

Win the bid

Once you run your own shop, the work stops coming to you. You bid for it. Every job comes down to one guess: how many hours will it take your crew?

  • Guess too high and your price is too high. Another shop gets the job.
  • Guess too low and you win it, then build it for less than it costs.
  • Guess close and you win work that makes money. That’s the whole skill.
  • You bid against other players’ shops, not just the computer.

Bid results: Maple Street Dental

Office fit-out, Old Mill Row. Low bid wins.

Kiln Road Electric low bid$31,904
Your shop$32,821
Delacroix and Sons$33,610
Brightwater Power Services$35,122

You were $917 high. Kiln Road got the job. Whether they make money on it depends on whether their hours were right.

Halverton is about to boom

Halverton is a mid-size city with an old downtown, mill neighborhoods, a college and a small airport. That’s all it has for now. Everything new, from the suburbs and the office towers to the stadium and the skyline, gets designed, wired and powered by the people playing. The first jobs are fit-outs, houses and strip centers. As the city grows, the jobs grow with it.

The permit record

Every finished job goes on it: who designed it, who built it, and who turned the power on. The record is the map. This is an example of a page from a few seasons in.

AddressWorkDesigned byBuilt byStatus
118 Maple Street Dental office fit-out Kestrel Design Group Vance and Ortiz Electric player Energized
2200 Kiln Road Cold-storage warehouse Tamura Engineering player Kiln Road Electric Energized
40 University Avenue Dorm renovation, six floors Halden and Pryce Delacroix and Sons Rough-in
915 Northgate Parkway Grocery store Tamura Engineering player Out for bid Bidding

The biggest jobs are contested

Every so often the city puts out a landmark: the regional hospital, the stadium, a data center. Every shop, firm and utility crew on the server competes for a piece of it.

The winners’ names stay on the building

Win a landmark and your name goes on its cornerstone in the permit record, for as long as the city stands.

You don’t need to be an electrician

The trade is the setting, not a test. If you’ve ever guessed how long a chore would take, you already have the main skill.

  • You’ll never be quizzed on wire sizes or code books
  • Every choice comes with what it costs, in plain words
  • Play a few minutes a day, or run a whole shop
  • Progress counts the hours you put in, so a missed day never resets anything

The city is waiting on its first crews.

Start your apprenticeship