Critical Window
A sixteen-turn browser strategy game about the US–China AI race, uncertain alignment, and source-backed policy choices.
criticalwindow.org
Play on Official Website ↗
Choose the United States or China and make quarterly decisions from 2026 to 2030 while AI capability and alignment remain partly hidden.
- Play time
- 20-40min
- Controls
- keyboard, mouse, touch
- Devices
- desktop, mobile
- Login
- Not required for core play
- Free status
- Free
- Language
- high dependency
- Official site
- criticalwindow.org ↗
- Discovery source
- Source post ↗
Why it stands out
Critical Window makes uncertainty itself the strategy system. Hidden rolls set how difficult alignment is and how quickly takeoff compounds, while evaluation reports show reassuring ranges that may diverge from the truth revealed in the final debrief.
How it works
Choose the United States or China and govern the AI race across sixteen quarterly turns to 2030. Each turn divides research effort among capability, safety, and diffusion, adds a policy decision and memo, then advances a rival and society.
What caught our attention
Its evidence model is as distinctive as its premise: numerical claims link to published sources or disclose themselves as design choices. The repository exposes the evidence map, and the build checks that game data carries citations.
Who it may suit
A strong fit for readers interested in AI governance, policy trade-offs, and serious strategy games. Runs take roughly twenty to forty minutes; the text-heavy browser game supports solo, two-player hotseat, phones, and offline play after the first load.