How to Play the Beer Game

1. Select Single Player or Multiplayer, or join with a six-digit code.
2. Choose visibility and your role. In a Classroom Individual Challenge, the host selects the shared role and demand scenario; in a Classroom Group Challenge, players join a group and each chooses a different role.
3. Review current demand, inventory, backlog and incoming deliveries.
4. Place an order of 0–100 whole cases, then play the week.
5. Complete 24 weeks and review the debrief (each role’s orders against customer demand, order swing, peak backlog and the cost split), graphs and CSV results.

Each role starts with 12 cases on hand and two shipments of four cases in transit. Single Player customer demand follows a seeded SMA, weighted moving average or cyclic pattern, chosen at random for each game and named when it is over. Team Supply Chain demand is four cases in weeks 1–4 and eight thereafter. Classroom challenges use the host’s chosen seeded scenario. These generate teaching scenarios, not predictions of actual sales.

Information visibility can cover the whole network, only your role and immediate neighbours, or your role alone. Hidden information is revealed once the game is over: after week 24, or in a classroom once every player or group has finished or the host finishes the classroom. Each player then sees their own supply chain in full, never another player’s run or another group’s chain. The host runs the full engine and is trusted. Unfinished single-player and multiplayer games can be resumed in the same browser after a refresh. Reconnect within 24 hours; the host must return for play to continue. Explicitly leaving as host ends the room, and server restarts clear rooms.