Welcome to Goon 95

Goon 95

Run a company from a 1995 desktop.

Goon is a turn-based business game. You begin with a bank loan and the café it buys, which needs three people, a desktop of grey windows and a button that says End Week. Get it right and there are stores in twenty cities, a board that haggles over its pay and a listing on the stock market. Close too many weeks in the red and the company is gone.

Your system:
Screenshots Listen
Version Download for macOS Download for Windows Download for Linux
The game's Store Manager: a café's rent, reputation and staff in a row of sunken panes, its kitchen and dining area seen from above, and the products it sells with cost, price and margin.
Store Manager. One café: how long it is open this week, what it sells at which price, and whether it pays its rent.
Did you know...
  1. A store's reputation follows its service. Understaff it and the street notices.
  2. Upgrades are per store unless their scope says company — check before you buy five.
  3. The bank prices your risk, not your ambition. Credit score moves the rate.
  4. Going public raises nothing on its own. Selling treasury shares is what raises cash.
  5. Every week is saved to your user's slot and to the autosave. Closing the window saves too.
  6. A recession is a good time to borrow and a poor time to float shares.
  7. Press DEL while the machine boots. There is a BIOS in there.
Screenshots

What it looks like

Each picture is a piece of the screen at its own size. Click one for the whole of it.

The game's desktop: a teal ground with the icons of its programs in three groups, a status window with cash, company value, stores and staff, and a small window with the button End Week.
The desktop. It begins with eleven programs. The rest arrive as the company grows.
The HR Suite: a café's crew as a list with a small face in every row, and under it the card of one of them with a larger face, pay against the market, morale and skill.
HR Suite. Who they are, what they cost, how they feel, and who is about to leave.
The Finance Desk: cash balance, company value, credit score and what is due this week in a row of panes, over the tabs Overview, Banking, Breakdown, Ledger and Automation.
Finance Desk. Cash, company value and credit score at a glance; behind the tabs the books, the banks and the ledger.
The Public Market: a list of listed companies, the price chart of one of them, and an order ticket that says what ten shares cost and what the order does to the price.
Public Market. What an order costs and what it does to the price, before you place it.
The Map Navigator: a town of five districts with its streets drawn in, small pictures for stores, free locations and houses, and the card of the store that is selected.
Map Navigator. Where a store stands sets its footfall and its rent.
The Jukebox tuned to the radio: the title of the tune that plays, sixteen columns of green blocks that move with the music, four station buttons and the list of what was on air.
Jukebox. Records, or a radio whose band composes while you play.
The R&D Lab: a form for a new product with budget, weeks and target quality, beside it the expected quality and price, and a line in which the Chief Product Officer says what the target will cost.
R&D Lab. A product of your own: what it is based on, a name, a budget and the weeks it may take.
The Corporate Hub: the board as a table of eight seats, seven of them taken, each with a face, skill, salary, mood, tenure and what the seat was worth this week.
Corporate Hub. Eight seats. Each has a contract, a mood, and a face that shows it.
The in-game browser at the address goon://estate: Goon Estates, a property site with a small drawn house on every listing, its price and its yearly yield.
Browser. Goon Estates: a drawn house on every listing, and you can buy it.
The Mail program: letters as a list, and under it a letter from Mum with her face beside it.
Mail. Every week brings letters. Some are from your mother.
A dialog in which the player's own face is put together: a large drawn face, arrows for face, eyes, brows, mouth, beard, hair, headwear and glasses, and swatches for skin, hair, clothes and backdrop.
Your own face. Put together when you found the company, changed whenever you like.
The weekly report: the week's revenue, costs and profit as bars, and charts of weekly revenue, profit and customers.
The week's report. End Week, and this is what happened.
The Store Manager in the dark theme: the same café in dark windows on a dark desktop.
Goon 95 — Night. The same desk after hours.
The desktop with the Start menu open: Programs, Settings, Help, Save and Shut Down beside a strip that reads GOON 95.
Start. Programs, Settings, Help, Save, Shut Down: where they were in 1995.

Taken from the game: a company in its third year, with 70 stores in twelve cities and all eight seats on its board taken.

Readme

What you will run into

  • A company you can lose

    Close a week below zero and the count begins: six such weeks in a row on easy, four on normal, three on hard, and the company is insolvent. Every one of them a letter says how many are left. Sometimes the bank offers a bridge.

  • A shop needs people

    Alone you keep the first café open a third of the week; whoever comes while the door is shut leaves, and tells others. A store orders before it sells: burgers nobody bought are thrown away, coffee keeps.

  • A board with a mind of its own

    Eight seats, from CEO to CHRO. You negotiate each contract, find out how good someone really is only with time, and decide how much they may do without asking. Pay them under the market and they leave angry.

  • Money that answers back

    A loan is quoted before you sign it. There are credit lines, deposits, bonds, a credit score, corporate tax every quarter, and a cash forecast that looks thirteen weeks ahead and writes to you before the account runs dry.

  • Products of your own

    The lab turns a budget and a team into products with up to five stars. A better product sells for more; a successor takes its predecessor's place store by store.

  • Twenty cities, drawn

    Every city has its own map, streets and all. Two of your stores in one district share its customers. A store that does not pay can be sold or closed down — never your last one.

  • A web inside the game

    The browser opens a small internet: a property market with a drawn house on every listing, four shops for your private money, a stock ticker, a tabloid, and about a hundred other addresses.

  • A jukebox and a radio

    Fifteen lounge records, or the radio: four stations whose house band composes the next tune while this one plays. Buttons click, a letter chimes, a closed week rings like a till.

  • It says why

    A refused loan names the reason. A locked program says what it still takes. The first weeks come with a coach, who can be sent home in Settings.

  • Everyone has a face

    You put your own together when you found the company. Everybody you hire has theirs, and a board member who is furious about their pay looks it.

Five companies side by side, each saved every week and again when you close the window. Two themes, Goon 95 and Goon 95 — Night. English and German.

Jukebox

Hear the house band

Nobody recorded these four tunes. The game composed them, note by note; yours will compose others.

  • Lounge 88.5 Velvet Inventory · 95 BPM

    An easy bossa: the vibraphone over an electric piano.

  • Coffee 95.0 Midnight Ledger · 107 BPM

    A brighter, faster bossa: the flute over a guitar.

  • Jazz 101.3 Velvet Merger · 66 BPM

    A slow swing in minor: the vibraphone over an electric piano.

  • RnB 104.7 Midnight Coffee Break · 74 BPM

    A slow, easy swing: the flute over a guitar.

Mail

A reached goal is a letter

From:
Mum
Subject:
You did it!!
Received:
Year 1968 · Week 5 (Winter)

Your father said Bean & Ledger would be bankrupt by Friday. I told him to wait. A profit of $1.9k in a week! I have printed your message and put it on the fridge. Eat something proper tonight, you have earned it. Love, Mum

Twenty-six goals, from the first week in the black to a full board. Each is a letter — from your mother, your old boss, your banker, a rival — and whoever writes has a face.

A week

One week at a time

Nothing moves until you say so. Then a whole week happens at once. Every week is saved, so you can stop anywhere.

  1. Plan. Set prices, hire, open a store, take a loan, start a project. There is no clock: take a minute or an hour.
  2. End Week. Customers come or stay away, shelves run empty, the bank takes its instalment.
  3. Read the report. What each store earned, what customers thought, what your board did on its own.
  4. Decide. An event asks you once; your answer stands until you change it.
Goon in numbers
  • Programs28
  • Cities20
  • Board seats8
  • Websites100+
  • Records15
  • Radio stations4
  • Letters to earn26
  • Difficulties3
  • LanguagesEN · DE
  • Ways to lose1
Programs

What's on the desktop

You begin with eleven programs. The other seventeen arrive as the company grows; for those that take more than time, a mail tells you what is still missing.

From the first day

  • MailThe week's letters: the summary, the bank, your staff, new programs.
  • BrowserThe web of this world: prices, rates, property, gossip and four shops for your own money.
  • Store ManagerOne store: its range, its prices, its crew and what it earns.
  • HR SuiteEveryone you employ: who they are, what they cost, how they feel and who is about to leave.
  • Player ProfileYou, apart from the company: your own money, your things, your trophies.
  • Upgrade CenterWhat makes a store better, level by level, and what it costs to keep.
  • Map NavigatorWhere your stores, your rivals and the free locations are, city by city.
  • Logistics ControlHow much reaches your shelves each week, and what trucks and depots add.
  • Finance DeskThe books: what came in, what went out, what you owe and what is coming.
  • JukeboxPlays the game's music: records, or the radio.
  • HelpA page for every program you have.

As the company grows

  • CalendarThe year ahead: holidays that move sales, and what happened in each week behind you.
  • DecisionsEvery choice you made in an event stands until you change it; here they all are.
  • Reputation AdvisorWhy each store's reputation moves, and what to do about it.
  • Corporate HubThe board: eight seats, what each is worth, and what they do on their own.
  • Customer RadarWhat customers think: what bores them, what is too dear, what they praise.
  • Subscription ManagerApp users, Silver and Gold: a fee every few weeks and loyal customers in the stores.
  • Public MarketShares, collectibles and, later, your own listing.
  • M&A DeskBuying other companies: an offer, a negotiation, an audit, a price.
  • Crypto TerminalCoins: fast, volatile, and every round trip costs a fee.
  • CasinoYour own money against the house. The house has an edge and says how large.
  • Sports BetsYour own money on the matches of the four leagues, at odds the book names.
  • Sports CenterClubs to own and seasons to follow.
  • Marketing StudioCampaigns that bring customers to a city for a few weeks.
  • R&D LabYour own products: a project, a budget, a target quality, a launch.
  • ResearchProjects that change the rules a little, for good.
  • StatisticsEverything the company has counted since its first day.
  • Year in ReviewA finished year beside the one before it.
Download

Download Goon

Version , built on . No installer, no account, no connection needed once it is on your disk.

  • macOS

    macOS 11 or later, Apple silicon or Intel.

    Goon-macos.dmg

    First start

    Open the disk image and drag Goon onto Applications; both are in its window. The app is not notarised by Apple, so macOS refuses the first start. Try to open it, close the message, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security and choose Open Anyway.

    On macOS 14 and older it is shorter: right-click Goon and choose Open. If macOS offers to install the app for you and then says that failed, nothing was changed: drag it across as above. The disk image carries a README that says the same.

    Check the file 
    shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Goon-*macos.dmg

    The line it prints must begin with the digits below.

    SHA-256

  • Windows

    Windows 10 or later, 64-bit. On ARM: Windows 11.

    Goon-windows.exe

    First start

    One file, nothing to install: put it where you like and start it. The program is not signed, so three things may stand in the way.

    1. Your browser may hold the file back as one that is not often downloaded: open its list of downloads and choose Keep.
    2. At the first start Windows says it does not know the publisher: choose More info, then Run anyway.
    3. A virus scanner may ask about a program it has never seen: check the file as below before you allow it.
    Check the file

    In PowerShell, in the folder the file is in:

    Get-FileHash Goon-*windows.exe

    The hash it prints must be the digits below; it writes them in capitals.

    SHA-256

  • Linux

    x86_64, glibc 2.28 or later — distributions from 2019 on. Anything that draws OpenGL 3.3 will do, a virtual machine without 3D included.

    Goon-linux.x86_64

    First start

    One file. Make it executable and start it:

    cd ~/Downloads
chmod +x Goon-*linux.x86_64
./Goon-*linux.x86_64

    Or in the file manager: open the file's properties, allow it to run as a program, then open it.

    Check the file 
    sha256sum ~/Downloads/Goon-*linux.x86_64

    The line it prints must begin with the digits below.

    SHA-256

The three checksums as a file, for whoever checks by script: SHA256SUMS.

What it needs

  • A screen of 1280 × 720 or more.
  • A mouse. The desktop is from 1995.
  • Speakers, if you like. The music and the sounds of the system each have a switch and a volume in Settings.

Where your companies are kept

  • macOS ~/Library/Application Support/Goon
  • Windows %APPDATA%\Goon
  • Linux ~/.local/share/Goon

To remove Goon, delete the program — on macOS, move it from Applications to the Trash. Your companies stay until you delete that folder too.

Screenshot