HOW TO PLAY
THE RULEBOOK
Tired of waiting for your turn?
Good. Here, it is everyone's turn. All the time.
In Ruthless Returns, everyone builds at the same time. Pick cards, hire people, invest, attack and defend while everyone else quietly does the same to you.
Build a genuinely strong company, or tear down stronger ones. Both strategies work. One is easier to defend at dinner.
The game lasts three fiscal years. Not four. Not five. Maybe you would win if the game went on one more year. It does not. After the third settlement the books are closed, and the company holding the most cash wins.
High income is strong, but not enough on its own. If your neighbour earns less but spends less, plays the tax game better and lands a few lawsuits that move your money to their account, they can still finish ahead of you. It is not only about building biggest. It is about standing richest when the third fiscal year is settled.
Nobody likes reading rules
So here is the whole game in one breath: You are a CEO. You have three fiscal years to finish with the most cash. Build products. Hire people. Invest wisely. When honest growth feels inconvenient, sue your neighbours, smear them in the press and steal their best employees. Then look genuinely surprised when they do it back.
You could start playing right now. But if you'd like to actually win, read on.
Basically
- Most cash after Year 3 wins. It is the only thing that matters.
- Run a deficit you can't cover at year-end and you go BANKRUPT — you're out.
- Everyone plays at the same time, every round. Nobody waits for a turn.
- Sabotaging the person who is winning is often smarter than growing.
- Skill helps. Ruthlessness wins.
How a game flows
A game is 3 fiscal years. Every year has the exact same two beats.
1
The Draft
Everyone gets a hand of cards. At the same time, each of you keeps one card and passes the rest to a neighbour. Repeat until the hands are used up. This is where you build your company, and where you knife everyone else's.
2
The ReckoningThe books close. Each CEO adds up income, pays expenses and tax, repays loans, and finds out whether they survived the year. Do this three times. Then count the cash.
It is 7 Wonders in a very expensive suit, in a world that reads like the business section on its worst day: shell companies, offshore accounts, lawsuits and press conferences. Except the people scheming are at your table.
The Draft — how a year is played
Each round, everyone does this at the same time: choose one card, reveal, resolve, pass the rest. The year's hand is 7 cards, and every expansion card pack adds one more.
► Play it
Pay its cost in cash and place it in front of you. Playing is how you hire, launch a product, take a loan, or attack a neighbour.
► Discard it
Can't afford anything? Slide one card away and take +1M cash instead. A discarded card does nothing but line your pockets.
The rest rotate on
The remaining cards move to your neighbour (automatically in the digital edition): years 1 & 3 to the LEFT, year 2 to the RIGHT. Your next hand arrives from the other side.
The five card types and their order (why timing is a weapon)
Every card belongs to one of five types: Investment (cash and income engines), Connection (bank loans, tax tricks and shady favours), Work Environment (well-being and shields), Employee (your workforce) and Competition (the dirty tricks). The field guide further down covers each of them.
When the round's played cards interact, they resolve in a fixed order:
Investment → Connection → Work Environment → Employee → Competition.
Everything resolves within the same round: shitstorm damage lands immediately, it does not wait for the year-end settlement (only lawsuits do, decided at the verdict). But within the round the attacks resolve last, so a shield your rival plays in the same round takes effect before the storm hits.
The delicious part: the cards you don't take go to the person next to you. That amazing lawyer you can't afford? Pass it on and your rival hires it. Sometimes the smartest play is to discard a great card just to keep it out of enemy hands. This is called hate-drafting. It is exactly as petty as it sounds. Do it.
The three scales
Your company is measured on three tracks, each from 0 to 7. Cards and employees push them up. They are the engine of everything, and they are permanent — climb early and they pay you every year that follows.
Product Development
How good your product is. Protects you against consumer surveys and powers your product cards and income.
Work Environment
How happy your people are. Shields you from shitstorms and illness, and at step 5+ your wage rises are halved.
Legal Expertise
Your firepower in court. Each step pays +1M income every year, and Legal decides every lawsuit.
Playing with the Lobbyists expansion adds a fourth scale: Political Influence (0 to 7). It pays state subsidies at every settlement, but a shitstorm that hits you costs a step.
How to read a card
Every card is a small illustrated contract. Here is how to read one at a glance.
A Service employee
- The coin, top right, is what the card costs in cash to play right now.
- The band names the card's type — here a Service employee. The type also decides when it resolves in the round.
- Each effect line is tagged so you know how long it lasts: instant pays once, yearly pays at every Reckoning, permanent stays for good.
- Coloured keywords are the three scales — Product Development (blue), Work Environment (green), Legal (gold).
- Upkeep, at the bottom, is the card's running cost each year. For employees the card shows the wage climbing year by year (+0.5M per year employed) — so an old hire is an expensive hire. Keep Work Environment at 5+ and the raises are halved.
The abbreviations
Your opponents' small boards shorten the three scales, using the game's original Danish short forms. Here's the key:
PU (Produktudvikling) = Product Development
AM (Arbejdsmiljø) = Work Environment
JURA = Legal
Each scale runs from 0 to 7. Hover a row in the game for the full name.
The deck up close
A handful of real cards from the game. Hover any of them to see what it does.
i
Chief Economist
An income engine in a suit: 4M cash now, then 4M every year for each investment card you buy this year. Adds room for three extra hires and shaves your tax. Finance people pay for themselves.
i
Corporate Counsel
A legal hire that bills you income for every lawsuit you file, plus a bonus for each one you win. The heart of a courtroom strategy.
i
Sue Left
Take your left neighbour to court. The plaintiff wins ties on Legal, and the verdict lands at the year-end Reckoning.
i
Trophy Hunt
From the Headhunters expansion: steal your left neighbour's best-fit employee — and the scale points that hire earned go with them. Non-compete clauses protect their owner, but the hunt moves on to the nearest unprotected office.
Money, the only scoreboard
Cash is what you have (and your score). Income is what arrives at the Reckoning. A card usually costs cash now but pays income every year, so an early hire is worth far more than a late one. Confusing the two is how profitable companies go bankrupt, both here and elsewhere.
Expenses & WagesEvery card in play has a running cost. Minimum expenses are always at least 1M + 0.5M per employee, and each employee costs +0.5M more per year for every year employed (Work Environment 5+ halves those raises, rounded up to the nearest half). But the trap that actually catches beginners is capacity: you only have room for so many employees, and suddenly you cannot hire anyone. Finance staff (Accounting) can always be hired and expand your capacity themselves, so buy them before you fill up.
Tax
Pay tax on the year's profit (income minus expenses): 1M, plus 1M per full 5M of profit. A loss year is tax-free. Every accounting employee, offshore account and leaf-marked card lowers the tax by 0.5M, down to zero. All tax collected lands in the taxman's pool at the table. Growing fast without a finance function is dangerous.
Loans
Some cards let you take a bank loan: plenty of cash now, and an instalment at every Reckoning for the rest of the game. The total always exceeds the loan, because the bank always wins. An offshore account makes the instalments cheaper. Great for a big early move, just remember the debt follows you to the final settlement.
Dirty tricks — the reason this game exists
Attacks only ever hit the neighbour on your left or your right. Choose your seat wisely, because that is who you'll spend three years quietly ruining.
LEFT RIVAL◄
YOU►
RIGHT RIVAL
The Lawsuit
Decided at the Reckoning, purely on Legal: the plaintiff wins on an equal or higher Legal step. Filing is an advantage — ties go to the attacker. Lawyer up, or don't get sued.
The Shitstorm
A media firestorm. It bites harder the more your Communication team outguns their Work Environment — and it always lands at least a glancing blow. Miserable staff have no goodwill to spend.
The Consumer Survey
A hit piece dressed up as research. It scales against their Product Development — a genuinely great product is hard to smear.
The Poach
From the Headhunters expansion: steal the employee that fits you best. The talent leaves them and joins you, and takes their scale points along (their tracks drop, yours rise).
You see them coming — so fight back
The arrows across the table (and the game's log) tell you exactly who is aiming at you. And a lawsuit is a slow blade: it's filed now but only decided at the year-end Reckoning, which leaves you the whole year to defend yourself.
- Overtake them on Legal. The plaintiff only wins on a tie or better, so climb your Legal track above theirs and the suit falls apart.
- Plant evidence. Knock the plaintiff's own Legal down a step — they're your neighbour, so you can reach them.
- Settle early. Force a settlement and one lost verdict every year costs only half. Buy more copies and you settle more cases per year.
A shitstorm or a consumer survey (forbrugeranalyse) is the opposite — a fast blade. It lands the instant it's played and you feel it at once: your Work Environment or Product Development takes the hit then and there (the log names who did it). You can't undo it, but a high scale shrugs most of it off, and a spin doctor (from the Lobbyists expansion) can even reflect it back at the sender.
The mark of whoever is leading
The Crown
A crown marks whoever is currently set to win — the most useful thing on the table. When someone pulls ahead, the smart move is for everyone else to point their knives at them, before they run away with it.
The Reckoning — closing the year
When the hands run out, every company closes its books in this order.
Masks off. Any cards played in secret this year are revealed. Surprise.
Court is in session. Every pending lawsuit is decided (plaintiff wins ties on Legal). Money changes hands.
Income − Expenses − Tax. Add income, subtract running costs, subtract tax. Add CEO perks. If you play with expansions they settle here too: subsidies from the Lobbyists, and your board demand's bonus or fine from the Board. The result lands in your cash.
Repay loans. Every bank loan comes due now (cheaper with an offshore account).
Bankruptcy check. If your cash falls below zero, you cannot cover the year. You are bankrupt and out of the game. Your strategy may still have been visionary. It is simply no longer solvent.
Winning
After the third Reckoning, everyone still standing counts their cash. The richest CEO wins the reckoning. Good luck. You'll need less of it than you think, and more nerve.
A worked year
Read this once and it all clicks. Meet three CEOs: you (Peter), Sarah on your left, and Martin on your right.
SARAH · left
YOU · Peter
MARTIN · right
Round 1
Your hand has a great Accountant, a cheap Product Developer, and a Lawsuit. You want the Accountant, but if you pass it left, Sarah hires it, and she's already rich. So you play the cheap Product Developer (it pays income all game) and pass the rest left. That lovely Accountant is now heading into Sarah's hands. Annoying.
Rounds 2–7
You take a Bank Loan to afford a Lawyer (Legal 0 → 2), draft a couple of income cards, and fire a Consumer Survey at Martin's flimsy product. Martin, bless him, keeps discarding cards for quick cash and wonders why his product is being torn apart in the press.
The Reckoning
Court: you sued Martin — your Legal 2 beats his 0, and he pays up. Books: income covers expenses, and your one Accountant even trims your tax. Loan: comes due; you planned for it and end the year comfortably in the black. Martin survives, barely, and now has you squarely in his sights for next year. Two more years like that and someone gets very rich. Make it you.
Field guide — the five card types
You don't need this to play. It's here for when a question comes up. The types are also the order cards resolve in each round.
RESOLVES 1ST
Investment
Cash-and-income engines: webshops, stock, solar farms, IPOs, grants. The safe, boring, extremely effective backbone of a fortune.
RESOLVES 2ND
Connection
Favours and financial engineering: bank loans, offshore accounts (permanent tax relief + cheaper loans), subsidies and lobbying (the Lobbyists expansion) — and the covert jobs, like planting evidence on a neighbour. They bend the rules in your favour.
RESOLVES 3RD
Work Environment
Cards that raise your Work Environment and shield you from shitstorms and illness. Home of the satirical parental-leave cards from the Headhunters expansion.
RESOLVES 4TH
Employee
Your workforce in five colours (Service, Communication, Sales, Legal, Accounting). They push scales and income, but eat capacity and rack up wages. Can be fired (1M), or poached if you play with the Headhunters.
RESOLVES LAST
Competition
The dirty tricks: lawsuits, shitstorms, surveys, illness, and with the Headhunters expansion, poaching. Always target a left or right neighbour, and land after everyone has finished building for the round.
Expansions — mix and match freely
Each card expansion adds 1 card to every hand, so the years run richer.
The Board
Draft four board demands, commit to one each year. Meet it for a bonus, miss it and pay a fine. The art is promising the right thing at the right time.
The Investment Pack
Six new investment cards every year: webshops, venture funds, IPOs and more.
The Headhunters
Staff warfare. Poach the employee that fits you best (they take their scale points along) and defend your own with non-compete clauses. Includes the parental-leave cards.
The Lobbyists
Lobbying, greenwashing and spin doctors. Build Political Influence (0 to 7) for state subsidies, greenwash your tax down, and turn media attacks back on their senders.
The Entrepreneurs
Six more CEOs to sit at the table: the ex-banker, the serial founder, the HR director, the former judge, the influencer and the landowner, each with their own perk.
Click an expansion to see it up close, cards and all.
Team play: 2 vs 2
With 4 players you can play two teams of two. With 6, also three teams of two (2v2v2). Digitally, pick Teams in the Opponents section on the start screen; at the physical table, simply agree before dealing.
Sit alternating
Teams are seated alternately around the table, so your neighbours are always opponents. Attacks only ever hit neighbours, which means they can never hit your partner.
One shared pot at the reckoning
Victory goes to the team's combined cash after the final year-end settlement. The richest player at the table can easily sit on the losing team.
Make each other rich
Plan together all you like, but each player still runs their own company with their own hand. Split the roles: one builds the money machine, one wages war on the neighbours.
Three parting tips
1 · Lawyer up
Legal is quietly the strongest track: every step pays income and lets you win lawsuits against your neighbours. Build it early and the courtroom becomes a money machine. Do not treat suing as a last resort.
2 · Turn cash into engines
Cash is only the final scoreboard. What wins is turning it into things that pay you every year — staff, products, retainers. A little paid annually usually beats a one-off lump.
3 · Profit brings tax
The bigger the profit, the higher up the tax ladder you climb, and a team gets pricier the longer it stays. Accountants and an offshore account cut the tax; a high Work Environment curbs the wage creep. Grow the parts that pay you.
Naomi
Fillip
Kenzo
Lisbeth
Elyna
Ruthless Returns · Regnskabets Time · A game by Thomas Lay & Diana C. L. · © 2026 South Harbour Studios ·