Fixworks

Fixworks is a free online management game you play in the browser, with no download and no account. You run a small repair shop one working day at a time: people walk in with broken things, you decide which jobs to accept, and you have until closing to hand back as many as you can. What it is not is an idle game. There is no button that makes numbers go up faster, and money buys you nothing during the day - it is spent at closing time, on the shop itself. The campaign is three streets, and every street you keep a shop open on earns up to three stars.

On Market Square your shop opens almost empty, and that is the whole point. You have a bench and a soaking tank. There is no press, so a bent frame is a job you simply cannot take. There is no test rig, so a fault the customer never mentioned is one you have no way to find. Every station after those two is something you buy with money you earned, and each one changes a rule rather than a number: the press turns an impossible job into a one-second job, the rig turns a guess into a fact, an apprentice lets two jobs be attended at once, and a standing order puts a crate of parts on your step at midday.

During the day the thing you actually run out of is your own attention. You can stand at exactly one job at a time, and that single rule is what makes the stations four different tools rather than four speeds. The bench is where you do the work yourself, and while you are there nothing else that needs your hands can start. The tank runs on its own once loaded, which makes it the only way to have two things happening at once. The press is instant, and it is the only station that can destroy what you put in it: on a grimy item it breaks the thing more than half the time, and once the tank has cleaned it, almost never. Nothing tells you to clean first - the numbers do.

The price on a customer card is also a risk rating. Cheap, honest jobs almost never hide anything; the expensive ones very often do, and a hidden fault you fail to find comes back as a returned repair - no payment, and a dent in your reputation. So a shop without a test rig is not a doomed shop, it is a shop that should be taking the small safe work. Buying the rig is what unlocks the rich end of the queue. Reputation matters because it decides who walks through the door tomorrow: work well and the shop gets busier and better paid, botch a few days and the street goes quiet.

And over all of it sits the rent, which comes out of the till at closing and goes up every single day. Early on it is nothing. Around the point your shop is finally humming, it starts climbing faster than you can grow, and one morning it takes more than the day brought in. That is the end of the run, and it is meant to be: the score is not a pile of money, it is how many days you kept the doors open.

Because a run is short by design, the game strings three of them together. You start on Market Square, and paying the rent through day 4, day 8 and day 12 earns one, two and three stars; a single star on a street opens the next one. Harbour Row brings drills and radios with bent frames, so its shop comes with a press already installed - and charges much steeper rent for it. Kiln Parade brings lamps and kettles with worn parts on cheap rent, and there a standing order for spares is the better first purchase. For the first two days on any street the landlord forgives a short till, so a slow start teaches you instead of ending the run. Three stars on all three streets completes the campaign, and the shop keeps going after that for your longest run. The right shopping list is not something you memorise once - it is something you read off the queue in the first few minutes. From the third day onwards every other day is a named one as well: a market-day rush, a supplier failure that empties the parts drawer, a trade inspector who makes a returned job cost triple, or a dealer’s crate worth four ordinary jobs. You are told which is coming at closing time, beside tomorrow’s rent, because knowing it is supposed to change what you buy tonight. Play free on desktop or phone.

Tap a waiting customer to take the job, tap a job on the bench to select it, then tap a station. Your shop opens almost empty: you have a bench and a soaking tank, and that is all. There is no press, so a bent frame is a job you simply cannot do, and no test rig, so a fault the customer never mentioned is one you cannot see. Both are things you buy, and buying them is the game.

During the day the thing you run out of is attention - you can stand at exactly one job at a time, which is why the stations are not four speeds but four different costs. The bench uses your hands. The tank runs on its own once loaded, so it is the only way to have two things happening at once.

The press is instant but destroys a grimy item more than half the time and almost never a clean one, so the order you work in is a real decision. The rig repairs nothing; it only reveals. Expensive customers are the ones who hide faults - the price on the card is the risk - so without a rig the safe money is in cheap honest work. At closing the rent comes out of the till, and the rent goes up every day.

What you have left buys the press, the rig, an apprentice for a second pair of hands, or a standing parts order. Buy well and the shop outgrows the rent for a while. It always catches up in the end; the score is how many days you lasted. When a run ends you pick the next street yourself, and the street decides who comes through the door.

Harbour Row is full of drills and radios with bent frames, which is why its shop comes with the press; a residential parade of lamps and kettles is full of worn parts, and there a standing parts order beats the press.

From the third day on, every other day has a name - a market-day rush that overflows the queue, a supplier failure that leaves you one spare part and no midday crate, a trade inspector who triples what a returned job costs you, or a dealer's crate worth four ordinary jobs on its own. Tomorrow's day is announced at closing time, next to tomorrow's rent, because it is something you are meant to shop against.