Central Bank Game – browser-only Shiny/Shinylive remake of the “Fed Chair Game”

shiny
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1

Hi everyone!

Remember the old “Fed Chair Game” that let you play central-bank governor?
It vanished last year, so I rebuilt the idea from scratch in Shiny and pushed it completely client-side with shinylive (WebAssembly).

:arrow_forward: Play live demo
Source & README: https://github.com/hutkudemir/central-bank-game

What’s new versus the original

  • Live press-conference Q&A – your answers move a credibility score
  • Three AI-style advisors (dove, hawk, technocrat) you can fire or heed
  • Random supply & demand shocks with siren audio + micro-news ticker
  • Plotly time-series, Phillips curve & policy-optimality charts
  • Bilingual :tr: / :uk: UI (reacts to dropdown)
  • Runs 100 % in the browser – no Shiny Server, no R backend

Tech stack highlights

Package Use
shinylive Exports the Shiny app to WebAssembly so it hosts on GitHub Pages
bslib + plotly Darkly theme, interactive charts
shinyjs + custom JS Audio alarms, full-screen toggle
renv Reproducible local dev

Quick local run:

git clone https://github.com/hutkudemir/central-bank-game.git
cd central-bank-game
install.packages("renv"); renv::restore()
shiny::runApp()

Feedback welcome

  • UI/UX rough edges?
  • More realistic shock ideas?
  • Browser performance on lower-end machines?

Thanks for checking it out!

2

This looks very interesting and is nicely done. I would mention that the numbers don't make any sense for the United States, although they certainly do for some other countries. I wonder if it might make sense to change some of the numbers when English is chosen.

3

Thanks, @startz – really appreciate you playing and taking the time to comment!
You’re right: the default macro targets (5 % inflation, 8 % unemployment, etc.) are modelled on Türkiye, not the U.S.

I’m planning to add country presets so players can pick “U.S. (2 % inflation target, 4 % NAIRU)”, “Euro Area”, “Türkiye”, etc.
For now the numbers stay the same regardless of UI language, but your suggestion makes perfect sense and is on the roadmap.

If you (or anyone) has a favourite set of realistic parameters, feel free to open an issue on GitHub – I’ll gladly merge them.

4

Sounds like you've already nailed the U.S. numbers!

For those who aren't economists, let me explain that the 2% inflation is the Federal Reserve's long-run target and that the 4% unemployment is actually written into U.S. law as "full employment," even though it may be too optimistic a target.