The Yards

Where things start.

Every other structure in VentureLand is generated from a funding round, which means the hall is full of companies that already won. The Yards is the other end: low, dense, warm, and open to anyone. Corrugated metal and hand-painted signs, string lights across the alleys, four metres between you and your neighbour.

Take a unit and you get a lot, a sign with your name on it, and a billboard in your yard that plays sixty seconds of you talking. Raise, and your tower goes up in Intelligence, Capital, or Matter — while the lot stays yours forever with a brass plaque reading STARTED HERE and the year.

The string lights are the same brightness for everyone down here. Nobody outshines anybody in the Yards.