252: Stock Market Survival Sim

100 million won. 252 trading days. Each day lasts 60 seconds.

252 is a paper trading stock market game where you start with 100 million won and try to survive one year in a fictional market. Around 70 instruments tick along on 15-minute candles without a break, and earnings and headlines jolt the market every day. Every move is final, and the market won't wait for you.

■ New Here? Start With Stages
New to stocks? That's fine. Stages ease you into the stock market game with short 30-day rounds. Round one is just buying and selling. Round two adds buying intel. Round three is about dodging bad news. Each stage points out the one feature it unlocks, and the further you clear the goal, the more stars you earn. The fifth and final stage is the real thing: 252 days, a full year.

■ A Market That's Alive
This stock market simulator spans semiconductors, finance and energy, plus indexes, bonds and commodities. Each 60-second day opens the 15-minute candles one bar at a time, and earnings reports, dividends and stock splits land right on schedule. In a hurry? Run the market clock at 2x or 4x, or skip ahead one, five or twenty days at a time.

■ System Trading: Write the Rules, Let Them Trade
Can't watch the chart all day? Hand it to your rules. Build your own trading rules from 17 condition types, including RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Stochastic and moving-average crossovers.

"Buy with 12% of budget when RSI drops below 30." "Sell everything when a holding hits -12%." Stack the conditions and they go through as auto-trades at each day's close, with a log of what fired and why. Aim them at everything, only what you don't hold, only what you do, or one sector at a time. Rule order is priority order.

Every day your rules run, you pay an operating cost, and every fill takes a commission. The more a rule churns, the more it eats into your account, so deciding whether to switch it on is the first call you make.

■ Intel Comes at a Cost
From macro strategists to corporate reporters, there are informants who will tip you off about what's coming, for a fee. The more reliable the intel, the more it costs, and every purchase risks getting caught. Get caught, and the run ends right there.

■ Difficulty Changes the Market
Four levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert. Expert unlocks short selling, margin loans and delisting. You can profit in a falling market, but a single forced liquidation can wipe out the whole account.

■ Ranked: Everyone Plays the Same Market
Once a day, every player takes on the same market in a 63-day match. Today's rank and your average rank across several days show who can really trade.

■ Infinite Mode: No Finish Line
Survived the year? Keep going in Infinite Mode. Run stocks, real estate, land and your own companies out of one account, and grow your wealth year after year.

■ What's Left After 252 Days
Your return earns a grade. Your play style earns titles and strategy badges.

■ Who It's For
- You want to learn stocks through a low-pressure investing game
- You'd rather practice with paper trading before putting real money in
- You want to test auto-trading strategies built on RSI, MACD and other indicators
- You like going head to head on returns in the same market every day

This stock market simulator runs offline everywhere except Ranked mode, and you can save anytime and pick up right where you left off.

* Every ticker, company and event in the game is fictional. This is not investment advice.