Grow or Get Absorbed: An Agar-Style Arcade Game in a Spreadsheet

The absorb arcade game has one of the cleanest rules ever written: eat anything smaller, avoid anything bigger. Market Share plays it out across a market-share sheet.

One rule, endless pressure

You are the light-green cell. Absorb companies whose value is at or below yours to grow, and avoid the ones above you. Every absorption makes you bigger, which makes fewer things dangerous — and makes you a bigger target for whatever is still above you.

The trap is greed. The cell that would take you from mid-sized to large is almost always sitting next to one that would end your run.

Why a market-share sheet is the right cover

Companies with values, growing and being acquired, is a market-share analysis. The file is Market_Share_Q3.xlsx and your run ends, fittingly, with a panel telling you what your company peaked at before somebody bigger absorbed it.

Play free, hide fast

Free, no download, and Esc three times hides it. Peak values land on the leaderboards. Start at 1.