Outrun the storm · Win the prize

A daily, city-scale battle royale over Chicago. Coffee shops, cafes, and restaurants bid for the day; the winner picks the hour and puts up a completely free item — no discounts, no BOGO. When the hour hits, a Fortnite-style storm closes over the city, players dodge it on live GPS with real health bars — and by default the host is a mystery, hidden until the final circles, so you play the storm, not the door. First player scanned at the right counter takes the prize; every survivor who arrives within the hour gets the discount.

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MVP prototypes — interactive

The launch-ready front end, clickable: public landing page, the player app (6 live states), the 3-step host wizard, the staff scanner, and the ops console with kill switch. No backend — every state is simulated, no invented metrics.

Launch prototype →
📱

Player app mockup

Mobile. Seven screens: storm warning push, pre-drop lobby, mystery-host live match with PvP traps, victory + one-scan claim, eliminated-but-discount-survives, the distance-only Signal mode, and the speed lock.

View mockup →
🖥

Business dashboard mockup

Web. Three boards: the Bid Royale live auction (king-of-the-hill with sudden death), the won-day storm setup, and challenge-day live ops behind the counter.

View mockup →

The storm — Fortnite pattern, city scale

Fortnite's standard Battle Royale storm runs 9 phases in ~23 minutes: each phase holds static, then shrinks — from a 1,600 m-diameter first circle (~29% of the ~5.5 km island) down to nothing, with damage ramping from 1 to 10 HP/sec and late circles that drift rather than close concentrically.

StormRush keeps that rhythm but stretches it to walking speed: 6 phases over 59 minutes, starting at a 3 km radius and ending at the establishment's front door. Circles drift toward the shop, damage ramps from 2 to 30 HP/min, and health (100 HP) never regenerates — get caught deep in the storm twice and you're spectating.

PhaseHoldShrinkSafe radius afterStorm damageFortnite analog
110 min8 min1.5 km2 HP/minP1: 3:20 + 4:00, 1 HP/s
26 min6 min750 m4 HP/minP2: 2:00 + 2:00, 2 HP/s
35 min5 min400 m8 HP/minP3: 1:30 + 1:30, 5 HP/s
44 min4 min150 m12 HP/minP4–5: ~1:20 + ~1:00, 8–10 HP/s
53 min3 min50 m20 HP/minP6–7: moving zones begin
62 min3 minThe front door30 HP/minP8–9: drift + final close
Fortnite reference data (v41.20-era, corroborated across the Fortnite Fandom wiki, gaming-tools.com, and orcz.com): 9 phases totaling 23:05; safe-zone diameters 1600 → 800 → 400 → 200 → 100 → 50 → 35 → 20 → 0 m; damage 1/1/2/5/8/10/10/10/10 HP/s; next circle random within the current one (can be tangent to its edge), with phases 8–9 as moving zones. StormRush's twist: the drift is biased toward the winning establishment so every match ends at the door.

Two games, one auction

⛈ Storm Royale — the flagship: shrinking circles, health, eliminations, and earned PvP traps (jammers, slow fields — never sold, only earned). 📡 The Signal — the winter-proof alternate: no storm, just your distance to a hidden counter, no direction and no name. Walk a line, watch the number, triangulate — first barcode scanned at the right counter wins, and it only scans once.

Both are walking-pace games by design: sustained vehicle speed pauses the game and voids arrivals, so nobody wins by driving. Hosts choose mystery or revealed billing when they win the day's auction.

Why businesses play

The auction is a game too. Open ascending bids per calendar day, king-of-the-hill style: hold the crown when sudden death expires and the day is yours. Late bids reset a 60-second closing timer, so there's no sniping — just showdowns. Monthly Storm Champions leaderboards, win streaks, and badges keep rival shops coming back.

The economics: one free item, a rush of foot traffic. The free-item liability is capped at exactly one (the winner); every other survivor walks in within the hour holding a discount they raced through a storm to earn.