Insider Trading

I didn’t expect to get emotionally involved with a game about pumping and crashing stocks, but Insider Trading hooked me immediately. Naiive has turned Wall Street theatrics into a razor-sharp roguelike deckbuilder where every card move feels weighty and sometimes cruel. If you like tight decision-making, combo puzzles and a soundtrack that keeps your fingers twitching, this one’s for you. It’s not a simulator — it’s a game about making the market obey you, until it doesn’t.

Pumping and Crashing the Market

The core loop is gloriously simple to describe and brutally subtle to master: you draft and play cards that literally move prices. Each run puts you in the sneakers of a maverick trader with a distinct starting deck and quirks; your deck is the only engine that dictates how the market opens and reacts. Plays can pump prices for quick gains, short them to create opportunity, or apply buffs and debuffs that change how the next rounds behave. Greed is an explicit resource — it amplifies gains but ratchets up risk — so there’s constant tension between moonshot moves and boring survival plays. After each market day you re-enter the Aftermarket to tweak the deck, buy pills and perks, and try to assemble the synergies that will carry you to the weekly quota. I found myself learning to think two market-days ahead: sometimes the best play is to crash intentionally to buy low next cycle.

Aftermarket Alchemy

Where Insider Trading separates itself from other deckbuilders is in its card pools and drafting rhythm. The Aftermarket offers multiple card pools and stackable pills that create weird, delicious combos — a card that weakens entry price paired with a perk that rewards volatility can turn a liability into a launchpad. There are 120+ cards and 60+ pills/perks, which sounds like a buzzword until you actually see how many niche synergies exist. Characters modify the meta: one trader leans into steady yield, another tempts you to gamble with massive spikes. Disruptive events like recessions, ramping quota minimums and surprise market crashes force you to adapt mid-run. It’s rewarding to patch together a deck that both manipulates the ticker and keeps you solvent; it’s maddening when a single recession ruins the best-laid plan.

Ticker Tape and Sound Design

Presentation punches above its indie weight. The art is slick with a retro-clicky interface that actually makes executing plays feel tactile, and the soundtrack is memorably addictive — those beat-synced clicks and stabs make even a failed run feel cinematic. Performance on PC (Windows, Mac, Linux) felt solid on my machine and community notes praise out-of-the-box Linux support and Deck compatibility. There are accessibility options and multiple difficulty levels, though the difficulty curve is steep by design: the game expects you to learn systems rather than rely on RNG. Minor UI quibbles exist — sometimes price movement animation obscures info — but overall it looks, sounds and runs like a title that loves the little flourishes that make cardplay satisfying.

Insider Trading is a smart, sometimes cruel deckbuilder that rewards patience, pattern recognition and creative synergy-building. It won’t hold your hand — and that’s the point: each victory feels earned. If you like your card games sharp, punishing and full of emergent stories (and don’t mind a steep learning curve), pick this up — especially at its current price.