Salton Sea

Salton Sea is a compact but demanding economic game about extracting lithium from the geothermal brine beneath California’s famous inland lake. Each player manages a company with four engineers and a small hand of cards that serve both as money and as the actions printed on them. Spending a useful card may finance today’s drilling but remove tomorrow’s most efficient industrial step, so cash flow and timing are inseparable. Engineers claim spaces for exploration licences, drilling, brine extraction, processing, repairs, sales, contracts, research, shares, finance, and company development. Machinery wears down as production advances, making maintenance part of the engine rather than an afterthought. Contracts reward a reliable supply chain, research creates specialised advantages, and investment can turn another company’s success into value for your own portfolio. The game rewards exhausted deposits, completed contracts, short-term objectives, development, and research, so there is no single production path to victory. Solo and multiplayer use the same tightly coupled economy. Salton Sea turns the promise of renewable energy into a sharp worker-placement puzzle where every card has a price before it ever reaches the market.