Signal Market
Capture signals. Build narratives. Read what’s coming.
Pre-order — $180 USD →Was $220 · Ships fall 2026 · Adaptive currency at checkout
A foresight game built on real methodology.
Players take the seat of futurists — scanning a constantly shifting market for early indicators of change, capturing signals, and building narrative patterns. The strongest, most coherent narrative wins.
Plus the rule book.
Five moves, ten rounds.
Setup
Each player draws a hidden persona — a private goal that shapes how they read the future.
Capture signals
On your turn, draw one signal from the market. Watch for noise — distractions in the information landscape that come bundled with adjacent signals.
Read patterns
Combine the signals in your hand into narrative patterns — coherent stories about how change is unfolding. Patterns are claimed publicly, scored privately.
Adapt
Each round resets. New signals enter the market; old ones cycle out. Strategies that worked round three may not work round seven. The future moves while you read it.
Tell the story
After 10 rounds, present your strongest narrative — a brief, evocative story about a future you've assembled from fragments. The most compelling story earns the People's Choice. Highest impact points wins.
Practitioners, teams, classrooms.
Strategy & innovation teams
Open a strategy retreat. Anchor an offsite ritual. Use the game as a scenario-planning warm-up before the real work.
Independent facilitators
Add methodology-rich foresight to client workshops. Run Signal Market as part of a strategy or transformation engagement.
Educators and faculty
Teach scanning, futures literacy, and STEEPV-style sense-making through experience. Designed to fit a 60–90 minute class block.
Public sector teams
Practice scenario reasoning in a low-risk environment. Frame as a strategic simulation for cross-team alignment around uncertainty.
Real foresight practice. Not a deck of trend cards.
Most strategic plans assume the world will hold still long enough to execute them. It rarely does. Futures thinking is the discipline that closes that gap — and Signal Market is built to make it practicable.
The future is not a forecast. It’s a pattern you learn to read.
Every mechanic in the game rehearses a real method that practitioners use to read change in the world.
Strategic Foresight
The discipline of studying change and exploring multiple possible futures to inform present-day decisions about opportunities, risks, and uncertainty.
Futures Literacy
The capacity to think strategically about possible futures — with foresight and intention — alongside the skill to use the methods that make that thinking rigorous.
Horizon Scanning
The act of monitoring the external environment for early signs of change — observing and interpreting signals to understand patterns within shifts.
Weak Signal Theory
Early indicators of change that are often ambiguous or easy to overlook, but that frequently provide the most valuable insight into emerging shifts.
STEEPV-Style Scanning
A macro-environmental framework that organizes signals across societal, technological, economic, environmental, political, and value-based domains — used widely by strategists and futurists.
Signal Market is the first commercial expression of Studio Caol’s Serious Games practice — methodology designed to build organizational capability through play.
Learn more about the studio →- → Ships fall 2026 — production confirmed
- → Adaptive currency at checkout — pay in your local equivalent
- → Pre-order pricing through August 31, 2026
- → Cancellable any time before shipment
Common questions.
When does Signal Market ship?+
Fall 2026. Production is confirmed. Pre-order buyers receive a confirmed ship date approximately 30 days before fulfillment, with tracking provided when their order ships.
What's the price after pre-order?+
$220 USD list. Pre-order pricing of $180 USD runs through August 31, 2026. After that, list price applies.
When am I charged?+
At checkout. Signal Market is a pre-order — payment now, shipment in fall 2026.
What currency will I be charged in?+
Stripe's Adaptive Pricing shows the equivalent price in your local currency at checkout. We list in USD; you pay in your currency at the day's mid-market rate.
What countries do you ship to?+
We ship globally. Shipping is calculated at checkout based on destination. Most North American and European orders arrive within 1–2 weeks of fulfillment; rest of world adds 1–2 weeks. If your country isn't supported by Stripe Checkout, contact kyle@studiocaol.com and we'll arrange shipment manually where possible.
What's included in the box?+
138 cards across four types — 82 signal cards, 18 noise cards, 13 futurist persona cards, 25 narrative pattern cards — and the rule book. Designed for 3 to 5 players. Sessions run 30 to 45 minutes.
Is this a digital game or a physical product?+
Physical card game. No digital version is currently planned, though a complementary digital companion is on the studio's product roadmap.
Can I order multiple decks for my team or classroom?+
Yes. Bulk orders of 10 or more decks include a discount and dedicated facilitator support — pricing is quoted case by case based on quantity and use case. Email kyle@studiocaol.com for a bulk quote.
What's your return policy?+
Pre-orders are fully cancellable any time before shipment — full refund. Once shipped, returns within 30 days for damage or defect — full refund or replacement. Non-defect returns are reviewed case by case. Email kyle@studiocaol.com for any return inquiry.
Can I try the game before buying?+
Studio Caol runs Signal Market workshops at select conferences and partner events. We'll be at Serious Play Conference, August 5–7, 2026, at Duke University in Durham, NC. Subscribe below for upcoming demo announcements.
Other questions? Email kyle@studiocaol.com →
Studio Caol.
A boutique consulting house and creative think tank — practitioner-led, neo-generalist, built for organizations navigating complexity, uncertainty, and change. Signal Market is the first commercial expression of our Serious Games practice.
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