Forty-Six Degrees
Ramesh, a food-delivery rider, on a 46 °C day. He needs ₹650 by night: scooter rental, rent, money home.
₹433 the most he can earn without ever leaving the coping zone. He needs ₹650.
Three-minute playable stories, built from published reports and data
Live someone else's day.
One day as a composite character built from a published report. Every hour you choose, every choice costs something, and at the end you replay the day under a different policy to see what changes in the model. For NGOs, newsrooms and campaigns.
Below is hour eight of Forty-Six Degrees, with the game's real rules. It is 2 pm in Delhi; Ramesh has ridden all morning (17 orders, ₹359, body heat already in the stress zone). Skip and play the whole day.
2 pm, the hottest hour
Time
Outside
14:00
46°C
Body heat38 / 100
- Coping 0–29
- Heat stress 30–44
- Exhaustion 45–69
- Heatstroke 70+
Earned today₹359 / ₹650Water40%
46 °C, the hottest hour. Your friend Suresh texts: he fainted at a signal yesterday and lost the order.
App: Peak-hour boost, +₹15 per order until 4 pm.
What happened
Live someone else's day.
Stories
No Place to Sit
Meena, 31, a home beauty-services worker at 44 °C. No toilet on the route, a school call at 1 pm, and an app that notices every booking she turns down.
2 breaks Replay the day with two paid, penalty-free breaks and see what changes in the model.
Stage IV
Birju, 38, a construction helper from Banda, through Delhi's winter construction ban: 42 days with no site work, a welfare-board relief that stays "under verification", and a moneylender who is always open.
42 days the complete construction ban announced for 10 December 2026 to 20 January 2027 (India TV, 28 Sep 2026). Birju and his numbers are illustrative until a partner's data replaces them.
All stories, including the ones looking for a partner.
What we make
A Borrowed Days story starts with a report or a dataset an organisation has already published. We turn it into one day in one composite character's life, with a target they have to hit and choices that cost money, health or both. Every permitted sequence of choices is run through the same model the player uses, so the results page can say what the best possible day looks like under today's rules, and what changes under a policy the organisation is asking for.
The result is a single web page, under 400 KB, that opens from a WhatsApp forward on a basic phone. Facts are sourced, calculated results carry their model version, and illustrative details are labelled as such. Read how it works.