FLIGBY: the flow-theory leadership simulation in a vineyard

FLIGBY is a serious game for leadership development in academic and business programs. It is based on the Official Flow-Program of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who defines flow as a state of heightened focus and immersion, and it was produced by ALEAS Simulations, a developer with offices in California and Hungary. Csikszentmihalyi also wrote a book about the game, Missing Link Discovered, which treats FLIGBY as the tool that carries flow theory into management practice.

Csikszentmihalyi is a Hungarian psychologist who created the theory of flow. He is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University and a former head of the psychology department at the University of Chicago, and his best-known book is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

In 2012 FLIGBY won a gold medal in the Corporate Games category of the International Serious Play Awards.

The player becomes the general manager of Turul Winery, a fine Californian vineyard, and must turn it into a high-performing business and a good place to work. The management team has eight members, and it has been weakened by internal conflicts. The new manager has to build a cohesive team, set a strategy, handle conflicts, prioritize tasks and settle daily dilemmas, while meeting the expectations of the winery's owner on strategic questions.

Feedback comes in two live forms: the flow state of the employees and the profitability of the company. At the end, FLIGBY gives each player an individual report on his or her skills, with several options for benchmarking. The developers say the situations are of the kind found at work every day.

FLIGBY suits managers and students who want to rehearse people decisions with consequences. It trains judgment about people and teams, which differs from the product recall of a quiz game.

The website fligby.com is online in November 2026. It names ALEAS Group, in Austin, Texas, and Budapest, Hungary, as the copyright holder and describes FLIGBY as an award-winning people skills simulation in interactive movie format, co-created by Professor Csikszentmihalyi. Its targets are individuals, companies running leadership programs, universities and training partners.

Players work through challenging situations and practice better decisions, and the site says gameplay results are turned into development insights. A free demo and a login are offered. The front page lists no prices and refers to a separate price page. For the award, see the International Serious Play Awards.