MESE (Management and Economics Simulation Exercise) is a business simulator which students create virtual companies, sell products, and compete in their companies' MPI (MESE Performance Index). The simulation is period-based. In each period, a virtual company will receive their reports and do five decisions: Price of their products, production in the next period, marketing investment, capital investment, and R&D investment.

MESE was created in 1980s. It is widely used by JA (Junior Achievement) in its course JA Economics to teach students knowledge of company management and economic environment. There is also a web-based MESE variant called JA Titan. Unfortunately, the use of MESE / JA Titan is discontinued in 2013.

MESE-Next is a fan-made MESE variant. It is not an equivalent of MESE, but an online game based on a similar mathematical model to MESE. Players can sign up on a MESE-Next Server and compete with other players on the Internet. MESE-Next is created by hczhcz as a replacement of IMese (Internet-based MESE Platform).

• MESE-Next is web-based;
• MESE-Next supports more than 8 players in the same game (32 players maximum by default);
• MESE-Next supports more game settings;
• MESE-Next provides 8p-feeling settings in any game;
• Classic MESE have paper-based reports (for MESE-Next, the reports are web pages);
• Classic MESE supports bots;
• There are some slight differences in their mathematical model;

• MESE-Next is not a single website but a deployable web server;
• MESE-Next supports higher maximum players, higher maximum periods, and more settings;
• JA Titan supports pick-up games, and human-vs-bot games;

• MESE-Next does not need a MESE executable;
• MESE-Next supports higher maximum players, and multiple games at the same time;
• IMese supports encrypted connection;
• IMese has a history analyzing and player ranking system (here is a standalone system);
• IMese only runs under x86 Windows environment;

MESE-Realtime provides a new way to play business simulation games. Compare with MESE-Next, it runs every second without waiting for players' submissions. The typical length of a game is about 10-20 minutes, and players could change their five decisions at any time.

MESE-Next Engine ---+--> MESE-Next Server ---+
                   /                          \
      Database ---+              Web Server ---+--> Web Browsers
                  |                            |
                  +--> MESE-Realtime Server ---+

A browser supports HTML5, CSS3, and ES5 features is required to run MESE-Next and MESE-Realtime. The web frontend is tested under recent versions of Firefox, Chromium, and Mobile Safari.

The web frontend supports:

• Firefox 29+
• Chrome & Chromium 20+
• IE 10+
• Safari 7+
• Mobile Safari 7+

The web frontend probably works under:

• Firefox 3.6+
• Chrome & Chromium 4+
• MS Edge
• IE 8+
• Safari 5+
• Opera 11+
• Mobile Safari 5+
• Android Browser 4.1+

The web frontend would not support:

• IE 7-
• QQ (WeChat) Browser on Android

The server requires all of:

• Node.js 0.12+
• MongoDB 2.4+
• Node.js packages: MongoDB, Express 4 & Compression, Socket.IO

MESE-Next requires:

• MESE-Next Engine (released in MESE China Group)

The server itself does not need installation.

Before running the server, you may do the following steps:

1. Clone this repository or download it;
2. Install Node.js and MongoDB;
3. Install NPM (Node.js Package Manager);
4. Install required NPM packages: mongodb, express, compression and socket.io;
5. Get MESE-Next Engine from our group or by contacting us, and put it under the same directory as MESE-Next Server's (or skip this step if you want MESE-Realtime only);
6. Edit config.js if you want to change some configurations;
7. Now, you could run main.js using Node.js.

MESE-Next and MESE-Realtime - Copyright (C) 2015-2016 hczhcz

This project is only distributed in GitHub and MESE China Group, and released without any warranty. As this distribution is not under any public license, commercial use, public use, and redistribution outside GitHub are not allowed. Contact us if you need a licensed version.