AWS Bill Shock
Your cloud bill came in. It’s $47,000. You budgeted $3,000. The line item says ml.p4d.24xlarge — On Demand.
→ Eat it, or rip out the feature that’s printing money and torching cash.
A startup management game · Turn-based · Roguelite
Run an AI startup from a garage to IPO
It’s a turn-based management game where you play the founder. Hire a team you can’t fully read, ship features, survive absurd-but-real events, and take the company public before the money runs out.
No signup · No download · A full run in 30–60 minutes
Get launch updates
Coming to Steam, Epic, Google Play & the App Store
Play the free modes in your browser today, or unlock the full game — one license that carries to every platform. Drop your email and we’ll tell you the moment each store goes live.
- Steam
- Epic Games Store
- Google Play
- App Store
Your week might include
AWS Bill Shock — $47,000The AI Hallucinated a FeatureProduction MeltdownY Combinator InterviewReddit BacklashStar Developer ResignsHacker News Front PageThe 10 PM Slack MessageAcquisition OfferViral Bug ReportRegulatory InquiryCompetitor CloneAWS Bill Shock — $47,000The AI Hallucinated a FeatureProduction MeltdownY Combinator InterviewReddit BacklashStar Developer ResignsHacker News Front PageThe 10 PM Slack MessageAcquisition OfferViral Bug ReportRegulatory InquiryCompetitor Clone
Yes, this landing page was vibe-coded by an AI. So is the startup you’re about to run. That’s the whole bit.
Systems that are honest.
Situations that are not.
It satirizes startup culture — AI hype, “move fast and break things,” VC pressure — while the mechanics underneath stay ruthlessly fair. Every complaint you’ve heard about a real company, as a card.
Every card trades something
Absurd setup, real mechanic, honest consequence. Ship fast and eat the tech debt. Chase hype and burn user trust. There is no free lunch, only interest.
Outgrow your garage — literally
Your team needs desks. Start with three in a garage; cram in more and morale craters. Move out one runway-funded upgrade at a time — coworking, a real office, a whole floor, an HQ with your name in the lobby.
Hire people you can’t fully read
Candidates come with hidden traits you only discover after they’re on payroll. That 10x engineer might be a “Shipping Addict.” Or a walking outage.
Growth is a cost, not a trophy
Every user is one more thing that can break. Outage and security risk climb as you scale, ship, and hire — and never hit zero while someone’s using your app. Harden the platform, or watch it fall over at the worst possible moment.
Survive the crises
Passwords in a Google Doc. A four-hour “investigating” status page. A 47-message Slack thread at 10 PM. The systems are honest even when the situations are unhinged.
Eight stats, all levers
Runway, hype, user trust, technical debt, security risk, morale, outage risk, founder stress. Push one, another moves. Balance the whole board or watch it topple.
“Garage to IPO” isn’t just a slogan
Your team occupies a real space with real desks. Hire past capacity and morale bleeds every turn. Spend runway to move up — five offices, from a folding table to a tower.
- 3 desks
Garage
Two founders and a folding table.
- 5 desks
Coworking
Hot desks and free kombucha.
- 9 desks
Startup Office
A real lease. Exposed brick.
- 15 desks
Full Floor
A phone booth that’s always booked.
- 24 desks
Headquarters
Your name in the lobby.
The garage fits three. The rest of the journey you have to pay for.
Real cards from the deck
87 events and counting. Here’s what a random Tuesday looks like.
The AI Hallucinated a Feature
Your coding assistant shipped a feature to production that doesn’t exist. Users are emailing support about it. Some of them love it.
→ Quietly build it for real, or admit the ghost feature was never there.
Viral Bug Report
A security researcher posted a thread: your app stores passwords in plain text. In a Google Doc. That was public.
→ Trust is cratering. Every option here costs you something real.
Pick your chaos
Five founder archetypes, each a different way to succeed — and a different way to detonate.
TECH 10
The 10x Engineer
Free starterWrites elegant code at 2 AM. Terrible at small talk. Will build the right thing very, very fast.
CHARISMA 10
The Hustler
🔒 Base game12,000 LinkedIn followers. Raised a pre-seed on a napkin. The code compiles maybe 60% of the time.
PRODUCT 10
The Product Visionary
🔒 Base gameSees product-market fit before the market does. Cannot read a balance sheet. The UX is gorgeous.
OPS 10
The Operator
🔒 Base gameA spreadsheet for everything. Burn rate always under control. Chaos makes this founder physically ill.
RISK 10
The Chaos Goblin
🔒 Base gameShips first, asks questions never. Has survived three pivots. Meetings are “energizing,” then silence.
Start free with one founder. The base game unlocks all five — plus ranked and the daily challenge.
Start a run →One week per turn
A tight loop you’ll run 50–80 times a game. Easy to learn, brutal to master.
- 1
Plan
Assign your team: build, pay down debt, market, fundraise, or rest.
- 2
Build
Progress resolves. Stats move. The bill comes due.
- 3
Event
Draw from the deck. Pick your poison. Live with it.
- 4
Ship
Push a release for revenue and hype — or hold and harden.
- 5
Review
Check the board. Clear the stage gate. Do it again.
Survive all six stages
Garage →Seed →Series A →Series B →Pre-IPO →IPO
Four ways to lose: bankruptcy, technical collapse, trust collapse, or founder burnout. Only one way out — the bell.
The first IPO is where it starts
Ranked mode is server-authoritative — we replay every run to compute the score, so the board is real. Then there’s the daily, the achievements, and a shareable page for every run.
Ranked leaderboards
Server-verified runs ranked by fewest turns to IPO. Every move re-simulated on our side — no localStorage cheese, no fake scores.
Daily challenge
One server-issued seed a day, same founder for everyone. Play the exact run the rest of the world is playing and climb the daily board.
21 achievements
From a spotless zero-debt IPO to a turn-14 flameout — each unlocked server-side from your real replay, not your say-so.
Shareable runs
Every finished run gets its own page with a proper unfurl. Flex the clean IPO or post the spectacular flameout. Both are content.
Free to play. Yours to own.
Free
$0
The casual, arcade-style single-player loop — garage to IPO on forgiving difficulty. Unscored. No signup, no download.
- ✅ The full turn-based loop
- ✅ One founder — The 10x Engineer
- — No ranked or leaderboards
buy once, own it
The base game
$6.99 one-time
Everything free, unlocked all the way:
- ✨ All five founders
- 🏆 Ranked mode + global leaderboards
- 🗓️ Daily challenge — one shared seed a day
- 🎖️ 21 server-verified achievements
- 🕹️ Play on the web now — one license, restorable anywhere (mobile & desktop coming soon)
Pick your storefront
Playable on the web today. More platforms incoming.
The web version is live today — play the free modes or unlock the full game. Steam, the Epic Games Store, Google Play, and the App Store are on the way — one license carries across all of them. Tell us which you’re waiting on and we’ll email you the moment it lands.
Rave reviews from people who are not real
★★★★★
“Disruptive. Synergistic. I lost my seed round on turn 14 and I have never felt more seen.”
★★★★★
“Finally, a game that captures the thrill of reading a $47,000 cloud bill at 2 AM.”
★★★★★
“10/10 would go bankrupt again. My technical debt hit 100 and a crisis card ended me. Poetry.”
Accessible by default
Adjustable text size, a high-contrast mode, and a readable-font option. Colorblind-safe signals — shape, not just color. Full keyboard navigation with visible focus, screen-reader announcements for turns and outcomes, and we respect your reduced-motion setting.
Questions
Is it actually free? +
Yes — the casual single-player loop, garage to IPO, is free in your browser with one starter founder. Unscored, no signup, no download.
What’s in the base game? +
All five founders, Ranked mode with global leaderboards, the daily challenge, and 21 server-verified achievements. Play the free modes in your browser today; the one-time $6.99 unlock is restorable anywhere, and one license carries to every platform — Steam, Epic, Google Play, and the App Store — as each launches.
Will my purchase work on Steam and mobile? +
Yes — your unlock and your progress live on your account, not on one device. Buy once, sign in with the same email anywhere, and it follows you. As each store launches (Steam, Epic, Google Play, the App Store) one account covers them all — no rebuying.
Do I need an account? +
Not to play — the free modes start instantly, no signup, no download. You only sign in (a passwordless email link — no password to remember) when you buy the game, sync across devices, or post a run to the leaderboard.
Can I play offline? +
Yes. The whole game runs on your device — play on a plane, in a tunnel, wherever. Nothing phones home mid-run; a leaderboard run just queues up and posts itself the next time you’re online.
How long is a run? +
About 30–60 minutes, garage to IPO (or bankruptcy). Retry friction is basically zero — that’s the roguelite part.
Did an AI make this landing page? +
Obviously. The game is about vibe-coding an AI startup. The gradients are load-bearing. That’s the whole bit.
Your runway is already burning.
Fire up a run. Take it public, or take it down in flames. Either way it’s a good story.
Play free →