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.
✨ Turn-based · Deck-driven · Roguelite
Vibe-code your way from a garage to IPO
A roguelite about running an AI startup — one catastrophic decision at a time. Hire, ship, dodge the crises, and take it public before the runway hits zero.
No signup · No download · A full run in 30–60 minutes
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.
🧑💻
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.
🔥
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, founder stress. Push one, another moves. Balance the whole board or watch it fall over.
🏆
Ranked leaderboards
Server-verified runs, ranked by fewest turns to IPO. Every move re-simulated on our side — no localStorage cheese, no fake scores.
🔗
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.
Real cards from the deck
86 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 cross-platform play.
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.
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
- 🕹️ Cross-platform play — one license on web, mobile & desktop
- 🗓️ Daily challenges & more, coming soon
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.”
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, and cross-platform play — one purchase, every device (web, mobile, desktop). Daily challenges and more are on the way. $6.99, one-time, restorable anywhere.
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 →