A Software Engineering Roguelike
"Ship it. Survive it. Repeat."

DevLife is a browser-based roguelike simulation where you play as a software engineer navigating the treacherous landscape of a modern tech career. Each run is a new career — procedurally generated through sprints, incidents, code reviews, and career milestones.

Will you reach retirement, or will your career end in burnout?

Click HERE to play.

1. Create your engineer — Distribute 40 points across 7 SPECIAL stats
2. Choose an archetype — Or build your own unique developer
3. Navigate your career — Make decisions at each event, pass stat checks, survive
4. Climb the ladder — Progress through 4 career phases:
   • Junior Developer → Mid-Level Developer → Senior Developer → Staff/Principal
5. Retire or die trying — Complete all phases to win, or fall victim to burnout, imposter syndrome, skill obsolescence, or redundancy

• SPECIAL Stat System — 7 stats inspired by Fallout, tailored for dev life:

  • Strength — Technical depth & raw coding power
  • Perception — Code comprehension & debugging
  • Endurance — Resilience & focus
  • Charisma — Stakeholder management & mentorship
  • Intelligence — System architecture & fast learning
  • Agility — Adaptability & delivery velocity
  • Luck — Heuristics & clean production runs

• d20 Stat Checks — Every choice rolls a d20 (modified by Luck) against a target, gated by a competence check so low stats can't muscle past checks far above them

• Perks (Stat Mastery) — Max a stat to 10 to unlock a perk: once-per-run interventions (Negotiate, Brute Force, Code Review, Clean Deploy) and passive boons (Iron Nerves, Rapid Learner, Fast Ship)

• Archetype Presets — Start as a Principal Architect, Startup Rockstar, SRE Specialist, Penetration Tester, and more

• Procedural Events — 57 satirical tech scenarios across 4 career phases: production incidents, code reviews, sprint planning, architecture debates, and more. No event repeats within a run; each phase ends with a boss

• Items & Equipment — Collect passive stat bonuses from Mechanical Keyboards to Custom Ergonomic Chairs (rarity-weighted drops, boosted by Luck). Max 1 equipped at a time.

• Consumables — One-time stat boosts for a single event check, earned on level up. Max 2 in inventory. Includes food, drinks, and risky AI tools that can backfire.

• Saving Rolls — Hit a stat floor and you get a d20 saving throw (Luck + half Charisma) before your career ends

• Permadeath — Each run is a new career. Game over means starting fresh.

• Meta Progression — Carry your end-of-run equipment and up to 2 consumables into your next career

• Synthesized Sound Effects — 8 Web Audio API bleeps (no audio files): success, failure, level up, boss, perk, victory, and more

• Mobile-First Design — Works great on phones, tablets, and desktops

• Dark Terminal Theme — Because that's what real developers use

Consumables are one-time stat boosts for a single event check. Hold max 2 in inventory, earned on level up (pick from 3 options).

See the full consumables list in GAME_DESIGN.md.

pc3-DevLife/
├── index.html          # Main game page
├── css/
│   └── style.css       # Dark terminal theme
├── js/
│   ├── app.js          # Entry point: wiring, career start/continue
│   ├── config.js       # All tunable constants (version, thresholds, rates)
│   ├── game.js         # Core game engine & state
│   ├── special.js      # SPECIAL stat system (base/equipment/temp bonuses)
│   ├── events.js       # Event loading (fetch) & validation
│   ├── events/         # Event content, per career phase
│   │   ├── phase_junior.json   # 13 events (incl. boss)
│   │   ├── phase_mid.json      # 16 events (incl. boss)
│   │   ├── phase_senior.json   # 16 events (incl. boss)
│   │   └── phase_staff.json    # 12 events (incl. boss)
│   ├── items.js        # Equipment & consumables (rarity-weighted)
│   ├── archetypes.js   # Starting builds & stat metadata
│   ├── perks.js        # Perk system (stat mastery)
│   ├── meta.js         # Meta progression (run count, carry-over items)
│   ├── save.js         # Save/load system (localStorage)
│   ├── ui.js           # UI rendering, screens, toasts, sound
│   ├── utils.js        # Shared helpers (d20, day→year)
│   └── types.js        # JSDoc @typedefs (typecheck only, not loaded)
├── test/
│   ├── core.test.js    # Node VM test runner (no framework)
│   └── core.tests.js   # Core game-logic tests
├── .github/workflows/
│   └── ci.yml          # CI: typecheck + test on push/PR
├── package.json        # Scripts: typecheck, test (TypeScript dev dep only)
├── tsconfig.json       # JSDoc/checkJs typecheck config (noEmit)
└── GAME_DESIGN.md      # Full design document

1. Push this repo to GitHub
2. Go to Settings → Pages → Deploy from a branch
3. Select main branch, root (/) folder
4. Your game will be live at:

   https://<your-username>.github.io/<repo-name>/
   

Serve the project over HTTP and open http://localhost:8000 (opening index.html directly via file:// won't work — the event files are loaded with fetch()):

# Using Python
python3 -m http.server 8000

# Or any other local server
npx serve .

• HTML5 / CSS3 / Vanilla JavaScript — No frameworks, no build tools
• TypeScript type checking — JSDoc annotations + tsc --noEmit (no transpilation, no emitted JS)
• Web Audio API — 8 synthesized sound effects, no audio files
• Node VM test suite — Core game logic tested without a browser or framework
• LocalStorage — Save games and meta-progression
• Single-Page Application — Screen-based navigation
• Mobile-First Responsive Design — Works on all screen sizes

Stats have a floor of 1. When a stat hits its floor you make a saving roll: d20 vs Luck + ½ Charisma. Fail it and your career is over:

A successful saving roll bumps every floored stat back up by 1 — barely clinging on.

Defeat the 4 phase bosses (24 events total — 20 with Fast Ship) to retire in style. Choose a consumable to carry into your next career!

See GAME_DESIGN.md for the full game design document, including event examples, stat check mechanics, and development roadmap.

There is no traditional hit points (HP) bar. This is a deliberate decision inspired by the things me and some colleagues say:

My Intelligence just went down after that conversation/decision.

I no longer have the Will/Endurance for this crap.

We are going to see a decline in Agility because of XXX.

Ivory Tower Architects. Too high from the front lines. They don't see what it's like down here. (Implies Perception loss)

If anyone is genuinely offended or butt-hurt by this, I will go on record and say:

Too bad, too sad. I apologise to absolutely nobody. This is my personal lived-in experience in this industry.

DevLife is a static site — there is no build step and nothing to compile. The files in this repo are exactly what gets served. The only tooling is a type checker (guards the shared data shapes: game state, events, items) and a core-logic test suite:

npm install        # installs TypeScript (dev dependency only)
npm run typecheck  # runs tsc --noEmit; reports errors, emits nothing
npm test           # runs the core game-logic tests (Node, no framework)

• Type definitions live in js/types.js (JSDoc @typedefs only — no runtime code, not loaded by the browser).
• Annotations are plain JSDoc comments in the existing .js files; the game runs identically with or without them.
• Tests live in test/: the logic modules (config, utils, items, special, perks, game) run in a Node VM context with stubbed browser globals, so the rules (stat checks, perk activation and grace rules, equipment drops, carry-over) are verified without a browser.
• CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs both npm run typecheck and npm test on every push to main and on all pull requests (Node 20, two jobs).

This is a prototype/vertical slice. Planned features:

• Achievement system
• Animated transitions
• More events (50+ per phase)
• Export/share career summaries

Current state:

• 57 events across 4 career phases (13–16 per phase)
• Boss events ending each phase ✓
• d20 stat checks with competence gate and saving rolls ✓
• Perk system with once-per-run interventions ✓
• Meta progression: carry equipment/consumables between runs ✓
• Synthesized sound effects ✓

SPECIAL stat system inspired by Fallout by Interplay Productions / Black Isle Studios. The seven stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) are a loving homage to the classic RPG system, reimagined for the modern software engineering career.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 PC3 Enterprises

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Built with ☕, 💻, and questionable life choices.