Tech Debt - The Video Game

Want to learn or communicate cloud concepts from the basic to the sophisticated in a fun, engaging way?

Allow me to introduce you to what I am currently calling Tech Debt - The Video Game.

The demo is free to play on itch.io.

I hope people will find it to be a valuable training tool, as well as a means to communicate to the C-suite why their cloud compute bill is increasing or why scaling their services is more complex than just clicking a “spend more” button.

I will admit I am grabbing inspiration from a lot of genres and games, mainly Super Fantasy Kingdom.

I have seen other games that focus on designing a system from scratch. I opted for a simpler approach that allows you to unlock predesigned infrastructure.

My goal is to introduce you to a series of advanced cloud compute concepts in a visible way but, I want to balance it so you are not tempted to just keep bumping up instance sizes when there is a more efficient way to architect your infrastructure.

Additionally, I want to add a human element that focuses more on the dynamics you see when running these big teams, such as the trade-off when you let tech debt pile up or just focus on shipping features; therefore, the name “Tech Debt - The Video Game”.

Just for fun, I threw in some items to make gameplay more interesting. So if you see the nuke or clock in there, understand those are NOT tools that actually exist, but they do make things a little more fun.

Keeping in mind that this is super early access and not balanced at all, feel free to give it a play and let me know what you think. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

~Cheers!