On-Call Survivor
A night shift of bugs. Your tools fire on their own. Last until dawn.
- Type
- Web
- Requires
- Any modern browser
- Price
- Free
- Survived
- 00:00 / 10:00
- Level
- 1
- Bugs fixed
- 0
The night shift: bugs pour in from every side. Your dev tools fire on their own. Survive until dawn, 10:00.
Move: WASD or arrows · Touch: drag anywhere · Pause: P or Esc · Pick upgrades: 1 2 3
Paused
Move: WASD or arrows · Touch: drag anywhere · Pause: P or Esc · Pick upgrades: 1 2 3
Level up. Pick one
- Survived
- Level
- Rank
- Bugs fixed
- AI bosses beaten
- Best
You are on call, and it is going to be a long night. Bugs come in from every direction. You only move: your tools fire on their own.
How a shift goes
- Move to stay out of the crowd and to steer it. Every bug you fix drops an XP gem; walk over it to collect it.
- Level up and the game pauses on three cards. Pick a new tool or a level for one you have. Each tool goes up to level 5.
- AI models turn up as elites and as bosses at 2:00, 5:00 and 8:00. The last one is the frontier model.
- Survive until 10:00 and the shift is over. If your health runs out first, prod is down.
Your tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Code shot | Fires at the nearest bug. Levels add speed, damage, extra shots and pierce. |
| Linter | Blocks orbit you and hit whatever they touch. |
| Garbage collector | A pulse every few seconds that hurts and pushes back everything near you. |
| Unit tests | A shield that absorbs one hit, then recharges. Levels add charges. |
| Caffeine | Move faster. |
| Monitoring | Pull XP gems in from further away. |
Coffee heals. Elites and bosses drop it.
What comes for you
Plain bugs, tanky null pointers, race conditions that weave as they fly, and memory leaks. Elite models: the Repeater, a chat bubble that splits in two when it dies, and Context Overflow, slow and heavy. Then the bosses: the Hallucinator, half of whose spawn isn't real; the Token Eater, which heals while you hesitate; and the Frontier Model, which spawns faster once it is below half health. Twice a night, a traffic spike closes a ring of bugs around you.
All the art is original pixel art. The models are generic chips and bubbles, not any real product.
The same world runs as a one-lane runner at the foot of the home page.
Questions
Do I need to install anything or sign up?
No. It runs on this page, in any modern browser, on a computer or a phone. Your best run is kept in your browser only.
How do I play on a phone?
Press anywhere on the game and drag: it works like a joystick. Tap a card to pick an upgrade. Fullscreen gives you the biggest field.
Is there sound?
Yes, small synthesized blips with no audio files. It starts muted; press ♪ to turn it on, and the choice is remembered.
I share builds, experiments, and lessons as I go.
New videos on YouTube, shorter notes on X. Every post here links back to both.