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Deploy or Die
A satirical 2D roguelite about a developer's life. Each run is a release: navigate the pipeline, avoid memory leaks, manage technical debt, and deploy to production before production deploys you.

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Features
Languages:
Interface Full Audio Subtitles
English ✔ ✔
French ✔ ✔

Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Deploy or Die is already playable from start to finish: you can complete a run, beat the bosses and unlock content. But a roguelite lives or dies by its balance, and balance can only be tuned through hundreds of runs played by people who are not us. We want to see which classes, items and combinations break the game, which difficulties are too forgiving or too cruel, and what deserves to be added first. Early Access lets us build what comes next with players instead of guessing.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan for roughly 6 to 12 months, depending on community feedback and the pace of development.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“We plan to enrich the game without changing its spirit: more content (items, enemies, bosses, events, biomes, classes), balance refined with the data from your runs, more cosmetics and achievements, visual and audio polish, and comfort improvements (accessibility, controller, Steam Deck). We also plan to keep fixing bugs. The exact list will depend on your feedback and may change.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The current version is complete from end to end: the menu, the progression hub, 9 classes (5 of them unlockable), 7 biomes with 5 per run, more than 60 items, more than 50 enemies, 8 bosses plus an ultimate boss on higher difficulties, 5 environments, 4 difficulty levels, more than 30 achievements, 81 cosmetics, an in-game wiki, controller and Steam Deck support, and both French and English. A full run takes about 25 to 40 minutes.

What is left to do: balance is an estimate and still needs playtesting, the graphics and sounds are deliberately simple and synthesized, and you may run into bugs. Saves are versioned and migrated between updates, but a problem is still possible: please report it.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We plan to keep the same price after Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“The game includes a feedback button in the main menu: it sends your message (bug, suggestion, content idea) straight to the team without leaving the game. We will also read the discussions and Steam reviews, and we will publish regular updates with a readable in-game changelog that explains what changed and why. We plan to rely on your feedback (balance, content to add, comfort of play) to decide what comes next.”
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About This Game

DEPLOY OR DIE is a 2D action roguelite that turns the life of a developer into a survival game. Each run is a release: you make your way through 5 pipeline stages, each ending with a boss. If you die: “Build failed.” If you win: “Release deployed to Production.” Either way, someone will ask you for a quick status update.

Every run is a release

  • Choose a class, an environment, a difficulty, and a seed (a 7-character commit hash: replay the exact same run with the same seed).

  • Navigate a branch graph inspired by git history: each commit opens a procedurally generated scrolling map, with enemy packs, ground loot, and an exit portal.

  • Defeat the boss at each stage, then attempt Production.

  • Whether you die or win, you earn Insights to spend in the Organization Settings to unlock permissions, classes, items, and events.

One disaster at a time

  • Memory Leak: the longer you stay on a map, the more RAM climbs. Nominal, GC Pressure, Swap, then OOM Killer: death is inevitable. Run for the exit.

  • Technical Debt: shortcuts (Quick Fix, --no-verify, Daily Standup decisions) make you stronger today and more dangerous tomorrow. At 100%, the Legacy Monolith awakens.

  • Code Review: three Pull Requests are open, but only one will be merged. Choose wisely.

  • Environments from Dev to Friday Deploy: each victory unlocks the next, with its own set of cruel rules.

9 classes, 9 ways to suffer

Frontend Dev, Backend Dev, DevOps Engineer, and QA Engineer to start with. Scrum Master, Intern, UX/UI Designer, Product Owner, and Middle Manager to unlock, each with their signature ability: Hot Reload, Load Balancer, Self-hosted Agent, Test Suite, Daily Standup, Chaos Monkey, Visual Redesign, Reprioritization, Delegation.

Each class has its own wardrobe: paints, accessories, trails, and firing styles to unlock by playing that class (81 cosmetics, with no effect on stats).

Content with some serious bite

  • More than 60 combinable items, over 50 enemies with varied behaviors, and 8 multi-phase bosses, plus an ultimate boss for the most dedicated masochists.

  • 7 biomes (Boards, Studio, Corporate, Repos, Pipelines, Test Plans, Production): 5 per run, selected according to the seed.

  • 4 difficulties: Onboarding, On-Call, Legacy, and Zero Downtime.

  • More than 30 achievements, an integrated wiki, and a changelog that reads like a git history.

Designed to play your way

  • Keyboard and mouse, or controller (Xbox, PlayStation, Steam Deck): the entire game, including menus, can be played without a keyboard or mouse.

  • Readable text on Steam Deck, accessibility options (reduced flashes, colorblind mode, disableable screenshake).

  • Steam Cloud saves.

  • A bonus setting, disabled by default, for true masochists: toxic management, which comments on your work whenever enemies get close.

Everything is generated by the game itself: graphics and music are synthesized, with no external assets.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The game’s texts (humor, wiki, events, dialogue and the English translation) were written with the help of generative AI, then reviewed and curated by the team. The graphics are drawn by code, and the music and sound effects are synthesized by the game itself: they do not use generative AI. No content is generated by AI during gameplay, and the game does not connect to any AI service.

System Requirements

Windows
SteamOS + Linux
    Minimum:
    • OS: Windows 10 (64 bits)
    • Processor: Dual-core 2,0 GHz ou équivalent
    • Memory: 2048 MB RAM
    • Graphics: GPU compatible WebGL 2 (intégré récent accepté)
    • Storage: 700 MB available space
    • Sound Card: Sortie audio compatible
    • Additional Notes: Controller supported (Xbox, PlayStation, Steam Deck). Keyboard and mouse also supported.
    Recommended:
    • OS: Windows 10 ou 11 (64 bits)
    • Processor: Quad-core 2,5 GHz ou plus
    • Memory: 4096 MB RAM
    • Graphics: GPU dédié ou intégré récent, avec pilotes à jour
    • Storage: 700 MB available space
    Minimum:
    • OS: SteamOS 3 ou Ubuntu 22.04 (64 bits)
    • Processor: Dual-core 2,0 GHz ou équivalent
    • Memory: 2048 MB RAM
    • Graphics: GPU compatible OpenGL ES 3 / WebGL 2 (Mesa récent accepté)
    • Storage: 700 MB available space
    • Sound Card: Sortie audio compatible
    • Additional Notes: Playable on Steam Deck (1280x800)
    Recommended:
    • OS: SteamOS 3 ou Ubuntu 22.04 ou plus récent
    • Processor: Quad-core 2,5 GHz ou plus
    • Memory: 4096 MB RAM
    • Graphics: GPU dédié ou intégré récent, pilotes Mesa ou propriétaires à jour
    • Storage: 700 MB available space
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