Devesis: Tutorial Hell

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A CLI survival horror game inspired by Nemesis and Boot.dev where hackathon developers escape Tutorial Hell

You are a self-learning dev get trapped in an endless cycle of coding tutorials during a hackathon. You have only 15 turns to survive and escape with your PROGRAMMING KNOWLEDGE.

🚀 Quick Start (< 5 Minutes)

Prerequisites

• Go 1.21 or higher
• Terminal that supports ANSI colors

Installation & Run

# Clone and run immediately
git clone https://github.com/FT1006/devesis.git
cd devesis
go run ./cmd/devesis

# Or build and run
go build -o devesis ./cmd/devesis
./devesis

That's it! The game will start immediately with character selection.

🎮 Game Overview

The Premise

You're part of a team of self-learning developers participating in a hackathon. But something goes wrong—you get trapped in Tutorial Hell, an infinite loop of corrupted programming tutorials where the only way out is to debug your way to freedom before your sanity.exe stops responding.

Choose Your Class

• Frontend Developer (HP: 6, Ammo: 3) - High survivability, limited resources
• Backend Developer (HP: 3, Ammo: 6) - Glass cannon with lots of firepower
• DevOps Engineer (HP: 4, Ammo: 5) - Balanced stats for infrastructure warfare
• Fullstack Developer (HP: 5, Ammo: 4) - Jack of all trades, master of survival

Face Programming Enemies

• Infinite Loop (1 HP) - Weak but numerous, spawn from corrupted rooms
• Stack Overflow (3 HP) - Mid-level threats that pack a punch
• Pythogoras (6 HP) - The serpent god of tutorials, blocks your escape

Game Mechanics

Turn Structure: Each round has 4 phases - Draw cards, Player actions (2 per turn), Event phase (enemies attack/move), Round maintenance.

Movement & Learning: Moving between rooms triggers coding questions. Correct answers = safe passage. Wrong answers spawn bugs that corrupt rooms and attract enemies.

Card System: Draw cards each turn and play them for actions. Hand limit of 6 cards - excess goes to discard pile.

Combat: Battle with buggy enemies using melee attacks (free but dangerous) or shooting (costs ammo but can target adjacent rooms).

Room Actions, Search & Discovery: Search rooms to find special cards and items. Engine rooms contain Engine Core cards needed for victory. Each room type has special abilities - Medical rooms heal HP, Ammo Caches refill ammunition, Clean Rooms remove bugs.

🕹️ How to Play

How a Round Plays Out

Win Condition: Find and play an Engine card to activate escape pods in escape room when no Pythogoras is present.

Each round has two main stages:

1. Player Stage - You get 2 actions to:

• Move between rooms (triggers coding questions)
• Search rooms for cards and special items
• Play cards from your hand
• Fight enemies (melee or shoot)
• Use room abilities (heal, get ammo, clean bugs)

2. Event Stage - The system fights back:

• Enemies attack any players in their room
• System crashes damage enemies in OutOfRam rooms
• Event cards trigger various effects
• New enemies spawn and existing ones get stronger
• Corrupted rooms spawn additional Infinite Loops

After 15 rounds, if you haven't escaped or died, the system crashes and you lose.

Basic Commands

# Movement and exploration
move R07          # Move to room R07 (triggers coding question)
search            # Search current room for special items
map               # Display the ship layout

# Combat and survival  
shoot             # Attack enemies in adjacent rooms (costs ammo)
melee             # Fight enemies in current room (no ammo cost)
play ACTION_001   # Play a card from your hand

# Information
hand              # Show cards in your hand
status            # Display player stats and room info
rule              # View complete game rules
list              # Browse all available cards
help              # Show all commands

The Game Map

[          ] [          ] [          ] [ R19,+,0  ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [ ESC      ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

[          ] [          ] [ R05,+,0  ] [ R10,+,0  ] [ R15,+,0  ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [ EN1      ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

[          ] [ R02,+,0  ] [ R06,+,0  ] [ R11,+,0  ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

[ R01,+,0  ] [ R03,+,0  ] [ R07,+,0  ] [ R12,+,0  ] [ R16,+,0  ] [ R18,+,0  ] 
[ KEY      ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [ STR      ] [ XXX      ] [ EN2      ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [ P1       ] [          ] [          ] 

[          ] [ R04,+,0  ] [ R08,+,0  ] [ R13,+,0  ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

[          ] [          ] [ R09,+,0  ] [ R14,+,0  ] [ R17,+,0  ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [ XXX      ] [ XXX      ] [ EN3      ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

[          ] [          ] [          ] [ R20,+,0  ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [ ESC      ] [          ] [          ] 
[          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] [          ] 

🗺️ MAP LEGEND: • Rooms: [ID,±,B*] = [Room ID, Searched(+/-), Bug count, OutOfRam(*)] • Types: KEY=Key STR=Start EN#=Engine ESC=Escape AMO=Ammo MED=Medical CLN=Clean AIR=Air SPN=Spawn • Units: P#=Player IL=Infinite Loop SO=Stack Overflow PY=Pythogoras • Status: XXX=Unexplored room, * = OutOfRam

Sample Game Session

📍 CURRENT MAP STATE:
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ 🐛 Total Bugs: 3    💀 Corrupted: 1   👹 Enemies: IL:2 SO:1 PY:0        ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

┌ P1 Frontend ── Room R12 (start room, searched) ──────────────────────┐
│HP    6 /  6     Ammo  3 /  3   Damage  1                             │
│Turn   Actions 2 / 2      Cards  Hand:5  Deck:5  Discard:0            │
│Room   Bugs:0   Loop:0   Overflow:0   Pythogoras:0   Corrupted: ✘     │
│Game   Round: 1      Rounds left: 14                                  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

(2 actions left) > move R07

🤔 CODING QUESTION: What does 'git rebase' do?
A) Merges branches
B) Rewrites commit history  
C) Creates a new branch
D) Deletes commits

Your answer: B
✅ Correct! Safe movement to R07.

🛠️ How I Built This Game

The Challenge: How do you turn "Tutorial Hell" into actual gameplay?

I started with Nemesis's DNA - exploration with consequences, resource management, escalating tension. But instead of alien horror, the enemy is our shared developer nightmare: endless tutorials that teach nothing.

The Hardest Parts (harder than I expected):

1. Simplifying Nemesis for CLI: Nemesis has intents, noise tokens, event decks, room tiles, miniatures... How do you capture that richness in pure text? I had to ruthlessly cut features while keeping the core tension.
2. Building Fast & Maintainable: 72 hours to build a complete game with proper architecture. I went heavy on pure functions and tests early - slower start, but paid off when adding features later without breaking everything.
3. CLI UI/UX is Brutal: Everyone underestimates this. Making ASCII art align properly, handling terminal sizes, pager systems, real-time map updates - it's way harder than web UI. Every space and character matters.

Built With: Go for rapid development, pure functions for game logic, comprehensive tests for the complex state transitions. No external dependencies - just terminal, keyboard, and coffee.

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"Escape Tutorial Hell before your sanity.exe stops responding!"

Built with ❤️ during the Boot.dev Hackathon 2025