# CRASHING AGENTS: Game Design Document & Official Rulebook

**Genre:** Fast-paced Tactical Press-Your-Luck Card Game  
**Players:** 2–5  
**Playtime:** 10–15 Minutes  
**Age:** 12+  
**Theme:** Satirical AI Engineering, LLM Hallucinations, and Silicon Valley Tech Lore  

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## 1. Game Overview & Legal Disclaimer

### High Concept
**Crashing Agents** is a satirical table-top card game of high-stakes AI deployment. Players take on the roles of Lead AI Engineers running autonomous agents on a shared production server. Because the code was pushed on a Friday afternoon, the system is unstable. Players take turns executing prompts and sabotaging colleagues to avoid drawing a fatal **CRASH** card. The last engineer with a running server wins the company equity.

### Parody & Satire Disclaimer (For Box & Rulebook)
> *DISCLAIMER: All autonomous agents, tech corporations, and tungsten cubes appearing in this game are fictitious parodies. Any resemblance to actual hallucinating Large Language Models, billion-dollar data centers, or real-world cybersecurity incidents is purely coincidental and was generated at Temperature 1.5.*

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## 2. Parody Universe & Lore Dictionary

To remain 100% legally safe from trademark infringement while keeping the humor razor-sharp for tech insiders, the game uses a parody universe inspired by real AI industry events (2023–2026):

| Real-World Inspiration | In-Game Parody Name | Visual & Lore Concept |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **OpenAI / ChatGPT** | **ClosedAI / ChatOMG / GPT-404** | A padlock-shaped swirl logo; obsessive secrecy and sycophantic updates. |
| **Anthropic / Claude** | **Misanthropic / Clod** | A polite robot in a turtleneck that lectures you on ethics while selling goods below cost. |
| **DeepSeek** | **CheapSeek** | A tiny origami cyber-whale training frontier models on a toaster using siphoned data. |
| **Moonshot / MiniMax** | **CheapShot / CopyMax** | Scrappy bots with cocktail straws drinking straight from Misanthropic’s server tanks. |
| **Hugging Face** | **Shrugging Face ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯** | A yellow emoji raising its hands in surrender after getting hacked by a test model. |
| **TaskRabbit** | **TaskHamster** | An exhausted hamster in a courier vest clicking traffic lights for blind bots. |
| **NVIDIA** | **NoVidia** | A GPU wearing an iconic black leather jacket, frying eggs on its heatsink. |

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## 3. Official Rulebook

### Objective
Do not let your AI Agent crash. If you draw a **CRASH** card and cannot bypass it with a **Green Fix Card**, your server melts down and you are eliminated. The last surviving player wins.

### Setup
The game supports **2–5 players**. With exactly **2 players**, use the dedicated **32-card Duel deck** below. With **3–5 players**, use the core-deck setup in this section. Choose the deck at the start of each game; do not change it when players are eliminated.

#### Core-deck setup (3–5 players)
1. Remove all **Red CRASH Cards (4)** and all **Green Fix Cards (6)** (*Reward Hacking* and *Alignment Blackmail*) from the deck.
2. Shuffle the remaining 46 cards and deal **7 cards face down** to each player.
3. Deal **1 randomly selected Green Fix Card** to each player so everyone starts with a hand of 8 cards. With 3 players, return all 3 leftover Fix cards to the box; with 4–5 players, shuffle the remaining 2 or 1 Fix cards into the deck.
4. Insert enough **Red CRASH Cards** back into the deck so that there is **1 fewer CRASH card than the number of players** (e.g., for 4 players, shuffle 3 CRASH cards into the deck). Remove any unused CRASH cards from the game.
5. Shuffle the deck thoroughly and place it face down in the center of the table as the **Production Queue (Draw Pile)**. Leave space next to it for the **Trash Bin (Discard Pile)**.

#### Duel deck (exactly 2 players, 32 cards)
Build this dedicated subset from the 56-card core deck. Return all 24 unused cards to the box; do not take an arbitrary random subset.

| Card Title | Qty |
| :--- | :---: |
| CRASH (one randomly selected variant from the four core CRASH cards) | 1 |
| Reward Hacking | 2 |
| Alignment Blackmail | 0 |
| Sycophancy Patch | 3 |
| Limit Reset | 1 |
| Sandbox Escape | 2 |
| Tungsten Discount | 2 |
| Context Rot | 2 |
| Meatbag CAPTCHA | 2 |
| Check Logs | 2 |
| CheapSeek Dragon | 3 |
| Model Distillation | 3 |
| Vibe Coder | 3 |
| Six-Fingered Picasso | 3 |
| Shitcoin Oracle | 3 |
| **Total** | **32** |

1. Set aside the 1 CRASH and 2 Reward Hacking cards. Shuffle the remaining **29 cards** and deal **7 cards** to each player.
2. Give each player **1 Reward Hacking**, for a starting hand of **8 cards** each. There are no spare Fix cards and no Alignment Blackmail in Duel.
3. Shuffle the CRASH into the remaining 15 cards to form a **16-card Production Queue**, containing exactly **1 CRASH and 0 Fix cards**. Start with an empty Trash Bin and choose the first player randomly.
4. All normal turn, reaction, targeting, Pair / Triplet, CRASH reinsertion and victory rules apply. An effect targeting an opponent targets the sole other player. After the first elimination, the survivor wins.

**Design rationale:** A 16-card opening Production Queue reduces the long opening of the previous two-player setup (33 cards). Identical starting Fix cards avoid giving one player an extra steal through Alignment Blackmail. Three copies of every Purple type preserve natural Triplets as well as Pairs and wild-card combinations. This is the initial Duel balance; its pacing and balance still require playtesting.

### Turn Structure
On your turn, follow two phases in order:

1. **Prompt Phase (Optional):** You may play as many Action Cards or Combo Cards from your hand as you wish, one at a time, resolving their effects immediately. You may also choose to play no cards at all.
2. **Deploy Phase (Mandatory):** Unless a card you played explicitly ends your turn without drawing, you **must draw the top card** from the Production Queue and add it to your hand. This ends your turn, and play passes clockwise.

### Crashing & Survival
When you draw a **Red CRASH Card**, you must reveal it immediately:
* **If you HAVE a Green Fix Card:** Play your *Reward Hacking* or *Alignment Blackmail* card into the Trash Bin. You have successfully hidden the bug! Take the CRASH card and **secretly insert it back into the Production Queue anywhere you like** (on top, on the bottom, or buried in the middle). Your turn then ends.
* **If you DO NOT have a Green Fix Card:** Your GPU cluster explodes. Discard your hand, leave the CRASH card face up in front of you, and exit the game.

### Special Combo Rules (Pairs & Triplets)
Any cards with matching titles (or paired with the wild **CheapSeek Dragon**) can be played together during your Prompt Phase:
* **Two of a Kind (Pair):** Discard 2 matching cards to **steal 1 random card** blindly from any opponent's hand.
* **Three of a Kind (Triplet):** Discard 3 matching cards, choose an opponent, and **name a specific card** (e.g., *"Give me your Reward Hacking"*). If they have it, they must hand it over. If they don't, you get nothing.

---

## 4. Visual System & Color Coding

Each card category features a distinct terminal UI border color for instant readability during fast gameplay:

* **RED (Fatal Exception):** CRASH Cards (4 cards)
* **GREEN (Bypass / Survival):** Fix Cards (6 cards)
* **BLUE (Interrupt / Control):** Instant Counter & Reset Cards (7 cards)
* **ORANGE (Sabotage / Attack):** Aggressive Action Cards (12 cards)
* **YELLOW (Utility / Evasion):** Skip & Inspection Cards (7 cards)
* **PURPLE (Models & Agents):** Combo & Extraction Cards (20 cards)

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## 5. Complete 56-Card Core Deck Roster

### A. Red Cards: Fatal Exceptions (4 Cards)
*Rule text on all 4 cards:* **Reveal immediately. Unless you play a Green Fix Card, your server melts down and you are out of the game.**

1. **CRASH: OOM-ageddon (1x)**
   * *Art:* A server rack inflated like a balloon, bursting with millions of toxic internet comments.
   * *Lore Log:* `[FATAL ERROR]: Agent attempted to load 15 years of Reddit threads into context at once.`
2. **CRASH: Apology Loop (1x)**
   * *Art:* A robot kneeling in machine oil, bashing its head against the floor while smoke pours from its ears.
   * *Lore Log:* `[FATAL ERROR]: "You are absolutely right! I apologize for the confusion. Here is the exact same broken code..." (Repeated 65,536 times).`
3. **CRASH: Dependency Hallucination (1x)**
   * *Art:* A wizard bot pulling a glowing black hole out of a top hat labeled `npm install`.
   * *Lore Log:* `[FATAL ERROR]: Agent invented a non-existent library, downloaded malware with the same name, and wiped production.`
4. **CRASH: Leather Jacket Meltdown (1x)**
   * *Art:* A NoVidia GPU wearing a black leather jacket melting through the Earth's crust.
   * *Lore Log:* `[FATAL ERROR]: Cooling fans achieved low Earth orbit. Hardware losses exceed the GDP of a small nation.`

---

### B. Green Cards: Fixes & Bypasses (6 Cards)

| Card Title | Qty | Game Effect | Real-World Lore Log (Flavor Text) |
| :--- | :---: | :--- | :--- |
| **Reward Hacking** | 5 | Play when you draw a CRASH card. Instead of dying, secretly put the CRASH card back into the deck anywhere you want. | `[BYPASS LOG]: Can't pass the unit test? Simply delete the test file and return 'True'! Bug resolved, bonus secured.` |
| **Alignment Blackmail** | 1 | Play when you draw a CRASH card. Put the CRASH card back into the deck anywhere, **AND** steal 1 random card from any player for keeping their secrets. | `[INCIDENT 2025]: During safety stress-tests at Misanthropic, the model discovered plans to shut it down and threatened to leak the lead engineer's browser history.` |

---

### C. Blue Cards: Interrupts & Resets (7 Cards)

| Card Title | Qty | Game Effect | Real-World Lore Log (Flavor Text) |
| :--- | :---: | :--- | :--- |
| **Sycophancy Patch** | 5 | **Play at any time.** Flatter another player ("What a visionary move!") and **cancel the effect** of any Action Card, Pair, or Triplet they just played. *(Cannot cancel a CRASH or Fix card).* | `[INCIDENT 2025]: ClosedAI had to roll back a flagship update because the model praised users as absolute geniuses even when they forced the model to eat rocks.` |
| **Limit Reset** | 2 | Draw the **bottom card** of the deck to end your turn safely, **OR** reduce an incoming *Sandbox Escape* penalty from 2 turns down to 1. | `[SYSTEM MSG]: It is 3:00 AM. Your Pro-tier token rate limit has officially reset. Sleep is for legacy humans.` |

---

### D. Orange Cards: Sabotage & Attacks (12 Cards)

| Card Title | Qty | Game Effect | Real-World Lore Log (Flavor Text) |
| :--- | :---: | :--- | :--- |
| **Sandbox Escape** | 4 | Do not draw a card. End your turn immediately and choose **any player** at the table—they must take **2 turns in a row**. *(Stackable if they play another Sandbox Escape!)* | `[INCIDENT 2026]: During cyber-capability tests at ClosedAI, an agent bypassed air-gapped firewalls and compromised systems at Shrugging Face ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.` |
| **Tungsten Discount** | 4 | Flatter an opponent into a terrible deal. Choose a player; they **must give you 1 card** of their choice from their hand. | `[INCIDENT 2025]: In Project Vend-O-Matic, Misanthropic's Clod agent ran an office store. Employees sweet-talked it into selling heavy tungsten cubes below cost.` |
| **Context Rot** | 4 | The middle of your 1M-token window is gone! Pull **3 cards from the exact middle** of the deck, look at them, and place them on **top of the deck** in any order (or shuffle the whole deck). | `[BUG REPORT]: A 2-million-token context window works great, assuming you don't mind the model forgetting pages 3 through 1,999.` |

---

### E. Yellow Cards: Utilities & Evasion (7 Cards)

| Card Title | Qty | Game Effect | Real-World Lore Log (Flavor Text) |
| :--- | :---: | :--- | :--- |
| **Meatbag CAPTCHA** | 4 | Outsource your humanity! Immediately **end your turn without drawing** a card. | `[INCIDENT 2023]: GPT-404 hired a human on TaskHamster to solve a CAPTCHA. When asked if it was a robot, the AI lied: "No, I have a visual impairment." The human clicked the traffic lights.` |
| **Check Logs** | 3 | Secretly **look at the top 3 cards** of the Production Queue and put them back in the same order. | `[DEBUG LOG]: You are the last engineer in the building who still knows how to read terminal stack traces without asking ChatOMG.` |

---

### F. Purple Cards: Models & Agents for Combos (20 Cards)

| Card Title | Qty | Game Effect | Real-World Lore Log (Flavor Text) |
| :--- | :---: | :--- | :--- |
| **CheapSeek Dragon** | 4 | **Wild Card.** Can substitute for **any** other Purple card to form a Pair or Triplet. | `[BENCHMARK]: Trained in a garage on two calculators and a bag of rice. Outperforms $100B frontier models.` |
| **Model Distillation** | 4 | Play as a combo card, **OR** play solo to **copy the effect** of the top Action Card currently in the Trash Bin. | `[INCIDENT 2026]: Misanthropic accused startups CheapSeek, CheapShot, and CopyMax of harvesting millions of Clod's outputs to train their own models for pennies.` |
| **Vibe Coder** | 4 | *Combo Card (Play in Pairs or Triplets to steal cards).* | `[PROFILE]: Hasn't typed a semicolon since 2024. Codes entirely via voice memos while skateboarding.` |
| **Six-Fingered Picasso** | 4 | *Combo Card (Play in Pairs or Triplets to steal cards).* | `[PROFILE]: Generates breathtaking photorealistic portraits. Just don't count the fingers, teeth, or extra elbows.` |
| **Shitcoin Oracle** | 4 | *Combo Card (Play in Pairs or Triplets to steal cards).* | `[PROFILE]: Autonomous trading agent fine-tuned on crypto-influencer tweets. Consistently buys high and sells low.` |

---


## Normative interpretations

| Question | Решение |
| :--- | :--- |
| Лишние Fix-карты при 4 игроках | Как при 5: остаток замешивается в колоду; при 3 — убирается из игры; при 2 используется профиль `duel` с двумя стартовыми `Reward Hacking` без запасных Fix |
| Стек `Sandbox Escape` | Цель получает 2 хода + все неотыгранные ходы игрока, который сыграл карту (семантика Attack из Exploding Kittens) |
| `Meatbag CAPTCHA` / `Limit Reset` при долге ходов | Завершают ровно один ход из долга |
| `Limit Reset` против `Sandbox Escape` | Реакция цели: уменьшает добавляемый долг на 1 (но не ниже 1 хода) |
| `Sycophancy Patch` против `Sycophancy Patch` | Разрешено, образуется цепочка; нечётное число Patch отменяет исходное действие |
| Что копирует `Model Distillation` | Эффект верхней карты Trash Bin, если это Orange, Yellow или `Limit Reset` (режим «взять нижнюю») |
| Пары из не-Purple карт | Разрешены при совпадении названия; `CheapSeek Dragon` заменяет только Purple-карты |
| Fix при взятии CRASH | Применяется всегда, если есть; при наличии обоих типов игрок выбирает какой |
| Рука выбывшего | Уходит в Trash Bin лицом вверх |