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./sysadmin-crisis --night 1

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A night-shift sysadmin simulation that runs entirely in a terminal — and entirely offline.

Play in the browserSee how a shift plays

It opens in the tab you already have. No install, no account, no download.

No account. No network. No tracking.

A dark data centre at 3 AM: two rows of server racks with green, amber and red status LEDs, and a CRT terminal glowing on the desk in the foreground.

What you actually do

  • Read the log signature and name the incident.
  • Type the command a real sysadmin would type.
  • Runs fully offline — the game never calls home.
  • No account, no analytics, no ads.

How a shift plays

Every incident comes down to the same three moves. The night just stops leaving you time to make them.

  1. Read the log

    Lines scroll past with a timestamp and a subsystem tag. One of them is the signature: a request rate that does not belong to your users, a memory figure that only climbs, a query that has been waiting on a lock for thirty seconds.

  2. Diagnose it

    Confirm the theory before you act on it. top shows you the process, netstat shows you the source, df shows you the partition, db_stat shows you the lock. Checking costs a few seconds; guessing costs budget and uptime.

  3. Type the command

    The fix is a command, not a menu item: block_ip on the attacking range, restart on the leaking service, kill_query on the stuck transaction, drain on the server that is cooking itself. Type the wrong one and the night gets worse.

A rack line, three log lines and one command. web-02 is not the problem — it is the symptom. The traffic is the problem, and restarting anything would only hand it a fresh server to knock over.

Learn to read the shift

The wiki never hands you the answer, it explains the mechanics. Six pages to read before the night starts.

  • What SysAdmin Crisis isA terminal simulation about being the person on call at three in the morning.
  • The game loopWatch, diagnose, act, confirm — the thirty-second cycle the whole night is made of.
  • The terminalSyntax, error behaviour, history and completion — how the prompt actually behaves.
  • Incidents at a glanceHow incidents are chosen, when they arrive, and how many can run at once.
  • CampaignTen named nights, a fleet that grows, and reputation carried between them.
  • GlossaryThe terms the game uses without stopping to define them.

Browse the whole wiki

Five promises the build keeps

  • Real commands, real signatures

    The command set is drawn from the ones you would actually reach for at 3 a.m. — top, netstat, df, db_stat, kill, restart, block_ip, drain. Every incident has a log signature you can learn to recognise, and man works on every command in the game.

  • Offline, all the way down

    There is no server behind the game, so there is nothing to be disconnected from. Open the page once and it keeps running in airplane mode, on the metro, or on a locked-down office network.

  • Nothing is collected

    No account, no telemetry, no analytics, no ads, no crash reporting. Not anonymised — absent. Saves, scores and settings live in your own browser storage and never leave the device.

  • Turkish and English, both first class

    Both languages ship from the first release, and neither is an afterthought bolted on later. Command names stay English in both, because that is what they are on a real machine.

  • Free, with nothing attached

    No price, no subscription, no in-app purchase, no watch-an-ad-to-continue. The whole game is the whole game, and there is nothing in it that asks you for money.

  • There was never a server to reach.

Get it on mobile

The iOS and Android builds run the same engine as the web version and are just as offline. They are not in the stores yet.

  • App Storecoming soon
  • Google Playcoming soon

Questions people ask

Do I need an internet connection?
Only to load the page the first time. After that the game runs entirely on your device: no API calls, no sign-in check, nothing phoning home. Install it as an app and even the first load is behind you.
Is it free? Are there ads or purchases?
It is free, and there are none. No ads, no in-app purchases, no subscription, no premium currency, no cosmetics shop. There is nothing in the game that asks for money.
Where does my data go?
Nowhere. Saves, campaign progress, high scores and settings are written to your browser's local storage on the web and to the app's private storage on mobile. Nothing is uploaded, because there is nowhere to upload it to.
Which platforms can I play it on?
Any modern browser, on desktop or phone — that version is the one you can play right now. The iOS and Android builds are in the works, and this page will link them the day they are published.
Can I move my save to another device?
Yes, by hand. The settings screen exports your save as a JSON file, and the same screen imports it back on the other device. There is no cloud sync on purpose: a cloud save needs an account, and an account needs everything this game refuses to ask for.
Do I need to know Linux to play?
No. Night one is a guided tutorial that teaches the loop one command at a time, help lists everything you can type, and man <command> explains any of them without leaving the shift. Knowing the real commands makes you faster — it is not the entry fee.

Night one is three servers and one incident.

A guided shift, about ten minutes long, starting the moment the tab finishes loading. Nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.

Start the shift