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Wageslave

I quit my soul sucking job to make a game about it

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Game development used to be something I dabbled in and off, and despite having chosen to major in Computer Science to follow a career in the field, I never managed to establish any consistency with it.So I relegated this aspiration to the realm of pipe dreams, something whose idea I preferred to the actual process of doing it, and I continued working as a software engineer.This only changed after a disruption to my job: the fintech I worked for got acquired by a big traditional bank and we were absorbed into their ranks.Long story short: it wasn't a culture fit.After six months, I decided to quit; earning a salary was the only thing keeping me there.With all this newfound free time, I decided to give game dev another chance. I would never get back those six months, but I could use them as fuel for creative inspiration.That's how the idea of wageslave came to be: I wanted to embody the absurdity of the 9 to 5 into an interactive format. As well as include winks and nods to developer culture.I don't know if I was successful with this goal, but it's been lots of fun creating it as well as being a cathartic experience for me. I am actually enjoying the process and not just the results. So much so that I'm aiming to complete at least two more projects before I reevaluate whether this is viable.I initially planned on releasing the game for free, but in the spirit of taking game dev seriously, I will be selling it for a small amount.Feel free to try the demo, I'd be happy to hear about any feedback!

HN · launched Mar 31, 2026 · 16 upvotes (top 30%) · 0 views

Niche: indie video games · 203 launches, 20 in the last 7 days ▼ -23% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Media & entertainment
  • Content generation
  • B2C
  • Not AI
  • Commercial product

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Yes Wageslave is a narrative dystopian office survival game / interactive fiction on itch.io. Narrative text-based or 2D choice-driven web games are straightforward to build and vibe code with modern game engines or web frameworks.

Discussion

10 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: HN Arcade

Concerns raised: unclear controls/unclear how to progress, marketing challenge without cute/anime aesthetics

Feature requests: clearer in-game control instructions

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 429 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #134 of 430 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 153 days after the earliest competitor.

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.