Server Survival

Server Survival is an interactive 3D simulation game where you play as a Cloud Architect. Your mission is to build and scale a resilient cloud infrastructure to handle increasing traffic loads while fighting off DDoS attacks, managing your budget, and keeping your services healthy.

Learn cloud by playing:

How to Play

Objective

Survive as long as possible! Manage your Budget ($), Reputation (%), and Service Health.

• Earn Money by successfully processing legitimate traffic requests.
• Lose Reputation if requests fail or if malicious traffic slips through.
• Maintain Health - Services degrade under load and need repairs.
• Game Over if Reputation hits 0% or you go bankrupt ($-1000).

Traffic Types

Traffic	Color	Destination	Reward	Description
STATIC	Green	CDN / Storage	$0.50	Static file requests (images, CSS, JS)
READ	Blue	Replica / NoSQL / SQL DB	$0.80	Database read operations
WRITE	Orange	NoSQL / SQL DB	$1.20	Database write operations
UPLOAD	Yellow	Storage	$1.50	File uploads
SEARCH	Cyan	Search Engine / SQL DB	$1.20	Search queries (Search Engine preferred, SQL DB fallback)
MALICIOUS	Red	Blocked by Firewall	$0	DDoS attacks — block with Firewall!

Infrastructure & Services

Build your architecture using the toolbar. Each service has a cost, capacity, and upkeep:

Service	Cost	Capacity	Upkeep	Function
Firewall	$40	30	Low	Security. First line of defense. Blocks malicious traffic.
API Gateway	$70	40	Medium	Rate Limiting. Throttles excess traffic (soft-fail). Upgradeable T1→T3.
Queue	$45	Queue:200	Low	Buffer. Buffers requests during spikes. Prevents drops.
Load Balancer	$50	20	Medium	Distribution. Distributes traffic to multiple instances.
Compute	$60	4	High	Processing. Processes requests. Upgradeable T1→T3.
Serverless Function	$45	30 (auto)	Very Low + $0.03/req	Pay-per-use Compute. Auto-scales with traffic. Low upkeep, but charges $0.03 per request. Cheap when idle, expensive at high RPS.
CDN	$60	50	Low	Delivery. Caches STATIC content at edge (95% hit rate).
SQL DB	$150	8	Very High	Database. Handles READ/WRITE/SEARCH. Upgradeable T1→T3.
NoSQL DB	$80	15	High	Fast Database. Handles READ/WRITE only (no SEARCH). Upgradeable T1→T3.
Cache	$60	30	Medium	Caching. Caches responses to reduce DB load. Upgradeable T1→T3.
Search Engine	$120	12	High	Search. Specialized for SEARCH queries. 3x faster than SQL DB. Upgradeable T1→T3.
Read Replica	$100	12	Medium	Read Offload. Offloads READ from master DB. Requires DB connection. Upgradeable T1→T3.
Storage	$25	25	Low	File System. Destination for STATIC/UPLOAD traffic.

Scoring & Economy

Action	Money	Score	Reputation
Static Request	+$0.50	+3	+0.1
DB Read	+$0.80	+5	+0.1
DB Write	+$1.20	+8	+0.1
File Upload	+$1.50	+10	+0.1
Search Query	+$1.20	+5	+0.1
Attack Blocked	+$0.50	+10	-
Request Failed	-	-half	-1
Req. Throttled	-	-	-0.2
Attack Leaked	-	-	-5

Upkeep & Cost Scaling

• Base Upkeep: Each service has per-minute upkeep costs
• Upkeep Scaling: Costs increase 1x to 2x over 10 minutes
• Repair Costs: 15% of service cost to manually repair
• Auto-Repair: +10% upkeep overhead when enabled

Game Modes

Survival Mode

The core experience - survive as long as possible against escalating traffic with constant intervention required:

Dynamic Challenges:

• RPS Acceleration - Traffic multiplies at time milestones (×1.3 at 1min → ×4.0 at 10min)
• Random Events - Cost spikes, capacity drops, traffic bursts every 15-45 seconds
• Traffic Shifts - Traffic patterns change every 40 seconds
• DDoS Spikes - 50% malicious traffic waves every 45 seconds
• Service Degradation - Services lose health under load, require repairs

New UI Features:

• Health bars on all services
• Active event indicator bar at top
• Detailed finances panel (income/expenses breakdown)
• Service health panel with repair costs
• Auto-repair toggle
• Game over analysis with tips

Sandbox Mode

A fully customizable testing environment for experimenting with any architecture:

Control	Description
Budget	Set any starting budget (slider 0-10K, or type any amount)
RPS	Control traffic rate (0 = stopped, or type 100+ for stress tests)
Traffic Mix	Adjust all 6 traffic type percentages independently
Burst	Spawn instant bursts of specific traffic types
Upkeep Toggle	Enable/disable service costs
Clear All	Reset all services and restore budget

No game over in Sandbox - experiment freely!

Recent Features (v2.3)

• Serverless Function - Pay-per-use compute variant ($45 to place, $2/min upkeep, $0.03 per completed request). Auto-scales to capacity 30 with a 900ms cold-start processing time. Same routing topology as Compute (ALB/Queue/API Gateway upstream; Cache/DB/NoSQL/S3/Search/Replica downstream).
• Cost-aware Smart Hint - Warns when a Serverless node's per-request cost is adding up at high RPS, nudging players toward a Compute node for sustained throughput.

Recent Features (v2.2)

• Search Engine - Specialized SEARCH handler, 3x faster than SQL DB (100ms vs 300ms). Upgradeable (Tiers 1-3: 12/25/40 capacity)
• Read Replica - Offloads READ traffic from master DB. Requires connection to SQL DB or NoSQL. Upgradeable (Tiers 1-3)
• Smart Hints - Contextual suggestions when your architecture is suboptimal (e.g. "DB overloaded with SEARCH — add a Search Engine!")
• Economy Rebalance - Starting budget $500, SEARCH reward increased to $1.20
• New Traffic Shifts - "Read Heavy" (45% READ) and "Full-Text Flood" (55% SEARCH) patterns

Previous Features (v2.1)

• API Gateway - Rate limits traffic with soft-fail throttling (-0.2 rep instead of -1.0). Upgradeable (Tiers 1-3: 20/40/80 RPS)
• NoSQL Database - Fast alternative to SQL for READ/WRITE traffic (150ms vs 300ms). Cannot handle SEARCH. Upgradeable (Tiers 1-3)
• Constant Intervention Mechanics - Game requires active management throughout
• Service Health System - Visual health bars, manual/auto repair options
• RPS Milestones - Traffic surge warnings with multiplier display
• Active Event Bar - Shows current random event with countdown timer
• Detailed Finances - Income by request type, expenses by service with counts
• Game Over Analysis - Failure reason, description, and contextual tips
• Retry Same Setup - Restart with same architecture after game over
• Interactive Tutorial - Guided walkthrough for new players

Controls

• Left Click: Select tools, place services, and connect nodes.
• Right Click + Drag: Pan the camera.
• Scroll: Zoom in and out.
• WASD / Arrows: Move camera (pan) when zoomed in.
• ESC: Open main menu and pause game. Press again or click Resume to close menu (stays paused).
• Camera Reset: Press R to reset the camera position.
• Birds-Eye View: Press T to switch between isometric and top-down view.
• Hide HUD: Press H to toggle UI panels.
• Connect Tool: Click two nodes to create a connection (flow direction matters!).
• Valid Flows: Internet -> (Firewall/CDN/API Gateway) -> Load Balancer -> Queue -> Compute -> Cache -> (Search Engine/Read Replica/SQL DB/NoSQL DB/Storage)
• Delete Tool: Remove services to recover 50% of the cost.
• Time Controls: Pause, Play (1x), and Fast Forward (3x).

Strategy Tips

1. Block Attacks First: Always place a Firewall immediately connected to the Internet. Malicious leaks destroy reputation fast (-5 per leak).
2. Use CDN for Static Content: Connect Internet -> CDN -> Storage. The CDN handles 95% of static traffic cheaply!
3. Watch Service Health: Damaged services have reduced capacity. Click to repair or enable Auto-Repair.
4. Scale for Traffic Surges: RPS multiplies at milestones - prepare before ×2.0 at 3 minutes!
5. Balance Income vs Upkeep: Start lean, scale as income grows. Over-provisioning leads to bankruptcy.
6. Use Cache Wisely: Reduces database load significantly for READ requests.
7. Buffer with Queue: Queue helps survive traffic burst events without dropping requests.
8. React to Events: Watch the event bar - cost spikes mean hold off on purchases, traffic bursts mean ensure capacity.
9. API Gateway for Graceful Degradation: Throttled requests only lose -0.2 reputation (vs -1.0 for failures). Great for surviving traffic spikes!
10. Split DB Traffic with NoSQL: Route READ/WRITE to NoSQL (faster, cheaper) and keep SQL DB for SEARCH queries only.
11. Search Engine for SEARCH Storms: SEARCH is the heaviest traffic type (2.5x weight). A dedicated Search Engine processes it 3x faster than SQL DB.
12. Read Replica for READ offloading: Under "API Heavy" or "Read Heavy" shifts, a Read Replica prevents your main DB from drowning in READ requests.
13. Serverless Function = pay-per-use: Great for spiky traffic, but monitor finances — per-request cost ($0.03) adds up fast at high RPS.

Tech Stack

• Core: Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+)
• Rendering: Three.js for 3D visualization.
• Styling: Tailwind CSS for the glassmorphism UI.
• Build: No build step required! Just standard HTML/CSS/JS.

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository.
2. Open index.html in your modern web browser.
3. Start building your cloud empire!

Community

Join our Discord server to discuss strategies and share your high scores: Join Discord

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Built with code and chaos.