A Turn-Based Drug Crime Simulator

A turn-based crime simulator in the spirit of the classic 1984 Drug Wars. Buy low, sell high, hire muscle, dodge cops, and grow a fortune across five districts in 30 days. Plays in any modern browser, installs as a Progressive Web App on mobile, and runs fully offline once cached.

NB: This game has been built with the help of AI tools, due to my inexperience with some aspects of programming. The game can be played completely offline, or sand-boxed, without losing any functionality, if you are concerned about security.

How to Play

Goal: You have 30 days to make as much money as possible. Travel between cities to buy low and sell high. Your final score is your net worth (cash + inventory + guns + transport − loan owed) at the end.

Core loop: You start in Southside with a small amount of cash. Each travel between cities costs 1 day. In a city you can buy and sell drugs, hire thugs, buy guns, bribe cops, and buy transport — all free, no time cost. When you move, thugs may betray you, loan interest ticks, spikes and crashes can fire, police may set up a crackdown in another city, and — depending on your heat — you may be shake-downed or pulled into a firefight.

Travel

Each trip to another city costs 1 day. Buying, selling, hiring, and bribing in your current city are free. When you travel, several things happen: heat changes based on how much you're carrying, thugs might rob you and run, loan interest piles up, the loan shark's deadline ticks down, a police crackdown may start in a random other city, and — gated by your heat — cops may shake you down, attack you, or hit you with a SWAT team.

City Pricing

Each of the five cities has its own per-drug price multiplier. Some cities pay several times more than others for the same drug. Buy where it's cheap, travel, and sell where it's expensive. On top of the city multiplier, each drug's price jitters slightly per day per city, so the same drug won't quote the same number twice in a row.

Spikes & Crashes

When you arrive in a city, there may be a SPIKE (a drug sells for several times its normal price, shown in green) or a CRASH (a drug is well below its normal price, shown in red). Both last only the current day — act fast. Police crackdowns can also cause crashes in other cities. Chance per arrival depends on the chosen difficulty.

Weight & Capacity

Every drug has a weight per unit. Your base carrying capacity is limited, and you cannot buy more than you can carry. The travel panel shows your current weight vs. cap; the header turns amber at 70% and red at 90%.

Transport

Vehicles stack to increase your carrying capacity:

Vehicle	Capacity added	Cost
Backpack	Small	$2,000
Bicycle	Moderate	$8,000
Small Car	Large	$50,000
Mini Van	Very Large	$150,000
Truck	Enormous	$500,000

You can own one of each — buying a second is blocked.

Heat

Your heat (0–100) measures how much the cops are watching you. The more heat you have, the more aggressive police encounters become. Heat rises when you buy drugs (more in cities with a police crackdown) and when you travel with a heavy load. Heat drops when you bribe cops, win fights, sell drugs normally, or just lie low.

• Low heat: mostly safe.
• Mid heat: shake-downs start to occur.
• High heat: armed patrol busts happen.
• Max heat: the bar pulses red and SWAT teams come for you.

There's also a per-turn police presence roll: with a chance, cops set up a crackdown in a random other city, crashing a drug there. If the crackdown lands in your current city, the market shows a high police presence warning, and buying there adds more heat than normal.

Bribe

Paying off a cop drops your heat significantly. The cost grows exponentially with how many times you've already bribed, and is heavily influenced by the value of what you're carrying. A player hauling expensive cargo can't afford repeated bribes — they're forced to lighten the load first.

Police Encounters

Two kinds of encounters fire at the end of a travel turn, gated by your heat:

• 🛑 SHAKE-DOWN — Cops stop and search you. There's a chance they take a portion of your cash, or a chance they confiscate a portion of a random drug you carry. A popup modal tells you what happened. If you're clean, they move on. Heat drops either way.
• 🚨 PATROL BUST — A round-based armed confrontation. Each round you have three choices:
  • ⚔ FIGHT — Trade shots. Both sides independently roll hit chance then damage. Your hit chance improves with more guns and thugs. Cop hit chance scales with your heat. Damage can range from a graze to a critical hit. Fight continues until one side reaches 0 HP.
  • 🏃 FLEE — Escape chance starts low and rises each round. Failure means the cop gets a free shot on you.
  • 🏳 SURRENDER — All drugs confiscated and a large portion of cash is lost. Heat resets to 0. No jail.
• 🚨 SWAT BUST — The same round-based combat, but the cops hit harder and have more HP.

Each thug can take a bullet for you. Cop stats scale with your cargo weight, heat, and difficulty. If your HP hits 0, you're arrested (if cops are nearly worn out) or killed (if they still have plenty of fight left). More guns and thugs mean you wear down the cops faster.

Arrest & Jail

Losing a fight or failing to flee may get you arrested or killed. If arrested: all drugs, guns, and thugs are confiscated. Cash is untouched. Heat resets to 0. You'll serve 2 days in jail — skip a day to wait it out (and burn real days), or pay your bail to walk free immediately at a steep cost. After release, prices and product availability in your current city are recomputed.

Guns & Thugs

• Guns come in tiers that boost your firepower. Pistols are cheap and weak; Sniper Rifles are devastating and expensive. Buy them from the Guns panel.
• Thugs are hired fighters with a random name, firepower, and loyalty. Hire cost grows steeply with each additional thug. On every travel, each thug has a chance (scaled by loyalty and difficulty) to rob you and vanish. Thugs fight at full strength when backed by guns, and at half strength otherwise.

Loan Shark

If you're broke, the shark will lend you cash at brutal interest. One loan at a time. You have 7 days to pay it back in full or the shark finds you and the game ends.

• Loan cap grows over time, so early on you can only borrow a small amount; later the cap stretches considerably.
• Interest accrues every time you travel, with the rate depending on difficulty.
• Repay any time for the full current balance.

Difficulty

Three difficulty levels adjust starting cash, loan terms, interest rates, cop strength, thug betrayal chance, and spike/crash frequency. Easy offers a generous start with weaker cops and lower interest. Normal is balanced. Hard starts you nearly broke, with tougher cops, brutal interest, and more frequent betrayals and crashes.

You also enter a player name before starting. Your name appears on the high-score table at the end of the game. The last 5 names you used are remembered and offered as quick-buttons next time you start a new game.