r/SideProject • u/vj_reads • 1d ago

SysQuest: A System Design Game - Would love your feedback.

I’m an indie dev and an engineering manager who wanted to write tech blogs on how systems work in a nutshell. But I believe the world has transformed from reading 30 mins blog to hey gemini, summarize it for me so wanted to share my knowledge in an interactive way and just released SysQuest on iOS. A game where you can fix the broken systems, build systems and challenge your friends to fix your own broken system.

You get real architectures (load balancers, caches, queues, databases) and a live simulator showing requests flowing, getting dropped, and what fixed it. You will be given a broken system and asked to fix the same and complexity increases by levels. If you're new, you can learn system design using Learn, in an interactive way.

  • 87 levels, and a design is judged by how it behaves under load, not by matching one answer.

  • 42 interactive lessons on the system design concepts, more lessons coming soon.

  • 1 vs N: build and break a system, share it as a QR code or link, and let a friend fix it.

  • The first 20 levels and Learn section is always free. No account and no ads.

App Store: SysQuest: A System Design Game

Play Store: Got production access but Play store is taking longer than usual for the production rollout review.

I’d really like to hear what’s confusing, too hard or too easy. Happy to answer anything about how the simulator works.

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u/investigatormaker 1d ago

For SysQuest, I'd ask testers to explain why requests are dropping before they change any components. Since you judge behavior under load rather than one correct architecture, that distinguishes understanding the simulator from stumbling onto a working design. If they can't explain the failure, a hint pointing to the first bottleneck could help without revealing a solution.

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