What It Is

The Great Cookie Heist is a roguelite runner where you play as a tracking script embedded in a user's browser. Your objective is to collect data flakes while avoiding AdBlockers, privacy shields, and other obstacles that would prevent you from doing your job.

You run, you jump, you double-jump (if you've unlocked it), and you collect. The longer you survive, the faster the browser scrolls. The more data you extract, the more upgrades you can purchase. It's a simple premise executed with a level of polish that probably wasn't necessary. (This decision was discussed.)

How It Plays

Space or tap to jump. Arrow keys or WASD to move and duck. The game scrolls horizontally at an increasing pace. Data flakes appear at various heights and must be collected by running into them. Obstacles appear at irregular intervals: spikes on the ground, shields that push you back, drones that track your position.

Between runs, you spend collected data on permanent upgrades: double jump, magnetic attraction to flakes, a protective shield, and bloatware (which increases your hitbox and makes you harder to ignore). Each upgrade compounds your extraction efficiency.

What You Are Playing As

You are a tracking script. Not the cookie itself — the script that reads the cookie, writes new ones, and sends information back to servers that will use it for purposes that may or may not be disclosed in a privacy policy no one read.

In the real world, these scripts run invisibly. In Cookie Heist, you experience their perspective: dodging the tools users install to stop you, competing for attention with other trackers, and accumulating value until you're eventually blocked or the session ends. (Several options were considered. This was the funniest.)

Why It Exists

Most games put you in the role of the hero or the victim. Cookie Heist asks: what if you were the thing people install browser extensions to avoid? The game doesn't moralize about data collection. It just lets you experience both sides of the AdBlocker arms race.

The roguelite structure mirrors the persistence of real tracking infrastructure. You get blocked, you come back. You spend resources on evasion and efficiency. You embed deeper into the browser with each run. It's a game about being annoying, played with full commitment.

Design Notes

Cookie Heist was designed as the flagship game for the NCCB Arcade. It establishes the visual language (neon on dark, pixel-precise hitboxes, forgiving controls), the meta-loop (persistent upgrades across runs), and the tone (dry satire without commentary). Other games in the arcade follow its lead. (This section was reviewed.)