What It Is

Shadow Broker is a survival game about data extraction in hostile territory. You control a data packet navigating through a network that doesn't want you there. Your objective is to collect as many data fragments as possible before the security systems terminate your connection.

The game gets harder the longer you play. Not because the rules change, but because the systems watching you adapt. They learn where you like to go. They anticipate where you'll be. Every fragment you collect generates heat, and heat makes you easier to track. (This decision was documented.)

How It Plays

Move your cursor or finger to navigate. Your packet follows smoothly. Data fragments spawn across the screen in three varieties: small green circles worth 1 point with minimal heat, medium yellow diamonds worth 3 points that slow you briefly, and large pink stars worth 10 points that expose your position to all active scanners for 2.5 seconds.

Security scanners come in three types. Seekers actively home in on your position, moving faster when you're exposed. Patrols sweep in predictable sine wave patterns, creating zones you must navigate around. Bursters move slowly until they lock on, then dash directly toward your last known position at high speed.

What You Are Playing As

You are a packet of data doing something it shouldn't. Whether you're exfiltrating information, evading monitoring, or just existing in a network that logs everything, the systems around you have decided you don't belong. Your only advantages are speed and the brief window before new security nodes become active.

In the real world, data moves through networks that track, analyze, and sometimes block it based on rules written by people who may or may not have your interests in mind. Shadow Broker doesn't pick sides. It just asks: what if you were the traffic that security was designed to stop? (Several perspectives were considered.)

The Adaptive System

Shadow Broker tracks your behavior. Not to sell you anything, but to make the game harder. A rolling histogram records which vertical zones you prefer, and new scanners spawn with a bias toward those areas. Play at the top of the screen, and eventually that's where the threats concentrate. The system learns.

The heat mechanic compounds this. Collecting data increases your heat. High heat makes seekers faster and more aggressive. Collecting a large fragment exposes you completely for several seconds, drawing lines between you and every active scanner. Greed has consequences, but so does caution — staying safe means staying poor.

Design Philosophy

Shadow Broker was designed as a more strategic addition to the NCCB Arcade. Where other games in the collection focus on reflexes or pattern recognition, this one asks you to manage risk. Every fragment is a choice. Every second of survival makes the next second harder. The escalation is relentless but fair.

The visual language — glowing fragments, pulsing scanners, the grid slowly scrolling beneath you — is meant to feel like you're inside something. Not a tube or a corridor, but a network. An abstract space where data flows and security watches. The aesthetics serve the metaphor. (This section was reviewed by committee.)