Climb the ladder.
Sabotage your friends.
Keep your sanity.
A 20-minute card game for 3–6 people who've cried in a meeting. It's not therapy. It's pettier.
Closer to Coup or Munchkin than to Cards Against Humanity. There's a goal, a hand, and a coworker to throw under the bus.
“Steal Credit”
One of 166 cards. “Just to build on what they said —” and now it’s yours.
Sound familiar?
You know these people.
You've survived these Mondays.
166 cards based on the people, moments, and indignities of modern office life. Beautifully painted. Specifically cruel.
The one who answers every Slack in 4 hours and somehow gets promoted.
Owns 11 projects, finishes zero, and CC's the CEO when their plant dies.
The meeting that could've been an email but is now your Thursday.
"Just to build on what they said —" and now it's their idea.
How it plays
Learn in 3 minutes.
Ruin friendships for 20.
It's Monday. Something is on fire. You did not start the fire — but you do have a coworker, and a hand of cards. The rest writes itself.
Something terrible happens.
You draw a card. The WiFi is down. There's a surprise all-hands. Karen brought her dog again. Deal with it.
Pin it on someone else.
Play a card. Forward the email. Volunteer them for the working group. “Just looping you in” is a weapon now.
Get promoted anyway.
They get the blame. You get a rung up the corporate ladder. First one to CEO wins. Eye contact at the standup is optional.
Eight categories, one bad week
Color-coded misery,
sorted for your convenience.
Every card belongs to one of these eight. You'll learn the colors before you finish your first coffee.
- Characters
- Crises
- Survival
- Sabotage
- Advancement
- Emergencies
- Special events
- Coffee breaks
From the test table
20 playtesters.
3 of them are still
speaking to us.
Roughly 60 games. Friends, coworkers, one slightly hostile book club. Below: things they actually said while we wrote them down. Real names and proper video reviews land on the Kickstarter page.
I forwarded an email card to my boss for the bit. He cackled. I think I just got promoted in real life.
This is what happens when Coup and The Office have a baby and the baby is petty.
We finished the rules in two minutes and were yelling at each other in five. Worth it.
— Quotes paraphrased from playtest notes. Video reviews and real names coming on Kickstarter day.
Roughly in the box
Built. Played.
Screamed at repeatedly.
Cards are printed. Rules are locked. Manufacturer is quoted. Final unit count, edition, and stretch goals land on Kickstarter day — but here's what we already have on the table.
- 166 illustrated cards across 8 categories. Painted by humans, not a model.
- The corporate ladder. Eight rungs, intern to CEO. One winner. Many grudges.
- Rules, illustrated. Readable in the time it takes to brew a coffee.
Who made this
One person. One iPad.
Fifteen years of grudges.
Hi — I'm Milan, from Bonn, Germany. Fifteen years in tech (Head of Engineering, CTO, the usual collection of titles) writing down absurd meeting moments my wife refused to believe. Eventually I had too many for a notebook. So I started drawing them.
Now my wife and I play the result on weekends and laugh harder than we probably should. Every card is designed and illustrated by me — iPad and Photoshop, with a Higgsfield assist and a lot of manual cleanup so all 166 demons share a face, a vibe, and one tiny visual joke per card. Good luck spotting them all.
First in line
Get the launch link
24 hours early.
Two emails total. One when the Kickstarter goes live. One when it ships. We won't sit in your inbox. We have other people to annoy.
No spam. No upsells. Unsubscribe in one click. We will probably never even email you a third time.
Reasonable questions
Yes. It's safe to play with your boss.
Probably.
How is this different from Cards Against Humanity or Exploding Kittens?
CAH and EK are reaction games — you read a card, you laugh. Deadline Demons is a strategy game with jokes: you're trying to win, and the cards just happen to be funny. The laughs come from who you stab on the way up the ladder.
How long does a game actually take?
20–30 minutes once you know the deck. Faster at 3 players. Longer when everyone keeps forwarding the email to each other, which they will.
Is this safe to play with my boss?
Yes. It satirises corporate dysfunction — meetings, KPIs, performance reviews — without swearing or politics. We've already played it with two HR teams. They laughed. We have witnesses.
When does the Kickstarter launch and what does the waitlist get me?
Fall 2026. Waitlist subscribers get the link 24 hours before it goes public — which is when the cheapest tier (capped at the first 250 backers) tends to vanish. One email at launch, one when we ship. No filler in between.
Be first in line when the doors open.
Kickstarter launches Fall 2026. Waitlist subscribers get the link 24 hours before everyone else — in time to grab one of the first 250 early-bird slots before they go public.
Join the waitlist →