K_PANIC

The kernel is under attack. You are the Admin.

K_PANIC is a cyberpunk roguelike tower defense. Place ICE on the network, freeze packets, fry viruses, and chain your towers into combos before the intrusions reach the kernel.

Combos are everything

A frozen enemy hit by a surge: SHORT CIRCUIT. Frozen, then shot by the antivirus: SHATTER. Chain combos less than two seconds apart and your bytes multiply.

Three rings down to the kernel

A run is a session in three rings: user space, drivers, then the kernel itself. Pick your path through sectors, APTs, repos, anomalies and maintenance nodes, then face the rogue AI.

Build your arsenal

• 5 ICE towers, each with 2 specializations at level 3
• 10 fusions: two towers become a hybrid, from the CRYO-ARC to the HONEYPOT
• Modules and patches that change the rules of a session
• A debug tree: every crash leaves core dumps that unlock new towers, fusions and admin powers

Seeded sectors

Every map comes from a seed: note it and replay it, or share it with a friend.

A soundtrack you play along with

The synthwave score speeds up with the game, and every tower shot is tuned to the chord the music is playing.

Accessibility

• Flashes and screen shake can be turned off
• Separate music and effects volumes, several window sizes or fullscreen
• Play with the mouse, or entirely on the keyboard: shortcuts are underlined

---

Made with AI

K_PANIC was designed and playtested by hoEd and written with Claude (Anthropic): the code, sound effects and music were made with AI assistance. No AI runs while you play. Fonts and libraries are open source; their licences come with the game.

System requirements

• Windows 10/11 64-bit, or Linux 64-bit (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, SteamOS or newer)
• OpenGL 2.1 graphics · 1 GB RAM · 20 MB disk

Feedback welcome!

Bugs, balance, what you liked: leave a comment below.

---

En français : le noyau est attaqué, tu es l'Admin. Un tower defense roguelike cyberpunk : place tes ICE, enchaîne les combos, traverse les trois rings jusqu'au noyau et abats l'IA renégate. Musique synthwave qui accélère avec le jeu, tirs accordés sur la musique. Fait avec l'aide de l'IA (Claude) ; aucune IA ne tourne pendant la partie.