INTERACTIVE GUIDE 02

Sample round

Step through a real four-player bot round. Follow the steps using the navigation below.

STEP 1 / 9 · SPRINT START

Meet the teams.

A standard game of Release Mayhem features 4 teams (players or bots). Every team starts the sprint with 4 Workers, 0 Story Points, and a starting task.

Morgan's bot starts their turn first, highlighted in lime on the team sidebar.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

12Tasks left

Morgan's turn · Pull tasks, assign Workers, ship work.

ACTIVE TEAM

Morgan · Bot

Workers

Current task

4 SP
Add Observability Remaining: 4 · Finish: 4

Morgan's Chaos Scenarios

Hand: 1/5
It's My First Day Starting Hotfix: automatically defuses your first Production Outage.

1. Team Sidebar

Track all players' scores and their workers. The active player is highlighted in lime.

The sidebar provides a live overview of everyone's sprint progress and team capacity.

STEP 2 / 9 · ASSIGN WORKERS

Assigning team power.

To make progress on a Task, assign available Workers to it. Each Worker contributes their specific power value.

Morgan assigns their DevOps Engineer (2 power). The remaining work for Add Observability drops from 4 to 2.

If you cannot fully finish a task in a single turn, it carries over to the next turn, and the assigned workers must continue working on it until it is shipped.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

12Tasks left

Morgan's turn · Pull tasks, assign Workers, ship work.

ACTIVE TEAM

Morgan · Bot

Workers

Current task

4 SP
Add Observability Remaining: 2 · Finish: 4
DevOps Engineer 2

Morgan's Chaos Scenarios

Hand: 1/5
It's My First Day Starting Hotfix: defuses your first Production Outage.

2. Worker Assignment

Workers assigned to tasks become exhausted/tapped and are committed until the task ships.

Workers carry over to future turns automatically until the task requirement is completely met.

STEP 3 / 9 · DRAW & END TURN

Turn advance.

Morgan finishes their actions, clicks "Draw & End", drawing a card. Since the task is incomplete, it stays in their active queue as carry-over work.

Until this task is completed, those committed workers cannot be unassigned or used for new tasks. The turn now passes to Jordan.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

11Tasks left

Jordan's turn · Pull tasks, assign Workers, ship work.

ACTIVE TEAM

Jordan · Bot

Workers

Current task

4 SP
Fix the CI Pipeline Remaining: 4 · Finish: 4

Jordan's Chaos Scenarios

Hand: 2/5
It's My First Day Starting Hotfix

3. Chaos Scenarios

Chaos Scenarios are drawn at the end of each turn. You can play one per turn to disrupt other players or get boosts.

Chaos cards introduce unpredictable events—such as rollbacks, blocks, and outages.

STEP 4 / 9 · DISRUPT TEAMS

Disruption & sabotage.

Jordan plays Scope Creep targeting Taylor's task, Refactor Database.

This doubles Taylor's task requirement from 4 to 8, slowing Taylor down significantly! Disruption cards do not use up your Workers.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

11Tasks left

Taylor's turn · Pull tasks, assign Workers, ship work.

ACTIVE TEAM

Taylor · Bot

Workers

Current task

4 SP
Refactor Database Remaining: 8 · Finish: 8
Scope Creep · finish line doubled

Taylor's Chaos Scenarios

Hand: 1/5
It's My First Day Starting Hotfix

4. Target Disruptions

Playing cards like Scope Creep overlays a status effect onto the target task, modifying its rules (e.g. doubling its work).

Disrupting leading teams forces them to spend extra turn cycles before they can ship points.

STEP 5 / 9 · PRODUCTION OUTAGE

The production outage.

Disaster strikes! At the end of Taylor's turn, they draw the dreaded Production Outage card.

This triggers an immediate incident. Taylor must defuse it right now with a Hotfix (or "It's My First Day" starting card) or be instantly eliminated.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

11Tasks left

5. Production Outage

Outages interrupt play. When drawn, they freeze the screen until a defusal card is resolved.

Failing to defuse a Production Outage forces the team to shut down operations.

STEP 6 / 9 · HOTFIX DEFUSAL

Hotfix applied.

Taylor possesses the starting card It's My First Day (which acts as a Hotfix). The game automatically consumes and discards it.

The outage is successfully defused, Taylor's project remains in service, and the turn passes.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

6. Emergency Defusal

Hotfixes are automatically played from hand to defuse outages, protecting your team from elimination.

Always prioritize holding a Hotfix in hand to guard against random Outage draws.

STEP 7 / 9 · OUT OF SERVICE

Team eliminated.

On the next turn, Casey draws a Production Outage but does not have a Hotfix or starting card in hand.

Casey's project is instantly shut down, marked as Out of service, and eliminated from the sprint.

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

10Tasks left

Casey's turn · Out of service

ACTIVE TEAM

Casey · Bot

OUT OF SERVICE

PROJECT ELIMINATED

This team is out of service due to an undefused Production Outage.

7. Out of Service

Eliminated players lose their workers and cannot score further points. Their status switches to "Out of service".

If all other teams are eliminated, the last remaining team wins the game instantly.

STEP 8 / 9 · SHIPPING TASKS

Shipping and scoring.

Later in the sprint, Jordan assigns their Backend Engineer (2 power) and DevOps Engineer (2 power) to complete Fix the CI Pipeline.

The progress matches the task requirement (4/4). The task is Shipped, and Jordan scores 4 Story Points!

2–4 PLAYERS

Release Mayhem

5Tasks left

Jordan's turn · Pull tasks, assign Workers, ship work.

ACTIVE TEAM

Jordan · Bot

Workers

Current task

4 SP
Fix the CI Pipeline Remaining: 0 · Finish: 4

8. Shipped & Scored

When remaining work is 0, the task turns green and is marked as Shipped. Your score increases immediately.

Only completed tasks award points. In-progress tasks do not contribute to your final score.

STEP 9 / 9 · GAME END

Winning the sprint.

When the final task in the Backlog is completed, the sprint ends. Teams compare their shipped Story Points.

Jordan wins with 12 Story Points shipped! You are now ready to jump in and start shipping yourself!

SPRINT OVER

Release Mayhem

RELEASE MAYHEM

✓

BACKLOG COMPLETE

Jordan wins with 12 shipped story points.

#1 Jordan · Bot 12 SP
#2 Morgan · Bot 10 SP
#3 Taylor · Bot 8 SP
#4 Casey · Bot · Out of service 0 SP

9. Final Scoreboard

Scoreboard displays rankings. Highest score wins, with out-of-service teams sitting at the bottom.

Outlasting opponents or completing the backlog efficiently are your two paths to victory.

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