LudumData

Hired or Homeless by dqso

[raw]
made by dqso for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Hired or Homeless is a top-down interview survival game made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 59 on the theme Signal. Words are your signal. Choose them carefully.

Screenshot

Pick up the right phrases, bring them to the interviewer, and land the offer. Choose the wrong words - and you're back on the street.

You're a developer lost in the job market jungle. Recruiters roam the map and fire questions at you - but you can't just type anything. Answers are scattered across the world as word tokens, and you can only carry 9 at a time.

Built with Go and Ebitengine. Art and sounds sourced from various free assets; music generated with AI.

Controls:

  • Move: WASD / Arrow keys.
  • Collect tokens: approach and press E / drop 1–9.
  • Interview: approach a character and answer questions with 1–9.

Accessibility options available in settings:

  • Disable complex technical interviews on Go, JS, C#
  • Start with a house already purchased (no rent payments)
Link https://github.com/dqso/ludum-dare-59
github https://dqso.github.io/ludum-dare-59/
itch.io https://dqso.itch.io/hired-or-homeless
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/hired-or-homeless

Ratings

Overall 655th 3.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 618th 3.06⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 162th 3.82⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 768th 2.7⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 89th 3.92⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 603th 3.32⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

debugman18
Apr 20th · 23:36 UTC
Interesting premise and it was pretty intuitive.
PastMoments
Apr 21st · 00:35 UTC
Interesting concept, it's nice that there's a lot of flexibility to answer the questions.
xotraz
Apr 21st · 01:22 UTC
Very funny game! I did not manage to pass the second stage interview since I do not know Go, Rust or C#. :hole:
🎤 dqso
Apr 21st · 13:30 UTC
@xotraz Thanks for playing!

There's an option in settings to disable technical interviews :wink:
Nathanial
Apr 21st · 13:44 UTC
"Do you enjoy writing documentation?" "For extra pay"
Realest developer interaction ever lol. Fun premise, I did not do so well in my interviews because I was enjoying the funny answers.
Rhookx
Apr 21st · 14:07 UTC
the option for technical feature is a nice touch, cool concept, works fine, didn't find any bugs, overall good game, well done !
2Inkling
Apr 22nd · 01:16 UTC
This game needs a trigger warning 😭. Very cool concept, though. I think it would have been easier to select the choices with mouse rather than number keys, and some more immediate feedback would have been nice for figuring out how the game evaluates answers. Then again, the real life interview process is opaque and unintuitive, so it's kind of realistic lol.
Nordin
Apr 22nd · 17:33 UTC
Very cool concept, I think the game was quite intuitiv
JoeGreen
Apr 24th · 10:45 UTC
Fun concept! The system with different response options is really well developed. My favorite is 'For extra pay' 😅
LDJam user 424632
Apr 25th · 09:15 UTC
I'll write a comment for an extra pay :)

Great concept, well done!


![Screenshot 2026-04-25 121651.png](///raw/8ba/76/z/72aa6.png)
shadow64
Apr 26th · 07:12 UTC
Job Search PTSD 2026: The Game! Woof. Hilarious and brutal at the same time. Great idea. Well executed and fun to run around an experience the panic in a new way. Congrats on finishing!
OddballDave
Apr 29th · 12:49 UTC
Ha! This one gave me a good laugh. I liked giving inappropriate answers more than giving correct ones which probably didn't help my cause, but I think I did okay. Simple idea, but lots of fun running around trying to find the right answers. Good stuff :8ball:
noneegy
Apr 30th · 11:55 UTC
It is a fun little game. The idea is cool. Good job!
okkolobr
May 03rd · 14:23 UTC
"While" "complex128", "yeah" "a few hours". "select" "i'll think about it"
Alexandr Gerya
May 05th · 14:21 UTC
just kept picking the funny wrong answers and somehow got hired anyway guess the dev knows how interviews really work
freamdev
May 07th · 15:45 UTC
As someone who works in IT I don't understand why "5 years" was not an acceptable answer for "how fast I can fix a critical bug". Pretty funny game, had some good laughs.