Shitbox

A car-themed economic life simulation where you hustle your way from poverty to prosperity.

Concept

Start as an 18-year-old with nothing but a broken-down vehicle salvaged from a scrapyard. Buy, fix, flip, race, and negotiate your way to the top. Victory is measured by days elapsed - reach your goal fastest.

The ultimate aspiration: the Ferrari 250 GTO (~$70M).

Core Mechanics

• Negotiation - Read NPC personality traits, use multi-dimensional trade levers
• Car Flipping - Buy low, repair, sell high
• Road Trips - Top Gear-inspired content creation for engagement and income
• Resource Management - Balance money, energy, and time
• Stat Progression - Charisma, Mechanical, Fitness, Knowledge, Driving (see Shitbox_Skills.md)

Locations

• Scrapyard - Labor, scavenge parts, find project cars
• Garage/Workshop - Store and repair vehicles
• Auction Lot - Bi-weekly car auctions
• Bank - Savings, investments, loans
• Showroom - Buy new cars, work as dealer
• School/Library - Training and licenses
• Gym - Fitness training
• Film School - Cinematography for content creation

Tech Stack

• Electron + React + TypeScript
• Zustand for state management
• Data-driven design (JSON configs)
• Pure engine logic separated from UI

Architecture

src/
  engine/     # Pure game logic (no React)
  store/      # Zustand state management
  ui/         # React components
data/         # JSON config files
electron/     # Electron shell

Design Principles

1. Data-driven - All tunable values in JSON
2. Engine/UI separation - Core logic has zero React dependencies
3. Deterministic - Same state + action + RNG seed = identical results
4. Serializable - Entire game state can be JSON stringified
5. Event-sourced - Actions logged for replay/debugging

Image Attributions

Background photos in public/assets/backgrounds/:

#	File	Attribution
1	hero.jpg	Photo by Adrien Brunat on Unsplash
2	scrapyard.jpg	Photo by Raymond Kotewicz on Unsplash
3	school.jpg	Teine Driving School, Wikimedia Commons
4	bank.jpg	Photo by Andy Wang on Unsplash
5	gas_station.jpg	Photo by Elwaid Mohamed on Unsplash
6	auction.jpg	Photo by Quentin Martinez on Unsplash
7	showroom.jpg	Photo by Kenjiro Yagi on Unsplash
8	garage.jpg	Photo by Alex Suprun on Unsplash
9	workshop.jpg	Photo by Barthélemy de Mazenod on Unsplash
10	car_wash.jpg	Photo by Erik McLean on Unsplash
11	apartments.jpg	Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash
12	parking_lot.jpg	Photo by John Matychuk on Unsplash
13	map.jpg	Photo by Miguel Picq on Unsplash
14	gameover.jpg	Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
15	budget_house.jpg	Photo by Artem Polezhaev on Unsplash
16	film_school.jpg	Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash
17	gym.jpg	Photo by Samuel Girven on Unsplash
18	penthouse.jpg	Photo by Peter Thomas on Unsplash

Music Attribution

Background music tracks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0:

• "Late Night Radio"
• "Montauk Point"
• "Carpe Diem"
• "Heartwarming"
• "Bright Wish"
• "Porch Swing Days (Slower)"
• "Groundwork"
• "Midday Dance"
• "Mining by Moonlight"
• "Fretless"
• "Fuzzball Parade"
• "Son of a Rocket"
• "Deadly Roulette"
• "Hep Cats"
• "Whiskey on the Mississippi"

Travel jingle: "Jingle_Win_Synth_05.wav" LittleRobotSoundFactory (freesound.org/s/274182/) — Licensed under CC BY 4.0