Real people
Scout histories, loyalty, skills and potential before trust becomes expensive.
Kickstarter campaignPlayable foundation built
The crime life & business simulator
Build a life.
Take the city.
Scout real people. Plan layered operations. Build businesses and organisations. Every choice enters one persistent, interconnected city.
€100K
Campaign target
10+
Core systems live
1 city
Deeply simulated
The pitch
Crime games show the score.
THUG runs the life.
THUG combines the long-term people-management depth of football management games, the rise-to-power fantasy of classic crime games, the freedom of a life simulator and the interconnected economy of a business simulation.
You do not just play a criminal. You run one—scouting talent, planning contingencies, building clean and dirty businesses, and living the daily life that holds it all together.
Layered plans
Intelligence, approach, crew, equipment and contingencies shape every operation.
One economy
Clean and dirty money, supply, staff and risk move through the same world.
Living city
Markets, rivals and organisations keep acting even when you are away.
Persistent person recordScouting / loyalty / history
A football manager approach to crime
Build the squad before you make the move.
Every NPC is a real, trackable person—not disposable mission filler. Build scout reports, compare histories and potential, manage specialists, and watch trust, betrayal and reputation persist.
- Scout real people in the city
- Track loyalty, skills and potential
- Manage crew, staff and specialists
- Carry every relationship forward
Operations and heists
A plan is more than a start button.
Choose how a target is cased, who is brought in and which contingencies are armed before things go sideways. Equipment and vehicle logistics are the next layer we're building on top. Debriefs feed into crew skills, reputation and whatever opportunity opens next.
- 01Opportunity
- 02Intelligence
- 03Approach
- 04People
- 05EquipmentOn the roadmap
- 06VehiclesOn the roadmap
- 07Contingencies
- 08Execution
- 09Debrief
- Every result changes what comes next
Intelligence changes the plan. The plan changes the outcome.
Live a criminal life
The life around the score matters.
Background, skills, energy, obligations, relationships, reputation and heat all compete for the same limited attention.
Background and skillsEnergy and daily choicesRelationships and obligationsReputation and heat
Build the empire
Run what happens behind the operation.
Legitimate fronts and illicit operations sit side by side, connected by people, inventory, supply and finance.
Businesses and frontsStaff and specialistsClean and dirty ledgersInventory and supply
Crews, Families and corporations
Power has different rules.
Street crew
Loyalty and proximity
The people beside you matter. Trust, work and street standing decide who follows.
Family
Hierarchy and tradition
Offices, duties and protected interests create doors that power alone cannot open.
Corporation
Compliance and deniability
Paperwork, authority and insider access hide a different kind of underworld.
A city that creates stories
The city is not a backdrop.
A shortage hits a rival's front. District prices spike. Your supply chain is suddenly worth more—and worth protecting. Undercut them, corner the shortage or use the chaos as cover?
What is already built
This is not funding a blank concept.
A playable technical foundation already exists. The campaign funds the production push needed to turn that connected core into a polished, content-rich game for a wider audience.
- Living city simulation
- Player progression
- Jobs and operations
- Businesses
- NPC dossiers
- Crews and Families
- Supply chains
- Banking
- Territory
- Dialogue
Campaign target
€100K
Funds the production push.
The goal prioritises production quality around the existing simulation: clearer UI, stronger art, deeper authored content, sound, accessibility and the infrastructure needed to operate a persistent world responsibly.
100%
Production
Art, UI and animation
30%
Engineering and production
22%
Gameplay content and writing
15%
Sound and music
10%
QA, balancing and accessibility
10%
Infrastructure and live operations
8%
Fees, rewards and contingency
5%
€100,000 gross is not €100,000 of production budget. Platform fees, payment processing, taxes and reward fulfilment are reflected in the internal net budget.
Roadmap
Foundation first. Then production at depth.
Built01
Foundation
City simulation, progression, jobs, businesses, NPC dossiers, organisations, supply, banking and territory.
Campaign02
Production push
Visual identity, scouting depth, heist planning, life simulation, content, sound, onboarding and accessibility.
Validation03
Closed testing
Controlled cohort, economy balance, first-session improvements, exploit detection and progression pacing.
Release04
Early release
A stable core loop, supported live economy, deliberate content rollout and community feedback.
Stretch goals
More depth. Not empty scale.
A second city is deliberately not promised. Its art, content and balancing cost would pull focus away from making the first city exceptional.
€125K
Deeper recruitment
More scout reports, candidate development and personnel histories.
€150K
Advanced heists
More target archetypes, contingencies and specialist roles.
€200K
Expanded life
Homes, routines, social obligations, leisure and relationships.
€250K
Corporate underworld
More corporations, investigations, compliance and insider paths.
The team
Independent by design.
THUG is being built by an independent development team focused on people, organisations, planning and systemic consequences. The connected technical foundation—from businesses and supply chains to Families and dialogue—has already been built independently.
Production team structure
Final campaign credits will list real collaborators and roles. Unfilled positions are shown as funding allocations, never presented as existing team members.
Creative direction & game design
Lead engineering
UI and experience design
Writing and game content
Contract environment art
Sound and music production
Community and communications
QA, accessibility and production
Risks and challenges
Ambition needs honest constraints.
The commitment is not to pretend a systems-driven simulation is risk-free. It is to manage risk transparently, protect the playable core and communicate changes.
System complexity
Changes to people, business or economy can affect several downstream systems.
Online infrastructure
Persistent simulation needs monitoring, backups, recovery and controlled scaling.
Balancing
Player behaviour may reveal exploits or pacing issues that internal tests cannot predict.
Scope and schedule
A stable, understandable core takes priority over shipping every idea at once.
Content production
NPCs, jobs and organisations require authored, reviewed and curated material.
Creative rewards
Backer concepts must fit the world, legal requirements, age rating and standards.
The foundation is live
See what the campaign is built on.
Enter the browser version today or inspect the public roadmap behind the production push.
Campaign figures and commitments must receive a final legal, tax and production review before Kickstarter launch. Kickstarter project descriptions cannot be edited after a campaign ends.