Packet Panic
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> Design a LAN. Watch packets route. Survive the traffic.
Packet Panic is a real-time network-design simulation. You lay down routers, access points, and cables, then watch packets route through your topology under growing demand. When a queue fills it drops — so your job is to re-architect before the network collapses.
The sim leans on real networking behaviour: weighted shortest-path routing, topology-change recomputation, congestion-by-drop, failover as a routing event. Tiered components (Wi-Fi 5 / Cat5e / home router in this build) give each piece of gear a distinct degradation profile, not just bigger numbers.
Tension comes from demand, not from dishonest simulation: traffic scales, priorities mix, and the uplink is the only exit.
Every packet is a signal trying to reach the uplink. You don't control the signals themselves — you shape the network they travel through. Congestion, drops, and failover are all signals losing their way; the game is won or lost on whether your topology lets each one get through.
You're designing a local area network under pressure. Pick a component from the left-side inventory, click the map to place it, then connect nodes to route traffic toward the uplink. As demand scales, queues fill — if they overflow, packets drop. Your job is to re-architect before the network collapses: add capacity, lay faster links, or reshape the topology to relieve pressure. Between rounds, a draft deck offers new nodes and cables — pick what your network needs next. Deliver enough packets to hit the level target and you win; drop too many and the run ends.
- Left-click — select inventory item, then click map to place; click a node/link to inspect
- Drag between nodes — lay a link
- Hover — packet path, queue depth, link stats
- Space — pause / resume (time-control panel)
- 1 / 2 — playback speed
- Del — delete selected node or link
- Esc — cancel placement / back to level select
- H — reopen the in-game how-to-play overlay
The middle mouse button can be used to pan the screen. However, this does not work reliably on web.
Long description
Packet Panic is a real-time network-design simulation. You lay down routers, access points, and cables, then watch packets route through your topology under growing demand. When a queue fills it drops — so your job is to re-architect before the network collapses.
The sim leans on real networking behaviour: weighted shortest-path routing, topology-change recomputation, congestion-by-drop, failover as a routing event. Tiered components (Wi-Fi 5 / Cat5e / home router in this build) give each piece of gear a distinct degradation profile, not just bigger numbers.
Tension comes from demand, not from dishonest simulation: traffic scales, priorities mix, and the uplink is the only exit.
Theme interpretation — SIGNAL
Every packet is a signal trying to reach the uplink. You don't control the signals themselves — you shape the network they travel through. Congestion, drops, and failover are all signals losing their way; the game is won or lost on whether your topology lets each one get through.
How to play
You're designing a local area network under pressure. Pick a component from the left-side inventory, click the map to place it, then connect nodes to route traffic toward the uplink. As demand scales, queues fill — if they overflow, packets drop. Your job is to re-architect before the network collapses: add capacity, lay faster links, or reshape the topology to relieve pressure. Between rounds, a draft deck offers new nodes and cables — pick what your network needs next. Deliver enough packets to hit the level target and you win; drop too many and the run ends.
Controls
- Left-click — select inventory item, then click map to place; click a node/link to inspect
- Drag between nodes — lay a link
- Hover — packet path, queue depth, link stats
- Space — pause / resume (time-control panel)
- 1 / 2 — playback speed
- Del — delete selected node or link
- Esc — cancel placement / back to level select
- H — reopen the in-game how-to-play overlay
The middle mouse button can be used to pan the screen. However, this does not work reliably on web.