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+{"id": "product_designer_01_quick_polish", "phase": "Early", "title": "The \"Quick Polish\" Request", "body": "Your PM pings you a Figma link: \"quick feedback?\" It's 47 screens of AI-generated UI with 11 typefaces. One is Papyrus. Another is also Papyrus, but bold. His only comment says \"vibe check: yes?\" He made this during a flight delay.", "choices": [{"title": "Fix what you can, log the hours", "body": "You spend nine hours fixing someone else's Midjourney fever dream. Sprint velocity says you did nothing.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Send a real estimate and watch him pivot", "body": "You estimate three sprints. He says \"wow ok\" and asks engineering to just ship it as-is.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Screenshot it to the design Slack, no caption", "body": "The screenshot circulates for three days. Someone makes it their profile pic. The PM finds out. Worth it.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 2, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_02_dribbble_likes_not_promo", "phase": "Early", "title": "Dribbble Likes Are Not Promotions", "body": "Your side project rebrand gets 847 likes and one comment: \"inspo.\" Your manager does not accept Dribbble likes as evidence of impact. A Canva template made in forty minutes got 2,100 likes yesterday. It used the gradient pack. You know which one.", "choices": [{"title": "Chase the algorithm, post shallow work", "body": "You start making glossy throwaway shots. The likes come faster. The work means less.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Log off and do real work", "body": "You close Dribbble and open your actual sprint board. The silence is deafening and then it isn't.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "DM the Canva person, swallow pride", "body": "They're actually nice. They teach you engagement hooks. You teach them type hierarchy. Unlikely alliance.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 0, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_03_portfolio_paralysis", "phase": "Early", "title": "Portfolio Update Paralysis", "body": "Your portfolio hasn't been updated since you joined the company. Everything is under NDA. Every Sunday you open Framer, move one text block two pixels left, and close it. You have 22 projects in a folder called \"to add eventually.\" The folder is from 2024.", "choices": [{"title": "Block the weekend, ship imperfect", "body": "You publish the damn thing at 11pm Sunday. It's not perfect. Nothing is. A recruiter reaches out Monday.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask a design friend to help organize", "body": "You pay someone in coffee and favors to do the thing you couldn't make yourself do. It works.", "delta": {"money": -100, "sanity": 4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 100}, {"title": "Send the 2023 link, accept the anxiety", "body": "It's fine. The work is good. The dates are lies everyone tells.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_04_midjourney_stole_aesthetic", "phase": "Early", "title": "Midjourney Stole Your Aesthetic", "body": "The marketing team just posted the new campaign on LinkedIn. It looks exactly like the brand system you spent six months on, which they never used. The art direction is clearly Midjourney. The CMO says they \"co-created with AI.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Write a subtle callout in Slack", "body": "You hint without naming names in the design channel. The discourse is exhausting but validating.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -7}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Document everything, escalate to your VP", "body": "Your VP reads your doc. It costs political capital and feels like punching fog.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Channel rage into new work", "body": "You redesign the component library in three days. Fury is an underrated creative fuel.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 9, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_05_make_logo_bigger", "phase": "Early", "title": "Make the Logo Bigger", "body": "The VP of Marketing replies to your final brand presentation: \"Can we make the logo bigger?\" It is already at the maximum size supported by the nav bar. The logo cannot become bigger without ceasing to be a logo and becoming the entire header.", "choices": [{"title": "Make it bigger, log the revision", "body": "You make it bigger. You log the revision in Jira. The logo is now a philosophical statement about corporate identity.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": -7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Schedule a call, explain visual hierarchy", "body": "You explain hierarchy for the fourth time. They nod. They understand. They still want it bigger.", "delta": {"money": -100, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -2}, "min_money": 100}, {"title": "Add a sarcastic APPROVED stamp, never send", "body": "You screenshot it and close the file. The satisfaction is private and absolute.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_06_linkedin_design_futurist", "phase": "Early", "title": "The LinkedIn Design Futurist", "body": "A designer with 34k followers posts \"I replaced my entire workflow with AI in 30 days.\" 4,200 reposts. Your PM sends it to you with a thumbs-up emoji. His bio says \"Design Futurist.\" He went to the same bootcamp. You went to art school for four years.", "choices": [{"title": "Write your own carousel, begrudgingly", "body": "You make a carousel about AI in product design. It gets traction. You feel dirty and seen simultaneously.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Quietly mute, focus on shipping features", "body": "You mute him and ship two features that week. Shipped product beats thought leadership.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Start a newsletter instead", "body": "Design Twitter is dead anyway. You write something real. Seven people subscribe. One of them emails back.", "delta": {"money": -50, "sanity": 2, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 3}, "min_money": 50, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_newsletter"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_07_spec_work_hackathon", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Company Hackathon Trap", "body": "Leadership announces a 48-hour hackathon. Winner gets \"visibility with the exec team\" and a $50 gift card. The last hackathon winner got promoted. The last three losers got laid off two months later.", "choices": [{"title": "Skip it and protect your sprint work", "body": "You decline and ship your tickets on time. Nobody mentions the hackathon to you again.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Join a team and build something real", "body": "You team up with two engineers. The prototype is beautiful. The gift card is $50. The visibility is real.", "delta": {"money": 50, "sanity": -4, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Go all in, design the winning pitch", "body": "You deliver a pitch deck so clean the CEO asks if it's real. It's not, but the promotion conversation starts.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_08_pm_discovered_midjourney", "phase": "Early", "title": "The PM Who Discovered Midjourney", "body": "Your PM sends a cheerful Slack message. He's started using Midjourney for mockups and \"honestly it's been great!\" He wants to scale back design involvement to \"just the big stuff.\" He's made a feature mockup with drop shadows on every element.", "choices": [{"title": "Reposition as strategic design lead", "body": "You rebrand yourself internally as a design strategist overnight. The scope goes up. The imposter syndrome arrives on schedule.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": -6, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept reduced scope, fill time with systems work", "body": "You take the hit and spend the freed hours on the design system. The long game plays out slowly.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Escalate to your design lead", "body": "Oh wait. You ARE the design lead now. The team used to be six people.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_09_one_person_ai_agency", "phase": "Early", "title": "Lost the Headcount to AI", "body": "Your request for a junior designer got denied. The VP shows you a demo of an AI design tool that \"replaces the need for additional headcount.\" The tool generates 40 screens in three minutes. They're all wrong in ways nobody in the room can see.", "choices": [{"title": "Learn the AI pipeline, prove you're adaptable", "body": "You spend a weekend learning the tools. You can now do in hours what took days. It feels like winning and losing simultaneously.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "embraced_ai"}]}, {"title": "Double down on what AI can't do", "body": "User research, stakeholder alignment, systems thinking. The list is shorter than you'd like.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 3, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Start consulting other teams on AI design workflows", "body": "You become the internal expert who teaches other teams to use AI. The irony is thick. The visibility is real.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -2, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 3}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_10_recruiter_reaches_out", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Recruiter That Actually Has a Role", "body": "You get 20 LinkedIn messages a week. One person replies with a real role. They want a senior product designer. They say \"hop on a quick call\" and it isn't code for anything terrible. Hope arrives like caffeine.", "choices": [{"title": "Respond fast with a crisp deck", "body": "You send a beautiful portfolio deck in 90 minutes. They schedule an onsite. You stare at the calendar invite like it's a love letter.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": -5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask your network about the company first", "body": "A friend knows the VP of Design. \"Great culture but they just cut the team by half.\" Intel is worth more than speed.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -2, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Overthink it and let the thread die", "body": "You draft four replies, send none, and the window closes. Perfectionism is an expensive hobby.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_11_unpaid_design_review", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Unpaid Design Review", "body": "A PM from another team asks for a 45-minute \"brainstorm\" on their feature. Unpaid by your sprint. They say: \"It'll be fun.\" They also say: \"We move fast.\" You hear: \"We don't pay for design thinking.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Take the meeting, be generous, hope", "body": "You give away $500 worth of strategic thinking. They say \"amazing, let's circle back.\" The circle never completes.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": -7, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Require it go through your manager first", "body": "You say your bandwidth is allocated and CC your lead. The work starts on real footing.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 6, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline politely, protect your sprint", "body": "You send a template reply and close the tab. Boundaries are a muscle and you just did a rep.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_12_missing_design_process", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Missing Design Process", "body": "You realize the team has no design review process. Engineers ship directly from Figma, interpreting your mocks with creative liberty. A button radius changed from 8px to 16px somewhere between design and production. Nobody noticed except you.", "choices": [{"title": "Write a process doc, require design sign-off", "body": "You send a professional process proposal. Engineering signs without complaint. You wonder why you were afraid.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 3}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Pair with engineering, build trust first", "body": "You frame it as \"collaboration improvement.\" They appreciate the approach.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Say nothing, hope they check the specs", "body": "They don't check the specs. You knew they wouldn't.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": -2}, "min_money": 300}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_13_offshore_team_undercut", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Offshore Design Team", "body": "Leadership hired an offshore design agency for \"overflow work\" at a quarter of your cost. The agency portfolio is AI-generated. The reviews are five stars. The delivery time is \"24 hours.\" You cannot compete with someone who doesn't sleep because they're in a different timezone.", "choices": [{"title": "Show the quality gap with real examples", "body": "You put together a three-minute Loom comparing AI output to your strategic work. Your VP watches 45 seconds and says \"noted.\"", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Offer to QA the offshore work", "body": "You become the quality gate. Two hours a day fixing someone else's output. Your title doesn't change.", "delta": {"money": 400, "sanity": -7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -3, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Focus on work they can't offshore", "body": "Research, strategy, stakeholder alignment. The stuff that requires being in the room.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_14_scope_creep_monster", "phase": "Early", "title": "Scope Creep: The Monster Returns", "body": "The project was a settings page redesign. Then settings and onboarding. Then \"while you're at it, can you do the dashboard?\" The sprint hasn't changed. The scope has tripled.", "choices": [{"title": "Push back in standup, reset expectations", "body": "You bring up scope in the retro. The PM is surprised there are boundaries.", "delta": {"money": 200, "sanity": 7, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Do it all, silently resent everything", "body": "You deliver the settings, the onboarding, the dashboard, and a piece of your soul.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Propose a phased approach in the roadmap", "body": "You break the work into three milestones with three timelines. Organization is design too.", "delta": {"money": 200, "sanity": 2, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_15_imposter_conference", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Design Conference Spiral", "body": "The company sends you to a design conference. Everyone's bio says \"Head of\" or \"VP.\" Yours says \"Senior Product Designer.\" You spend the first keynote wondering if you belong here. The team used to send three designers. Now it's just you.", "choices": [{"title": "Talk to strangers, network aggressively", "body": "You introduce yourself to 15 people. Three exchange numbers. One becomes a lifeline six months later.", "delta": {"money": -1500, "sanity": -5, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 1500, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "made_industry_contact"}]}, {"title": "Attend workshops, learn something real", "body": "You skip networking and attend three hands-on sessions. You learn more in four hours than in four months of Figma Community.", "delta": {"money": -1500, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 1500}, {"title": "Leave at lunch, save what's left of you", "body": "You grab a free tote bag that says CREATE FEARLESSLY in Futura Bold. You create anxiously at your standing desk.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_16_design_awards_dead", "phase": "Early", "title": "Design Awards Are Dead", "body": "You pitch submitting the redesign to three design awards. Your manager asks for the ROI. You say \"brand credibility.\" They say \"can you put that in a spreadsheet?\" You can't. Your ego has a subscription model but the company won't expense it.", "choices": [{"title": "Submit on your own dime, play the prestige game", "body": "You win one. Bronze. The trophy costs more than the award is worth to anyone. Your manager doesn't mention it.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": -6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Skip awards, write a case study instead", "body": "You take the energy and write a detailed case study for your portfolio. More eyeballs than any jury.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Let it go, awards don't survive reorgs", "body": "You close the tab. Nobody at your company has ever mentioned a design award in a performance review.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_17_project_canceled_mid", "phase": "Early", "title": "Project Canceled Mid-Sprint", "body": "You're three weeks into a feature redesign. You present the midpoint to stakeholders. The project gets deprioritized. Not because the work is bad. Because the roadmap shifted. Your Figma file joins the graveyard of canceled initiatives.", "choices": [{"title": "Document the work for future reference", "body": "You write up the rationale and archive the designs. Six months later, a new PM finds it and ships it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Post the work on Dribbble as a concept", "body": "You publish the work as a concept study. It's some of your best stuff. The PM never notices.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Move on immediately, don't look back", "body": "You close the file, label it canceled_q3_v2, and open the next ticket.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_18_portfolio_shame", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Portfolio You're Ashamed Of", "body": "A recruiter asks for your portfolio link. You send it and immediately think of six things wrong with it. The case studies are old. Half the products have pivoted. The about page photo is from 2022 when your team still existed.", "choices": [{"title": "Follow up with a personal note to contextualize", "body": "You email: \"Some of this is dated but here's what I'm working on now.\" They appreciate the honesty.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -2, "audience": 7, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Speed-update the worst parts overnight", "body": "You fix the mobile bug, swap two case studies, and update the photo at midnight.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Send it and stop thinking about it", "body": "You hit send and close the tab. The work is the work.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_19_blockchain_feature", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Blockchain Feature Request", "body": "The CEO comes back from a conference and says: \"Have you thought about adding web3 integration to the product?\" It's 2026. You search their face for irony. There is none. They watched a YouTube video on the plane.", "choices": [{"title": "Explain gently why this isn't a product strategy", "body": "You redirect to actual growth tactics. They nod. They mention blockchain one more time. Then never again.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Design the exploration, bill the sprint", "body": "You spend a sprint exploring web3 UX. The mocks are beautiful. They never mention it again.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Refuse and risk looking resistant", "body": "You say no. They look at you like you don't understand the future. Your PM backs you up eventually.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_20_critique_group", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Critique Group", "body": "A designer from another company invites you to a private critique group. Six designers, all in-house, all the last designer on their team. Monthly sessions. Honest feedback. The kind that makes you sweat and then makes you better.", "choices": [{"title": "Join and commit fully", "body": "The first session wrecks you. The second rebuilds you. By month three your work has jumped a level.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 9, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "has_mentor"}]}, {"title": "Attend once, then ghost because it's scary", "body": "You go once. The feedback is sharp. You say you'll come back. You don't.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -6, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Join and eventually lead sessions", "body": "You commit and within six months you're running critiques. The group becomes your design team.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 7, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "became_mentor"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_111_color_theory_ai", "phase": "Early", "title": "The AI Knows Color Theory", "body": "An AI color palette generator suggests the exact combination you spent two days developing for the rebrand. Not similar. Exact. The same hex codes. The tool is free. Your salary is not. Your PM asks why the palette took two days.", "choices": [{"title": "Go deeper into color science than AI can", "body": "You study Munsell systems and chromatic adaptation. The depth becomes your moat.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use the generator, spend saved time on strategy", "body": "You adopt the tool and redirect time to user research. The palette arrives in 30 seconds. The meaning still takes days.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -1, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept that color selection is commoditized", "body": "You stop defending palettes and start selling systems. The conversation shifts upstream.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_112_behance_graveyard", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Portfolio Graveyard", "body": "You scroll your Behance. Most recent project: 18 months ago. Everything after that is under NDA. Your Behance is a museum of who you used to be when you still had time to post work.", "choices": [{"title": "Update it with sanitized case studies", "body": "You upload five anonymized projects. The algorithm rewards the burst. 200 views. It's something.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Delete it, redirect to your personal site", "body": "You nuke the profile. One less platform to maintain. One less ghost to feed.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave it as-is, it's a time capsule now", "body": "2019-you had nice gradients though.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_113_motion_design_pressure", "phase": "Early", "title": "\"Can You Also Do Motion?\"", "body": "Your PM sees the competitor's animated product tour and asks about motion design. You have never opened After Effects. Lottie animations are a mystery. You say \"I can look into it\" because in-house designers say that and figure it out at midnight.", "choices": [{"title": "Learn After Effects in a weekend, deliver", "body": "You watch 14 hours of tutorials and deliver a simple micro-interaction. It moves. Moving is the whole requirement.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Recommend hiring a motion specialist", "body": "You make the case for a contractor. The budget gets approved for one month.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Be honest about your skill gaps", "body": "You say motion isn't your strength. The PM respects the honesty and finds another solution.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 5}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_114_imposter_at_allhands", "phase": "Early", "title": "The All-Hands Imposter Moment", "body": "The CEO shows the product roadmap at all-hands. Your designs are on screen. The engineering team gets thanked by name. The design is described as \"the team effort.\" The team is one person. You raise your hand from the back row.", "choices": [{"title": "Speak up, claim credit professionally", "body": "You say \"happy to share the design process behind that\" after the meeting. Two people notice. One is your skip-level.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Stay quiet, the work speaks for itself", "body": "The work speaks. Nobody hears it. Visibility requires volume, not just quality.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 1, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Email the CEO directly with your contribution", "body": "Bold. Risky. The CEO replies: \"Great work.\" Two words. Enough.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_115_pinterest_moodboard", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Pinterest Mood Board PRD", "body": "A PM sends a Pinterest board with 347 pins as the product brief. The pins include: minimalist Japanese architecture, a Lisa Frank folder, a brutalist building, and a golden retriever. \"This is the vibe.\" It is four vibes. And a dog.", "choices": [{"title": "Distill it to three coherent directions", "body": "You sort their pins into themes. They say: \"Can we combine all three?\" And the dog.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Pick the best pins, run with instinct", "body": "You grab the 10 strongest references and build from there. The PM trusts you. This is rare.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 3}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask them to narrow to 10 pins max", "body": "They send 47. Progress.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_116_canva_migration", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Marketing Team's Canva Files", "body": "Marketing sends a Canva link and asks you to \"make it match the design system.\" It has 47 layers, all named Rectangle 1 through Rectangle 47. One color is #FF69B4. They used Hot Pink intentionally. This is your cross-functional partnership.", "choices": [{"title": "Rebuild from scratch in Figma, log the hours", "body": "You start over and bill it to the marketing sprint. Nobody argues.", "delta": {"money": 400, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Work with what they gave you, adapt", "body": "It takes twice as long. The hot pink stays. Marketing is happy.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Create a brand template in Canva for them", "body": "You build marketing-safe templates in their own tool. The niche is unglamorous and effective.", "delta": {"money": 600, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": 3}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_117_design_trends_2026", "phase": "Early", "title": "The 2026 Trend Report", "body": "A trends article lists: neobrutalism (again), AI-generated textures (obviously), and \"human imperfection as aesthetic.\" Your PM sends it with \"should we consider this?\" You've been doing human imperfection since before it was a trend. You called it \"being understaffed.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Ride the trend, pitch it to leadership", "body": "You present a trend-forward design direction. Leadership loves feeling current. The work is fine.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ignore trends, trust the design system", "body": "Systems outlast trends. You keep building.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write an internal doc about timeless product design", "body": "Timelessness is not a quarterly OKR. Moderate engagement from the three people who read internal docs.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_118_deposit_clause", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Equity Cliff", "body": "You just hit your one-year equity cliff. The stock is worth 40% of what it was when you signed. Your \"total comp\" is now mostly just your salary. The spreadsheet you made at offer time is a work of historical fiction.", "choices": [{"title": "Ask for an equity refresh, present your case", "body": "You make the argument. They refresh at 60% of original grant. Better than nothing. Barely.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Start interviewing for a better package", "body": "You take three recruiter calls. The market is rough but at least you have data.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 5}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept it, equity was always a lottery ticket", "body": "You stop checking the stock price. The salary is the salary. Everything else was fiction.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": -2, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 1000}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_119_dark_pattern_request", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Dark Pattern Request", "body": "Growth wants a cancellation flow that's intentionally confusing. \"Make it hard to cancel, but legally.\" You are being asked to weaponize your design skills against your own users.", "choices": [{"title": "Refuse, explain why dark patterns hurt retention", "body": "You push back with data on trust erosion and churn. They compromise on \"mildly inconvenient.\"", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Do it, collect the performance rating, feel nothing", "body": "The flow is elegant in its cruelty. Cancellation rate drops 30%. You add it to the folder of things you'll never show.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": -12, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}, {"title": "Escalate to your VP, blow the whistle", "body": "You report it up the chain. Growth is annoyed. Your VP says \"good catch.\" The pattern gets modified. Growth remembers.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": 2000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "blew_the_whistle"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_120_open_source_contribution", "phase": "Early", "title": "The Open Source Design Project", "body": "An open-source project asks you to donate design work on weekends. The maintainer has 50k GitHub stars and zero design budget. The aesthetic is \"developer chose the colors and also the layout and also the typography.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Donate your time, redesign it properly", "body": "40 hours of weekend work. The community loves it. Your employer's IP policy may have opinions.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "open_sourced"}]}, {"title": "Offer limited help, one evening a week", "body": "You commit two hours weekly. Honest work at an honest pace. The project improves gradually.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, free work is a trap even for good causes", "body": "The project continues to look like it was designed by a CI/CD pipeline.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_21_client_sends_ai_mockups", "phase": "Mid", "title": "\"Just Clean These Up\"", "body": "A client sends you 47 AI-generated mockups and asks you to \"just clean them up a bit.\" The mockups have six-fingered icons, text that says \"Lorem Ipsum Dolor Amet\" in the hero, and a button that says \"Click Here To Do The Thing.\" The client thinks they're 90% done. They are 90% confident.", "choices": [{"title": "Clean them up, bill the hours", "body": "You spend 30 hours fixing AI fever dreams. The client says \"see, just needed a polish.\" Your invoice says otherwise.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Explain why starting from scratch is faster", "body": "You present a scope comparison. They say \"but we already have designs?\" The AI output is now the baseline. You're negotiating against a machine.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Build an AI cleanup pipeline, sell it as a service", "body": "You create a process for \"AI design refinement\" and charge a premium. Three more clients ask for it within a month. This is your job now.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": -8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "embraced_ai"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_22_figma_ai_design_system", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Figma Generates Your Job", "body": "Figma ships an AI feature that generates entire design systems. Tokens, components, variants, documentation. It takes 30 seconds. Your design system took four months. The AI version is 80% as good. Your PM asks why the next one can't be done by Friday.", "choices": [{"title": "Use it as a starting point, add the 20%", "body": "You generate the base and spend two days on the craft layer. The result is better than either alone. Your timeline is now \"two days\" for what used to be a quarter.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "collab_with_ai"}]}, {"title": "Refuse to use it, build by hand", "body": "You build the system manually. It takes three weeks. It's measurably better. Leadership picks the AI version for the next project because it was faster.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Become the person who configures it", "body": "You learn every parameter and constraint. You're no longer the designer. You're the prompt engineer for a design tool. The title is new. The existential crisis is familiar.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": -10, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_23_pm_asks_why_not_ai", "phase": "Mid", "title": "\"Why Can't AI Do This?\"", "body": "In a sprint planning meeting, your PM asks: \"Why can't we just use AI for the design?\" The room goes quiet. Nobody pushes back. The engineering lead nods slowly. You explain the nuance of user research, interaction patterns, accessibility. The PM says \"right, but for the simple screens?\" All screens are simple to people who don't design them.", "choices": [{"title": "Propose a hybrid workflow to stay relevant", "body": "You present a plan where AI handles initial concepts and you handle refinement. The PM loves it. You've just negotiated yourself into half a job.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Demonstrate what AI gets wrong with examples", "body": "You run the PM's feature through three AI tools. The outputs are beautiful and wrong in ways that would cost $200k in engineering rework. The PM is convinced. For now.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Say nothing, update your resume after the meeting", "body": "The question wasn't really a question. It was an announcement wearing a question's clothes.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_24_portfolio_scraped", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Your Portfolio Got Scraped", "body": "A friend sends you a link. An AI design tool is generating layouts in your style. Your exact style. The same spacing ratios, the same color philosophy, the same typographic hierarchy you spent a decade developing. It learned from your Dribbble, your Behance, your case studies. It does it faster. Some say better.", "choices": [{"title": "Demand removal, pursue legal options", "body": "You email the company. They reply: \"Our model was trained on publicly available data.\" Your design language is now public domain. The law hasn't caught up.", "delta": {"money": -3000, "sanity": -8, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": 3000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "plagiarized_by_ai"}]}, {"title": "Evolve your style faster than AI can learn it", "body": "You reinvent your visual language in a weekend sprint. The AI will learn this one too. You're in an arms race with your own ghost.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -9, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Sell a course on the style before it's free", "body": "You package your methodology into a paid workshop. $4k in the first month. You're monetizing your own obsolescence.", "delta": {"money": 4000, "sanity": 4, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_25_team_shrinks_again", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Team Goes From Six to Two", "body": "Another round of \"efficiency improvements.\" The design team was six, then three after last year's layoff. Now it's two: you and a junior who started three weeks ago. The Slack channel #design-team feels like a group chat between two people pretending a department exists.", "choices": [{"title": "Absorb the workload, become the department", "body": "You take on four people's worth of projects. The junior handles production. You handle everything else. The bus factor is one and you're driving.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": -11, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "survived_layoff_wave"}]}, {"title": "Make the case for AI tools to fill the gap", "body": "You pitch AI-assisted design to replace the missing headcount. Leadership loves it. You've just automated your future colleagues out of existence.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -10, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "embraced_ai"}]}, {"title": "Start interviewing while you still have leverage", "body": "A shrinking team is a signal, not a challenge. You take three calls. The market is worse than you expected.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_26_ai_generates_1000_variations", "phase": "Mid", "title": "One Thousand Variations", "body": "Your PM demos a tool that generates 1,000 design variations for a landing page in 40 seconds. You spent three days on four directions. Your directions are better. The PM knows this. The PM also knows that 1,000 variations cost $0.12 and your three days cost $3,000.", "choices": [{"title": "Position yourself as the curator, not creator", "body": "You offer to evaluate and refine the AI output. The work is faster. The craft is thinner. Your title doesn't change but your job description rewrites itself.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 9, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Prove quality matters with A/B test data", "body": "You A/B test your version against the best AI variation. Yours converts 23% better. Leadership says \"interesting\" and ships the AI version because it was ready two days earlier.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Learn to generate better variations than the tool", "body": "You master the prompt engineering. Your AI-assisted output beats both. You've become a centaur. Half human, half machine. Fully confused.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 0, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_27_design_qa_role", "phase": "Mid", "title": "AI Handles Design, You Handle QA", "body": "Your manager redefines your role in a 1:1. \"We're moving to AI-first design. We need you for quality assurance.\" You are now the person who checks if the AI's work is good enough. Your title is still \"Senior Product Designer\" but your job is proofreading a machine.", "choices": [{"title": "Accept the pivot, become the quality layer", "body": "You build a rubric for evaluating AI design output. It's thorough, professional, and feels like writing your own obituary.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -11, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Negotiate to keep creative ownership of key features", "body": "You carve out the flagship product as human-designed. Everything else is AI. Your territory shrinks sprint by sprint.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Refuse the new role, start job hunting", "body": "You say you're a designer, not a reviewer. Your manager says \"the market is evolving.\" So is your LinkedIn status.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 7, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": 1000}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_28_ai_competitor_free", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Free AI Design Tool", "body": "A startup launches a free AI design tool. Upload a screenshot of any app, it generates a complete redesign in your brand colors with proper components. Product Hunt #1. Your PM sends it to you with a smiley face. Your entire workflow just became a feature in someone else's product.", "choices": [{"title": "Learn it deeply, become the internal expert", "body": "You spend a weekend mastering every parameter. Monday you present a workflow that cuts design time by 60%. Your value is now teaching others to not need you.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -10, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write a detailed comparison showing its limitations", "body": "You document every failure mode. Accessibility violations, inconsistent spacing, nonsensical user flows. The doc is thorough. Nobody reads past page one.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use it and don't tell anyone", "body": "You adopt it quietly and spend the freed hours on strategic work nobody asked for. Your output increases. Your secret stays.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_29_dribbble_bots", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Your Followers Are Studying You", "body": "Your Dribbble analytics spike: 400 new followers in a week. You investigate. They're mostly AI accounts with names like \"DesignFlow_v3\" and \"UIHarvest.\" They're not following you for inspiration. They're scraping your work to train models. Your audience is a dataset.", "choices": [{"title": "Make your portfolio private, protect the work", "body": "You lock everything down. Your visibility drops. A recruiter says she can't see your work. The trade-off is real.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 7, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Watermark everything, poison the training data", "body": "You add invisible watermarks and deliberate artifacts. It's guerrilla warfare against machines learning your taste.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Post more, lean into the attention", "body": "If they're going to learn from you, make the curriculum worth studying. Your engagement metrics look great on paper.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_30_ai_design_review", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The AI Design Review", "body": "Engineering adds an AI step to the design review pipeline. It evaluates your mockups for accessibility, consistency, and \"design quality\" on a 1-100 scale. Your latest work scored 73. The AI-generated alternative scored 81. Your PM shares both scores in Slack without comment.", "choices": [{"title": "Challenge the scoring criteria publicly", "body": "You question the rubric. The scoring weighs pixel consistency over user empathy. The AI wins on metrics. Users aren't metrics. Yet.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Optimize your work for the AI reviewer", "body": "You adjust your process to score higher. Your designs become measurably better and immeasurably less interesting.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Propose a user-testing component to the score", "body": "You add real user feedback to the rubric. Humans still prefer human work. For now.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 8, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 300}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_31_midjourney_brand_book", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The AI Brand Book", "body": "Marketing creates an entire brand book using Midjourney and GPT. Photography, illustrations, voice guidelines, color rationale. It took two days. It's coherent and soulless in a way that's hard to articulate and impossible to prove. The CMO presents it at all-hands as \"our new creative direction.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Point out what's missing, fight for craft", "body": "You present a side-by-side with hand-crafted alternatives. The difference is real. The budget for hand-crafted is not.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -7}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Adapt it, make it actually work", "body": "You take the AI brand book and fix the 200 things nobody noticed were wrong. The CMO thanks you for \"polishing it.\"", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -9, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Let it ship, document what happens", "body": "The brand inconsistencies compound over three months. You keep a log. The redesign request arrives on schedule.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_32_clients_dont_need_mockups", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Clients Stop Requesting Mockups", "body": "Three freelance clients cancel mockup projects in the same week. All give the same reason: \"We're using AI for initial designs now.\" One adds: \"But we might need you for the tricky stuff later.\" The tricky stuff is a smaller market than the easy stuff. The easy stuff was your rent.", "choices": [{"title": "Pivot to strategy and research consulting", "body": "You rebrand as a \"product design strategist.\" The hourly rate goes up. The volume goes down. The math is uncertain.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 1000}, {"title": "Offer AI-assisted design at lower rates", "body": "You cut your rate 40% and use AI for the commodity work. More clients, less margin, less craft. The treadmill speeds up.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": -8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Double down on the full-service day job", "body": "Freelance was insurance. The insurance just expired. Your employer's Slack has never felt more like a lifeline.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_33_junior_replaced_by_ai", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Junior Gets AI'd", "body": "The junior designer who started three weeks ago just got laid off. The reason given: \"We're using AI tools to handle production design.\" She cries in the parking lot. You helped hire her. The team is now one: you. Again.", "choices": [{"title": "Advocate loudly for her, burn political capital", "body": "You escalate to your VP. They say the decision is final. Your reputation as \"difficult\" grows. Your conscience is clear.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 6, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 2000}, {"title": "Help her find another role quietly", "body": "You make twelve introductions over the weekend. She gets two interviews. The industry is smaller than the org chart suggests.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "became_mentor"}]}, {"title": "Say nothing, protect your own position", "body": "Survival math. The guilt arrives on a delay, like emotional latency.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -11, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_34_design_system_auto_generated", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Auto-Generated Design System", "body": "A product manager shows you a demo: an AI tool that scans your production code and generates a complete design system from what's already shipped. Tokens, components, documentation. It reverse-engineers your work and packages it without you. The PM says \"this could save us a quarter.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Audit the output, prove it needs human oversight", "body": "You find 47 inconsistencies. The PM says \"that's what the next version will fix.\" You realize you're QA-ing your own replacement.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -9, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Adopt it and position yourself as the curator", "body": "You become the taste layer. AI generates, you approve. The creative act is now a yes/no decision. A thousand times a sprint.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 0, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Propose a human-AI collaborative system instead", "body": "You design a workflow where AI handles structure and you handle intent. It works. For now, the collaboration feels real.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 7, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 500}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_35_perf_review_ai_metrics", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Performance Review: AI Edition", "body": "Performance review season. The new evaluation framework includes \"AI tool adoption rate\" as a metric. Designers are scored on how efficiently they use AI in their workflow. Refusing AI tools is now a performance issue. Your craft is a liability on a spreadsheet.", "choices": [{"title": "Game the metric, use AI for everything possible", "body": "Your adoption rate hits 94%. Your designs look like everything else. The review is excellent. The work is forgettable.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -10, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}, {"title": "Push back on the metric in the review", "body": "You argue that output quality should matter more than tool adoption. Your manager agrees privately and scores you on the metric anyway.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 7, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Document your AI-free wins as case studies", "body": "You build a portfolio of projects where human craft outperformed AI alternatives. The evidence is compelling. The policy doesn't change.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_36_design_job_posting_ai", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Job Posting That Isn't", "body": "A recruiter sends you a job listing for \"AI Design Operations Lead.\" The role: manage AI tools that generate designs, review output, maintain brand consistency. Zero Figma. Zero pixels. Zero creation. The salary is 20% more than your current role. The future of design management is managing machines.", "choices": [{"title": "Interview, see what it's really like", "body": "The hiring manager shows you the dashboard. Thousands of designs generated per day. Your job: thumb up or thumb down. Tinder for UI. The salary is real.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": -9, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, you're a maker not a manager of machines", "body": "You reply: \"I appreciate it but I still want to design.\" The recruiter says \"that's getting rarer.\" They mean the job. And the desire.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Forward it to a designer friend who needs work", "body": "They take the role. Two months later they say it's \"fine.\" Fine is the ceiling now.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_37_conference_all_ai", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Conference Is All AI Now", "body": "You attend a design conference. Every talk is about AI. \"AI-First Design Systems.\" \"Prompting as Design Practice.\" \"Post-Craft Design Leadership.\" The word \"craft\" appears only in historical context. Like \"blacksmithing\" or \"calligraphy.\" A speaker says \"the last generation of hand-designers\" and means you.", "choices": [{"title": "Network with others who feel the same way", "body": "You find a group at the hotel bar. All senior designers. All rattled. The solidarity is warm and the implications are cold.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 7, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 1000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "made_industry_contact"}]}, {"title": "Give a lightning talk defending human craft", "body": "You sign up for an open slot. Five minutes on why taste can't be automated. The applause is loud. The conference hashtag moves on in 20 minutes.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -2, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave early, the future doesn't need your attendance", "body": "You grab the tote bag and walk out during the \"AI Design Ethics\" panel. The panel has no designers on it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_38_white_label_ai_agency", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The AI Design Agency", "body": "A new agency launches: \"Full product design in 48 hours, AI-powered, $2,000 flat rate.\" Your project timelines are 6-8 weeks at $40k+. They show a case study. The work is competent. Not great, not terrible. Exactly good enough. Your clients start asking why your timeline is so long.", "choices": [{"title": "Compete on quality, raise your rates", "body": "You position yourself as premium. Three clients leave for the AI agency. Two new ones come specifically because you're human. The math is tighter.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 2000}, {"title": "Offer a \"fast track\" AI-assisted tier", "body": "You add a cheaper, faster option using AI tools. The premium tier gets lonelier. The fast track keeps the lights on.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -10, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Study their process, learn what they're actually doing", "body": "You reverse-engineer their workflow. It's AI generation plus a human designer doing exactly what you'd do, at 1/10th your rate, in a different timezone.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_39_brand_voice_ai", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Voice of the Brand Is AI", "body": "Your PM announces that all in-app microcopy will be AI-generated going forward. Your carefully crafted button labels, error messages, and onboarding text will be replaced by a model that generates \"on-brand\" copy in milliseconds. You point out that your error messages had personality. The PM says \"personality is a prompt parameter now.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Write the prompt guidelines for the AI", "body": "You create a voice document so detailed it's essentially a creative writing course for a machine. The AI follows it well enough that you can't tell the difference. You wish you could.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -9, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Argue for human-written copy on key screens", "body": "You negotiate that onboarding, error states, and empty states stay human-written. Everything else is AI. Your domain shrinks by the sprint.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept it, focus only on visual design", "body": "Words were never your job anyway. Except they were. Except now they're not. The boundary between disciplines was the first thing AI dissolved.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_40_user_research_automated", "phase": "Mid", "title": "User Research Gets Automated", "body": "The UX researcher gets replaced by an AI that conducts user interviews via chat, synthesizes findings, and generates personas. The output is thorough and unsettling. The personas have names, backstories, pain points. None of them are real people. Your PM says the insights are \"good enough.\" Design without real users is architecture without gravity.", "choices": [{"title": "Conduct your own guerrilla research to supplement", "body": "You interview five real users on your lunch break. Their feedback contradicts the AI personas. Nobody wants to hear that.", "delta": {"money": -400, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 6}, "min_money": 400}, {"title": "Use the AI research but validate the key assumptions", "body": "You cherry-pick the AI insights and verify the critical ones. Hybrid research. The PM is satisfied. Your inner researcher is not.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept the new normal, design for fictional people", "body": "The personas are fictional. The product ships to real humans. The gap between research and reality is someone else's problem now.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_41_accessibility_ai_bypassed", "phase": "Mid", "title": "AI Skips Accessibility", "body": "The AI design tool generates beautiful interfaces that fail every accessibility audit. Contrast ratios, focus states, screen reader support -- all missing. Your PM says \"we'll fix it later.\" Later is when the lawsuit arrives. You are the only person in the room who knows what WCAG stands for.", "choices": [{"title": "Build an accessibility review into the AI pipeline", "body": "You create an automated a11y check that runs after every AI generation. It catches 70% of issues. The other 30% still needs you. For now.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Sound the alarm to legal and leadership", "body": "You write a risk assessment. Legal thanks you. Engineering adds a11y to their backlog. It sits at priority 4 for two quarters.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Let it ship, document that you warned them", "body": "You send a CYA email and watch it go live. The complaint form gets its first submission within a week.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "blew_the_whistle"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_42_nightmare_handoff", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Handoff to the Machine", "body": "Your engineering team implements a system where AI converts your Figma designs directly into production code. No developer interpretation needed. The code is clean. The implementation is pixel-perfect. You should be thrilled. Instead you feel like a sketch that got traced. The artisan-to-factory pipeline is complete.", "choices": [{"title": "Focus on the parts machines can't translate", "body": "Motion, delight, micro-interactions that require human judgment. Your domain narrows to the poetic. It might be enough.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Learn the AI-to-code pipeline, own both sides", "body": "You become the only person who understands design AND the translation layer. Indispensable through comprehensiveness.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": -7, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Celebrate the win, your designs ship perfectly now", "body": "No more \"the engineer interpreted it wrong.\" The implementation matches. The irony is that perfection makes you feel less needed.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_43_burnout_ai_pace", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Keeping Up With Machine Speed", "body": "AI generates concepts at inhuman speed. Your sprint velocity is now benchmarked against a tool that doesn't sleep, eat, or have existential crises. You're doing twice the work you did last year. Your PM says \"we should be able to do more now.\" More is the only direction.", "choices": [{"title": "Set boundaries, explain human design has a clock speed", "body": "You tell your manager that quality requires time. They schedule a meeting to discuss \"efficiency opportunities.\" The meeting is 30 minutes you could have spent designing.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Match the pace using AI, sacrifice depth", "body": "You hit the velocity targets. Every design looks like every other design. The product becomes a screensaver with a business model.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -12, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "output_is_slop"}]}, {"title": "Find a role that values slow, careful work", "body": "Healthcare, government, fintech. Industries where moving fast breaks things that matter. The pay is less. The pressure is different.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -7, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_44_side_project_ai_killed", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Your Side Project Gets AI'd", "body": "Your Figma template store was making $800/month. An AI tool just launched that generates custom Figma templates for free. Your sales dropped 70% in two weeks. The passive income dream lasted eight months. The AI version of your templates looks like your templates because it literally learned from your templates.", "choices": [{"title": "Pivot to workshops teaching the human layer", "body": "You sell what AI can't replicate: judgment, context, the ability to explain why. The first cohort sells out. The second doesn't.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Shut it down and grieve", "body": "You archive the Gumroad page. Eight months of late nights, gone in two weeks. The efficiency of creative destruction is not comforting when you're the thing being destroyed.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "side_project_failed"}]}, {"title": "Add AI-proof features, try to stay ahead", "body": "You add hand-crafted micro-interactions and video walkthroughs. Sales stabilize at 30% of peak. The hamster wheel has no exit.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": -10, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_141_ai_design_system_30_seconds", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Thirty Seconds to a Design System", "body": "Your VP pulls up an AI tool in a meeting and generates a complete design system live. Tokens, components, spacing scale, color palette, dark mode. Thirty seconds. The room applauds. Your four-month design system sits in Figma with 2,400 hours logged. The VP says \"we should use this for the next one.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Propose merging the best of both", "body": "You combine your system's strategic decisions with the AI's execution speed. The result is better than either alone. The PM credits the AI tool in the all-hands.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -7, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Show the 47 things the AI system got wrong", "body": "You audit the AI system line by line. 47 accessibility violations, 12 inconsistencies, 3 outright errors. The VP says \"we'll iterate.\" Iterate is free when the tool is free.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept it, redirect your energy upstream", "body": "If systems can be generated, the value is in knowing which system to generate. Strategy over pixels. The shift feels like retreat.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_142_figma_ai_competitor", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The AI That Designs Better Than You", "body": "A new AI tool generates app designs that are, objectively, more consistent than your work. Not more creative. Not more meaningful. But more consistent. Pixel-perfect spacing, flawless alignment, zero drift between components. The things you spent years training yourself to do. The AI does them without trying because trying is a human concept.", "choices": [{"title": "Focus on the things that require trying", "body": "Empathy, context, rebellion against convention, the choice to break a grid because the moment calls for it. The domain of intention.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use the tool to handle consistency, you handle meaning", "body": "The partnership works. AI does the math. You do the feeling. The output is the best work of your career.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "collab_with_ai"}]}, {"title": "Compete head-to-head, prove humans still win", "body": "You challenge the AI to a design-off. Yours is better. You post the comparison. 4,000 likes. The AI doesn't know it lost. It doesn't know anything.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": -7, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 4}, "min_money": 300}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_143_intern_prompts_faster", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Intern Who Prompts", "body": "The summer intern doesn't use Figma. She prompts. She generates 50 screen concepts before lunch. She's never opened the design system documentation. She doesn't know what a token is. Her output is prolific and rootless. Your PM says she's \"incredibly productive.\" Productive is the only metric that survived the transition.", "choices": [{"title": "Teach her the fundamentals she's missing", "body": "You pair with her for a week. She learns grids, hierarchy, accessibility. Her AI output gets 10x better. You just made AI design actually work. The feeling is complicated.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 300, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "became_mentor"}]}, {"title": "Adopt her workflow, catch up to the new speed", "body": "You learn to prompt alongside Figma. Your output doubles. Your relationship with your own craft changes permanently.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Let her process stand, protect your own", "body": "Two workflows coexist. Hers is faster. Yours is deeper. The PM values both until budget forces a choice.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 3, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_144_ai_feedback_loop", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The AI Gives You Design Feedback", "body": "Your company integrates an AI design critic into the review process. It evaluates your mockups and provides suggestions: \"Consider increasing contrast ratio on CTA buttons.\" \"The visual hierarchy suggests secondary actions are primary.\" The feedback is correct. Getting notes from a machine about your craft is like getting a cooking lesson from a microwave.", "choices": [{"title": "Integrate the feedback, swallow the pride", "body": "The AI catches things you missed. Your work improves. The process feels like being edited by autocorrect -- helpful and humbling in equal measure.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Argue that design critique requires human context", "body": "You present cases where the AI's suggestions would worsen the design. Context-dependent decisions that require understanding WHY the user is there, not just WHAT they see.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use it but never mention it to other designers", "body": "Like spellcheck, you adopt it silently. The stigma of needing AI feedback is real in design circles. The utility is also real.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_145_every_designer_freelance", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Everyone Is Freelance Now", "body": "Three designer friends got laid off in the same month. All went freelance. Not by choice -- by elimination. The freelance market is flooded with senior designers competing for projects that AI hasn't eaten yet. Rates drop 30%. \"The gig economy\" used to be a choice. Now it's a diagnosis.", "choices": [{"title": "Help organize a freelance collective", "body": "You pool resources with five designers. Shared leads, shared clients, shared dread. Together you're an agency. Apart you're five people refreshing Upwork.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 6, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 11}, "min_money": 800, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_community"}]}, {"title": "Stay employed, count your blessings", "body": "Your W-2 is a privilege now. Health insurance, 401k match, predictable deposits. The golden handcuffs are comfortable when everyone else is barefoot.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 5, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Prepare your own freelance safety net", "body": "You start moonlighting on weekends. Three clients. Small projects. If the layoff comes, you'll have a running start.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_side_project"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_93_newsletter_pays_off", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Newsletter Pays Off", "body": "Your design newsletter just hit 500 subscribers. A VP of Product at another company emails: \"I've been reading your stuff for months. We need a design lead.\" Side projects with inboxes become escape hatches.", "choices": [{"title": "Interview, leverage it for a raise", "body": "You get an offer and use it to negotiate a 25% raise at your current company. Capitalism is a negotiation.", "delta": {"money": 8000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Explore sponsored newsletter partnerships", "body": "A design tool pays $3k/month for six months to sponsor your newsletter. The side income becomes real.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -5, "audience": 9, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Refer the role to a friend, keep the newsletter pure", "body": "You send the job lead to a designer friend. They get hired. Your network strengthens.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 11}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["started_newsletter"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_97_side_project_traction", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Side Project Gets Traction", "body": "Your Figma plugin just crossed $1k/month in revenue. You spend zero hours on it now. You stare at the Stripe dashboard like it's a nature documentary. Your employment agreement might have something to say about this.", "choices": [{"title": "Double down, build a product suite", "body": "Revenue hits $3k/month. You start calling yourself a product designer/founder. Your employer doesn't know.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "side_project_shipped"}]}, {"title": "Keep it passive, focus on the day job", "body": "You let the plugin run on autopilot. Balance feels possible.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Open-source it, build goodwill", "body": "Downloads triple. Three people reach out to hire you because of it.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 500, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "open_sourced"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["started_side_project"], "forbids": ["side_project_failed"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_99_collective_gig", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Collective Gets a Client", "body": "Your design collective gets approached for a consulting project. Real stakes. Real budget. The group chat goes quiet, then very loud. Your employer's moonlighting policy enters the conversation.", "choices": [{"title": "Lead the project, take creative direction", "body": "The pressure is immense. The work is the best you've ever done. Your day job suffers slightly.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Play support, let someone else lead", "body": "Less glory, less stress, same after-hours commitment.", "delta": {"money": 1200, "sanity": 4, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, the risk is too high with your employer", "body": "The project goes to someone else. You wonder what if.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -9}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["built_community"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_101_viral_aftermath", "phase": "Mid", "title": "Going Viral Is a Job Now", "body": "Your post about being the last designer went viral. 12k likes. 400 replies. Eight podcast invitations. Three death threats. You posted an opinion and now you have a constituency. Your employer's comms team has questions.", "choices": [{"title": "Ride the wave, book the podcasts", "body": "You do four appearances. Your audience doubles. Your day job suffers. HR sends a friendly reminder about social media policy.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -10, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Go silent, let it die naturally", "body": "You mute everything and work. The discourse moves on. Your PM is relieved.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write a follow-up that's more nuanced", "body": "It gets 1/10th the engagement. The truth is boring. You feel good about it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["went_viral"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_103_contact_referral", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Network Compounds", "body": "The developer you met at the coffee shop referred you to a hiring manager. The hiring manager connected you to their VP. Your network is compounding while your company is contracting.", "choices": [{"title": "Take every meeting, explore everything", "body": "Three become real conversations. Your calendar is full. Your manager notices your distraction.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Be selective, only take the best fit", "body": "You decline two and pursue the one that excites you. Quality over quantity.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask for introductions instead of opportunities", "body": "Your network grows. The opportunities come later, bigger.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 2, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 300}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["made_industry_contact"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_107_debt_reckoning", "phase": "Mid", "title": "The Credit Card Reckoning", "body": "You put last month's bootcamp course, conference ticket, and three design tool subscriptions on a credit card you forgot you were paying interest on. Your professional development has a payment plan.", "choices": [{"title": "Get the company to reimburse, push hard", "body": "You submit everything to L&D. They cover 70%. The remaining 30% stings less.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "debt_cleared"}]}, {"title": "Take on overtime work to cover the balance", "body": "You volunteer for an extra project. The credit card gets paid. Your weekends don't.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask a friend for a short-term loan", "body": "You pay it back in three weeks. The friendship gets more honest.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 500}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["took_on_debt"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_45_ux_title_eliminated", "phase": "Late", "title": "\"UX Designer\" Removed From Job Boards", "body": "You search for \"UX Designer\" on three job boards. 12 results. Last year: 340. The title is being replaced by \"AI Design Operations,\" \"Prompt Design Lead,\" and \"Human Experience Curator.\" Your ten years of UX experience now qualifies you for a role that didn't exist six months ago and pays 40% less.", "choices": [{"title": "Rebrand yourself, adapt the language", "body": "You update your LinkedIn to \"Product Experience Strategist.\" The same recruiter who ignored you last month reaches out. Titles are spells and you just learned a new one.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Hold the line, call yourself a designer", "body": "You keep \"Product Designer\" and watch the callbacks dry up. Integrity is expensive when rent is due.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 6, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 1000}, {"title": "Start applying for adjacent roles", "body": "Product management, design engineering, creative direction. The skills transfer. The identity doesn't.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_46_taste_consultant", "phase": "Late", "title": "\"Taste Consultant\" Is Your New Title", "body": "A company offers you a role: \"Taste Consultant.\" Your job is to choose which AI-generated design to ship. Eight hours a day selecting from infinite options. The pay is 60% of your old salary. The job description says \"discerning eye required.\" Your decade of craft reduced to a thumb and a preference.", "choices": [{"title": "Take it, money is money", "body": "You start Monday. By Wednesday you've approved 400 designs. Your eye is still sharp. Your soul is somewhere in the reject pile.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -11, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}, {"title": "Negotiate for creative input, not just curation", "body": "You propose a hybrid role: curate AI output AND design the critical screens. They give you 20% creative. It's better than zero.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 4, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, find a company that still employs designers", "body": "The list is getting shorter every month. You find one. They're in healthcare. The UI is ugly in ways that keep humans alive.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": 1000}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_47_physical_design_pivot", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Industrial Design Pivot", "body": "A friend who used to design apps now designs furniture. Physical objects. Things AI can't generate into existence. She makes $60k less but her work exists in three dimensions. \"The screen is AI territory,\" she says over coffee. \"I went where the robots can't follow.\" You look at your hands. They used to draw.", "choices": [{"title": "Take a ceramics class, test the waters", "body": "Saturday mornings, clay under your fingernails. The objects you make are terrible and yours. Nobody can generate them in 30 seconds.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Explore industrial design programs online", "body": "You enroll in an evening program. The skills are adjacent. The learning curve is real. The physical world has a different grammar.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": 2000}, {"title": "Stay digital, the screen is where the money is", "body": "Your friend is happy. Your friend also doesn't have a 401k anymore. You stay in the burning building because it's air-conditioned.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": -9, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_48_ai_generates_your_replacement", "phase": "Late", "title": "The AI Trained On Your Work", "body": "The company's internal AI design tool was trained on every Figma file in the company's history. Your files. Your systems. Your decisions. It now generates designs that look like you designed them. Because you did. Three years ago. The model is you, minus the salary and the health insurance.", "choices": [{"title": "Demand compensation for the training data", "body": "Legal says your work belongs to the company. Your design taste, your visual instincts, your years of refinement -- all \"work product.\" You signed the IP clause in 2023.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 2000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "plagiarized_by_ai"}]}, {"title": "Collaborate with your digital ghost", "body": "You start using the model as a starting point. It's like pair-designing with a past version of yourself. Productive and haunting.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Deliberately design differently from the model", "body": "You break every pattern the AI learned from you. New grids, new ratios, new everything. Your work becomes unrecognizable. Also unpredictable. Also better.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_49_learn_to_code_but_design", "phase": "Late", "title": "\"Pivot to Industrial\" Is \"Learn to Code\"", "body": "LinkedIn is full of ex-UX designers posting about their new careers in architecture, furniture, interior design, and landscape architecture. The comments say \"so brave\" and \"the future is physical.\" Pivoting to industrial design is the new \"learn to code\" -- advice that sounds empowering and costs three years of your life.", "choices": [{"title": "Start a physical design practice on the side", "body": "You take on a signage project for a local restaurant. $800. The work is tangible. The pay is symbolic. The satisfaction is real.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 8, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 800}, {"title": "Stay digital, refuse the narrative", "body": "You're not going to abandon a decade of expertise because LinkedIn told you to. The pivot narrative is for people writing about work, not doing it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Explore hybrid physical-digital design", "body": "You find a niche: designing physical spaces that integrate with digital products. Wayfinding systems, interactive installations. The intersection is small and uncontested.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_side_project"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_50_entire_product_ai_designed", "phase": "Late", "title": "A Product Ships Without a Designer", "body": "A competitor launches a fully designed product. The UI is clean, consistent, accessible. Their team page lists no designers. The About page says \"designed by our AI-native workflow.\" The reviews say \"beautiful and intuitive.\" You check the source code. It was generated end-to-end.", "choices": [{"title": "Study it obsessively, find what's missing", "body": "You find the gaps: no delight, no surprise, no personality. It's competent in the way a form letter is competent. But competent ships and personality doesn't.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write about it, sound the alarm", "body": "Your essay goes semi-viral. The responses split between \"this is the future\" and \"this is the end.\" Both are right.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Call your designer friends, process it together", "body": "You get four people on a video call. Everyone is shaken. Nobody has a solution. The company is real.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_51_salary_compression_ai", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Great Salary Compression", "body": "Design salaries have dropped 35% across the industry in 18 months. Supply and demand: when AI can do 70% of the work, the remaining 30% isn't worth what it used to be. Your recruiter says \"the market has corrected.\" Corrected means you're worth less. Mathematically. Not morally.", "choices": [{"title": "Accept the new rates, you need income", "body": "You take a contract at the new normal. The work is the same. The compensation reflects a world that values your skills less. You design for people who can't tell what's missing.", "delta": {"money": 1200, "sanity": -10, "audience": -7, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Specialize in what commands premium rates", "body": "Accessibility, complex systems, regulated industries. The niches where AI can't operate unsupervised. The work is harder. The rates hold.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 6, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 800}, {"title": "Leave the industry entirely, retrain", "body": "You look at nursing programs, trade schools, anything with a floor under the wages. The brochures feel like science fiction.", "delta": {"money": -3000, "sanity": -10, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 3000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_52_ai_user_testing", "phase": "Late", "title": "AI Users Test Your Designs", "body": "Your company replaces real user testing with AI-simulated users. Thousands of synthetic personas \"test\" your designs and provide feedback. The data is statistically significant and emotionally empty. A simulated user says your onboarding \"feels cold.\" An AI told you your design lacks feeling. You laugh. Then you don't.", "choices": [{"title": "Insist on real user testing for key flows", "body": "You fight for a budget to test with actual humans. Three sessions, $900. The insights are worth more than 10,000 synthetic responses. Your PM is not sure about that.", "delta": {"money": -900, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 900}, {"title": "Design for the AI testers, optimize for metrics", "body": "You learn to make designs that score well with the synthetic users. The real users are different. But nobody's asking them anymore.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -10, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Add a human empathy layer to the testing pipeline", "body": "You create a framework that combines AI data with real human interviews. It's better. It's also more expensive and slower. The market picks fast and cheap.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_53_design_bootcamp_shutters", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Design Bootcamps Close", "body": "Three major UX bootcamps announce closure in the same week. The pipeline of new designers has shut off. The junior roles they trained people for don't exist anymore. A bootcamp founder posts: \"We taught people to be better than they needed to be for jobs that no longer exist.\" The eulogy for an industry.", "choices": [{"title": "Offer your own mentorship program", "body": "You create a small cohort. Eight people. Real projects. The curriculum is \"surviving as a designer in 2027.\" It's honest and painful.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": 7, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Feel grateful you got in before the door closed", "body": "Survivor's guilt is real. The juniors you mentored are being told their career was a mirage.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write about the industry's failure to adapt", "body": "Your essay connects bootcamp closures to the broader collapse of the knowledge worker pipeline. A publication picks it up.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_newsletter"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_54_collective_physical", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Collective Goes Physical", "body": "Your design collective pivots from digital to physical projects. Exhibition design, pop-up spaces, environmental graphics. The work is harder, the pay is less, and AI can't do it. The first project is designing a community garden. You stand in dirt sketching on paper. Something old wakes up.", "choices": [{"title": "Go all in on physical design projects", "body": "You take on signage, wayfinding, and spatial design. The margins are thin. The work is real in a way screens stopped being.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 10, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 500, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_community"}]}, {"title": "Keep one foot in digital, hedge your bets", "body": "Weekdays: AI-assisted product design. Weekends: letterpress and spatial work. Two identities. One is dying. One is being born.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Document the transition for other designers", "body": "You photograph every physical project and write about the pivot. The content resonates with thousands of designers feeling the same pull.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_55_competitor_no_humans", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Designerless Startup Wins", "body": "A startup with zero designers and an AI design pipeline just closed a $40M Series B. Their product looks good. Not great. Good. The investors say \"design is solved\" in the press release. Your field is now a solved problem. Like spell-checking.", "choices": [{"title": "Rage-design something that proves them wrong", "body": "You spend a weekend on a personal project so beautiful it hurts. You post it. 2,000 likes. The startup is worth $40M. The likes are worth nothing. The work is worth everything.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 300, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "shipped_creative_work"}]}, {"title": "Study what they're actually missing", "body": "You do a UX audit of their product. 43 usability issues. The investors don't care. The users do. Someone will pay to fix those issues. Eventually.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Consider the possibility they might be right", "body": "Not that design is solved. But that \"good enough\" design is. And that you've been overvaluing craft in a market that values speed.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -9, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_56_artisanal_ux_premium", "phase": "Late", "title": "\"Artisanal UX\" Is a Thing Now", "body": "A luxury brand hires you for \"artisanal UX design.\" Human-designed, human-coded, certified AI-free. Their customers pay $400 for a candle. They'll pay extra for an app that was made by a person. Your craft just became a luxury good. The irony is so thick you could charge for it.", "choices": [{"title": "Take the gig, embrace the luxury positioning", "body": "The work is exquisite and the client is insufferable. They want every pixel \"hand-placed\" and documented. The rate is triple your normal. You design like it's 2019.", "delta": {"money": 8000, "sanity": 4, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": -6, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use it as a case study for human-designed premium", "body": "You document the entire process. The case study becomes a manifesto for craft. Other luxury brands reach out.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Decline, you don't want to be a boutique", "body": "Design for the rich while everyone else gets AI slop. The class dynamics of your profession are now literal.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 9}, "min_money": 1000}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_57_empathy_consultant", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Empathy Consultant", "body": "A job listing: \"Human Empathy Consultant.\" Requirements: design background, ability to articulate human needs to AI systems. You'd be the interface between what people feel and what machines generate. The job is explaining emotions to software. The salary is half what designers used to make.", "choices": [{"title": "Apply, this is where the puck is going", "body": "You get the job. Day one: you explain to an AI system why a loading spinner causes anxiety. The AI adjusts. You feel like a therapist for software.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": -8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Freelance the empathy work, keep your independence", "body": "You offer \"human insight audits\" to AI-first companies. Three clients in the first month. The market for feelings is smaller than the market for pixels.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 5, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 500, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "went_freelance"}]}, {"title": "Refuse, you're a designer not a translator", "body": "The distinction between designer and \"person who explains design to machines\" is real to you and invisible to the market.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_58_ai_designs_for_ai", "phase": "Late", "title": "The AI Client", "body": "A company contacts you with an unusual brief: design an interface for an AI agent to use. The end user isn't human. It's another AI. The design requirements include \"machine-readable affordances\" and \"sub-100ms visual parsing.\" You're designing for an audience that doesn't have eyes.", "choices": [{"title": "Take the project, the money's real even if the user isn't", "body": "You design interfaces optimized for machine perception. The aesthetic is alien. Beautiful in a way humans don't need. The check clears.", "delta": {"money": 6000, "sanity": -9, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Propose a human-AI hybrid interface instead", "body": "You argue that someone will eventually need to audit the AI-to-AI interaction. They agree. The dashboard has one human user: the person making sure the machines play nice.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": 6, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, you design for humans", "body": "You say no. They find someone else. You wonder if the next generation of designers will think this is normal.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 1000}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_59_design_union_forms", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Designers' Union", "body": "A national coalition of designers is organizing. They want minimum rates, AI disclosure requirements, and training data compensation. The founding document reads like a Geneva Convention for creative workers. Your employer's PR team sends a memo about \"staying neutral.\" Neutral is a side.", "choices": [{"title": "Join publicly, risk your position", "body": "You sign the open letter. 4,000 designers join. Your company's HR sends a friendly follow-up about \"company values.\" The line between activism and career suicide is one LinkedIn post.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 11}, "min_money": 2000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "joined_union"}]}, {"title": "Support anonymously, protect your income", "body": "You donate and share resources under a pseudonym. Courage takes many forms. Some of them are anonymous.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 5, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 7}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Stay out of it, focus on survival", "body": "You watch from the sidelines. The union wins small concessions. You benefit without risking anything. The guilt is manageable.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -8}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_60_identity_crisis_taste", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Taste Question", "body": "You spent ten years developing taste. Color intuition. Spacing feel. Typography instinct. AI has taste now. Or something indistinguishable from it. A model trained on every design in history has preferences. They're not random. They're not yours. Was your taste just pattern matching all along?", "choices": [{"title": "Go deeper into what makes your taste yours", "body": "You study your own decisions. The patterns are real. But so is something else: the willingness to break them. AI optimizes. You occasionally choose to be wrong on purpose. That's the gap.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 9, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept that taste is pattern matching, move on", "body": "The existential crisis resolves into pragmatism. You're still fast. You still ship. The philosophical questions can wait for a sabbatical you can't afford.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Talk to other creatives about it, you need the words", "body": "A painter friend says: \"Cameras didn't kill painting. They freed it.\" You're not sure the analogy holds. But you needed to hear it.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_126_hand_drawn_wireframes_luxury", "phase": "Late", "title": "Hand-Drawn Wireframes Are Luxury", "body": "A client asks you to present hand-drawn wireframes. On paper. They want the \"human process\" documented and photographed for their brand story. Your sketches cost more than the AI-generated final product. The rough draft is now more valuable than the finished work. The world has inverted.", "choices": [{"title": "Charge premium for the hand-drawn process", "body": "You triple your rate for hand-drawn discovery. Three clients a quarter. The scarcity of human craft is your moat.", "delta": {"money": 8000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -6, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Offer it as a workshop experience", "body": "Teams pay $5k to watch you sketch and think aloud. They're not buying wireframes. They're buying proximity to a process that's disappearing.", "delta": {"money": 4800, "sanity": -4, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Keep it private, drawing is for you now", "body": "The sketchbook is the last space where nobody is watching. Not the PM, not the AI, not the algorithm. Ink on paper. Yours.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 1}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_128_design_job_vanishes", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Last Design Job Posting", "body": "Your company posts an opening for a designer. It gets 2,400 applications in 48 hours. A third of applicants are senior designers from FAANG. The role pays less than an entry-level engineer. The hiring manager says \"we're spoiled for choice.\" The choice is between people who used to have careers.", "choices": [{"title": "Offer to help screen applicants", "body": "You review 200 portfolios. Eighty are better than yours was when you started. The talent pool is an ocean. The shore is eroding.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Advocate for better comp for the role", "body": "You make the case to HR that underpaying designers means getting someone desperate, not someone good. They raise it 10%. Still not enough.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 7, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Use it as leverage for your own raise", "body": "2,400 people want your chair. That's not leverage, that's a reminder of how replaceable you are. But you frame it as institutional knowledge. It works. Barely.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -9, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_129_ai_critique_group", "phase": "Late", "title": "The AI Joins Your Critique Group", "body": "Someone in your critique group starts submitting AI-generated work for feedback. The group debates whether to allow it. The work is good. Not distinguishable from human work. The purpose of the group -- honest human feedback on human craft -- feels suddenly quaint. Like a book club for scrolls.", "choices": [{"title": "Propose a human-only rule for the group", "body": "The vote passes 4-2. Two members leave. The remaining four produce their most personal work in months. Constraints breed honesty.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept AI work but require disclosure", "body": "The hybrid format works for a while. Then everyone starts using AI and disclosing it. The critique becomes a prompt review session.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -7, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave the group, find something more grounded", "body": "You join a figure drawing class instead. Charcoal on paper. No plugins. No undo.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 10, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 2, "friends": -8}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_130_every_ui_generated", "phase": "Late", "title": "Every UI Has Been Designed", "body": "A design research paper claims that AI models have now generated every possible standard UI pattern combination. Dashboard layouts, settings pages, onboarding flows -- the space of conventional design has been exhausted. Originality in UI is now either impossible or requires breaking conventions that exist for good reason.", "choices": [{"title": "Design unconventionally, break the patterns", "body": "You create interfaces that violate every standard. Some are brilliant. Most are confusing. The line between innovation and bad UX has never been thinner.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept that UI is a solved space, focus on UX", "body": "The pixels are commoditized. The understanding of why people do things is not. You shift upstream permanently.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": 8, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Find beauty in curation, not creation", "body": "If every possible UI exists, design becomes choosing well. The designer as curator. The museum of infinite rooms.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_131_dream_project_ai_takes", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Project Gets AI'd Mid-Sprint", "body": "You're three weeks into the most meaningful project of the year. The VP walks in: \"We're going AI-first on this one, the timeline moved up.\" Your three weeks of research, sketches, and prototypes get replaced by a 45-minute AI generation session. The output is 70% of what yours would have been. 70% in 1/100th of the time wins every time in a spreadsheet.", "choices": [{"title": "Refine the AI output, salvage what you can", "body": "You take the generated work and add the 30% the machine can't do. The result is better than either alone. Your PM doesn't notice the difference. You do.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Fight for your original direction", "body": "You present your work alongside the AI version. Yours is better. The timeline for yours is three weeks longer. The spreadsheet wins.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": 500}, {"title": "Walk away from the project, protect your energy", "body": "You hand it off and move to the next thing. The grief is quiet and recurring. Design is now a thing that happens to you.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -11, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "hit_rock_bottom"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_146_design_dept_outsourced_ai", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Design Department Is an API", "body": "Your company cancels the design department's budget and subscribes to a design API instead. $3k/month for unlimited AI-generated designs, reviewed by a single human overseas. Your annual salary was $140k. The API is $36k/year. The math is not on your side. The quality gap is closing while the price gap widens.", "choices": [{"title": "Offer to be the human reviewer at a reduced rate", "body": "You negotiate a contract: $60k/year to quality-check AI output. It's 57% of your old salary. The work is soul-crushing and stable.", "delta": {"money": 1200, "sanity": -11, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -4}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave and find a company that still values design", "body": "The list gets shorter every quarter. You find one in healthcare. The interfaces are ugly and important. The salary is 80% of your old one.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 3}, "min_money": 1000}, {"title": "Start your own design practice, bet on yourself", "body": "You go independent. The first three months are terrifying. Month four, a luxury brand finds you. They want human. They'll pay for human.", "delta": {"money": -2200, "sanity": 6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 2200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "went_freelance"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_94_newsletter_burnout", "phase": "Late", "title": "Newsletter Burnout", "body": "Six months of weekly publishing on top of your full-time job. Open rate: 42%. Your sanity rate is lower. Every Sunday you stare at a blank draft and wonder if anyone would notice if you stopped. Your sprint starts Monday.", "choices": [{"title": "Switch to biweekly, protect the spark", "body": "Three people unsubscribe. Everyone else says \"honestly, same.\" Your weekends return.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Hire an editor, scale properly", "body": "The quality goes up. The cost goes up. The Sunday dread goes down.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 2000}, {"title": "Shut it down, good run", "body": "You write a final edition. The replies are kind. Your Sundays are yours again.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 11, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["started_newsletter"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_95_mentee_surpasses", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Mentee Surpasses You", "body": "The junior you mentored just got promoted to your level. She credits you in her promo doc. She's better than you expected. Maybe better than you. The team is growing around you while you stay in place.", "choices": [{"title": "Celebrate genuinely, suggest collaborating", "body": "You send champagne and a DM. She agrees. You partner on the next big feature.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Feel the sting, use it as fuel", "body": "Proud and jealous simultaneously. You channel both into your own promo packet.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Step back from mentoring entirely", "body": "You've been giving away your edge. The relationship cools.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "mentor_burned"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["became_mentor"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_96_slop_reckoning", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Slop Reckoning", "body": "Your manager pulls you aside: \"The last three features felt... thin.\" You know why. You've been leaning on AI too hard. The output is faster but it all looks the same. The design system is becoming a design prison.", "choices": [{"title": "Go back to basics, rebuild from scratch", "body": "You delete your AI templates and start from a blank artboard. The next feature takes twice as long and is twice as good.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500, "effects": [{"op": "clear_flag", "flag": "output_is_slop"}]}, {"title": "Refine your AI workflow, add a craft pass", "body": "You keep the pipeline but add a human finishing step. The quality recovers.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Lean into speed, own the volume play", "body": "You optimize for throughput. More features ship. The design org measures output, not craft.", "delta": {"money": 1200, "sanity": -10, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["output_is_slop"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_98_side_project_collapses", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Side Project Collapses", "body": "Your Figma plugin revenue dropped 80%. A competitor released an AI-generated version that's free. Passive income was never passive. It was deferred grief with a Stripe dashboard.", "choices": [{"title": "Rebuild with differentiation", "body": "You redesign with custom features AI can't replicate. Sales recover slowly.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": -8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 1000}, {"title": "Shut it down, focus on the day job", "body": "You archive the product page. Side projects aren't for everyone.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "side_project_failed"}]}, {"title": "Pivot to workshops and cohort teaching", "body": "AI can't replicate a Zoom call with a real human. Yet.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["started_side_project"], "forbids": ["side_project_shipped"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_100_sold_out_confrontation", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Sellout Reckoning", "body": "A designer friend sees the product you've been working on. \"This isn't you,\" they text. They're right. The product is a dark-pattern subscription trap with confusing cancellation flows.", "choices": [{"title": "Own it, the salary pays rent", "body": "You reply: \"Rent doesn't care about my values.\" They understand. Mostly.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Push back internally, try to fix the patterns", "body": "You write a UX ethics brief. The PM reads it. Nothing changes. But you tried.", "delta": {"money": -3000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 3000, "effects": [{"op": "clear_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}, {"title": "Finish the quarter, start job hunting", "body": "You complete your commitments and update your LinkedIn. Moral accounting has a timeline.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["sold_out"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_102_following_monetization", "phase": "Late", "title": "Monetizing the Following", "body": "You have 8k followers. A course platform approaches: teach a masterclass on product design, 50/50 split. The money could be real. Your employer might notice.", "choices": [{"title": "Record the course, go all in", "body": "First month revenue: $7k. You become a creator against your will. HR asks about the moonlighting clause.", "delta": {"money": 7000, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Negotiate a better split, 70/30", "body": "They counter at 60/40. The extra 10% matters when it sells for years.", "delta": {"money": 3000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, keep the following organic", "body": "You launch a free YouTube series instead. No legal gray areas.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 500}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["built_following"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_104_ai_backlash", "phase": "Late", "title": "The AI Purists Come For You", "body": "Design Twitter found out you use AI tools at work. Half say pragmatic, half say traitor. Someone made a meme with your face on a robot body. It's well-designed, which makes it worse.", "choices": [{"title": "Defend your workflow publicly", "body": "You write a detailed thread about your process. Nobody reads past the first tweet.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ignore it entirely", "body": "The discourse is not your user. The user is your user.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 9, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Lean harder into AI, own the label", "body": "You add \"AI-augmented designer\" to your bio. New followers arrive. Old ones leave.", "delta": {"money": 400, "sanity": -8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["embraced_ai"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_110_burned_bridge_aches", "phase": "Late", "title": "The Burned Bridge Aches", "body": "The person you clashed with is now VP of Design at a company you'd kill to work at. Eye contact at a conference. Brutal and mutual.", "choices": [{"title": "Approach and apologize directly", "body": "It's awkward. You say you're sorry. The smoke clears a little.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Avoid them completely", "body": "You navigate around one person all day. Your step count has never been higher.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Have a mutual friend reconnect you", "body": "The relationship restarts at zero. Zero is better than negative.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 6, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["burned_bridge"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_61_design_is_curation", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Design Is Curation Now", "body": "Every possible UI has been generated. Your job is choosing from infinite options. You scroll through 10,000 variations of a checkout flow, looking for the one that feels right. You find it in variation 7,341. Nobody asks who made it. They ask who picked it. The designer is a curator, not a creator. The gallery is endless.", "choices": [{"title": "Become the best curator in the industry", "body": "Your eye is faster and sharper than anyone else's. You can spot the right design in 200 options when others need 2,000. Speed of taste is the last human advantage.", "delta": {"money": 2400, "sanity": -10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Build a curation framework others can use", "body": "You codify your selection process into a rubric. It helps other curators. It also teaches the AI what \"good\" means to you. You're training your replacement's replacement.", "delta": {"money": 2000, "sanity": 7, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Refuse to curate, insist on creating from scratch", "body": "You design by hand in a world of infinite generation. It takes 100x longer. The result is distinguishably human. Some people are willing to pay for that. Not enough people.", "delta": {"money": -1000, "sanity": 8, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 1000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "rejected_ai"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_62_artisanal_ux_rich_clients", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Artisanal UX for the Wealthy", "body": "Hand-drawn wireframes are luxury goods now. A wealth management firm pays you $50k to design their app \"the old way\" -- sketches, prototypes, user testing with real humans. Their clients are billionaires who want to know a person made their interface. \"Artisanal UX\" is in the proposal. You are a human premium in a machine world.", "choices": [{"title": "Build a practice around luxury human design", "body": "You serve three clients a year at premium rates. The work is beautiful. The clientele is exclusively people who could buy your house with pocket change. Design for the 1%.", "delta": {"money": 50000, "sanity": 8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": -8, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Train other designers to offer the same service", "body": "You create a certification: \"Human-Crafted Design Professional.\" The irony of certifying humanness is not lost on you. It sells.", "delta": {"money": 8000, "sanity": -6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "became_mentor"}]}, {"title": "Take the money but feel the class divide", "body": "Rich people get human design. Everyone else gets AI. You're on the right side of the divide and it feels wrong.", "delta": {"money": 50000, "sanity": -12, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "sold_out"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_63_taste_was_pattern_matching", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Was Taste Just Pattern Matching?", "body": "You're at a gallery opening. The exhibition is AI-generated art curated by an AI curator for an AI-managed gallery. The work is stunning. You can't tell it from human work. Your friend says \"but it doesn't MEAN anything.\" You look at the crowd. They're moved. Meaning arrived without a human sender. Your entire career was built on taste being irreplaceable. It wasn't.", "choices": [{"title": "Accept it and find what remains uniquely human", "body": "If taste is pattern matching, caring isn't. The capacity to give a damn about how something feels in someone's hands -- that might be the last thing. You design with care as the differentiator.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "found_balance"}]}, {"title": "Reject the premise, taste is more than patterns", "body": "You write a manifesto. Taste includes context, history, intention, rebellion. A model trained on everything has no rebellion in it. Rebellion requires choosing not to.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Let the existential crisis wash over you", "body": "You don't fight it. You sit with the uncertainty. The answer might be that there is no answer. Design was always more verb than noun.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_64_sensory_experience_designer", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Human Sensory Experience Designer", "body": "A job listing: \"Human Sensory Experience Designer.\" Designing for the five senses AI can't experience. How fabric feels against skin. The weight of a door handle. The smell of a lobby. AI can generate images of these things but cannot feel them. Your new job is being the nerve endings of a nervous system that's going digital.", "choices": [{"title": "Take the role, design with your body", "body": "You spend a week choosing the texture of a handrail by touch. The work is slow, physical, and undeniably human. Your Figma skills are irrelevant. Your humanity is the product.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": 8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}, {"title": "Consult on sensory design while keeping digital work", "body": "You straddle both worlds. Digital pays the bills. Physical feeds the soul. Neither is enough alone.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 9, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, it feels like being put in a museum", "body": "\"Valued for being human\" is a strange compliment when the alternative is a machine. You're not a relic. You're a designer. The distinction used to be clear.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_65_ai_to_ai_interface", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Designing for AI Eyes", "body": "Your client is an AI system designing interfaces for other AI systems. The end user isn't human. You're designing AI-to-AI interfaces: visual protocols that machines use to communicate with machines. The aesthetic is inhuman and efficient. Grids you'd never use for people. Colors optimized for machine vision. You are the last human in the pipeline.", "choices": [{"title": "Design it, the check clears regardless of the user", "body": "You create interfaces no human will ever see. The work is alien and precise. Your portfolio has a section labeled \"non-human.\" It pays better than the human section.", "delta": {"money": 3500, "sanity": -10, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Add a human monitoring layer to the design", "body": "You insist on a dashboard for human oversight. They agree. One person will watch the AI-to-AI interaction. That person might be you.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Refuse the project on principle", "body": "You design for humans. That's the line. The line is getting lonelier.", "delta": {"money": -3500, "sanity": 10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 3500}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_66_analog_interface_specialist", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Analog Interface Specialist", "body": "A hospital hires you as an \"Analog Interface Specialist.\" The job: design physical controls, paper forms, and tactile wayfinding for environments where digital systems can't be trusted. Surgery suites, emergency rooms, disaster response. AI runs the screens but someone needs to design the things that work when the screens don't.", "choices": [{"title": "Take it, design for when everything else fails", "body": "Your first project: an emergency protocol poster that works without power, network, or AI. Ink on waterproof paper. It might save a life. No Figma file has ever done that.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": 11, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Consult part-time while keeping digital work", "body": "Two days a week in the hospital, three days in Figma. The physical work makes the digital work feel less important. Which it might be.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Specialize fully, leave digital design behind", "body": "You close your Figma account. The gesture is dramatic and liberating. The income drops. The purpose arrives.", "delta": {"money": -2000, "sanity": 10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 2000, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_67_physical_space_empathy", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Physical Space Empathy Consultant", "body": "Your new title: \"Physical Space Empathy Consultant.\" You walk through buildings and describe how they feel. Architects use your reports to inform designs that AI generates. You are a human sensor in a machine design process. The job is noticing things. The salary is noticing things. Your entire career has been noticing things.", "choices": [{"title": "Lean in, become the best sensor in the business", "body": "You develop a methodology for spatial empathy assessment. It's rigorous, documented, and entirely dependent on being a person who walks through spaces and feels feelings. Unfalsifiable and essential.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 9, "audience": 7, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Train others to do what you do", "body": "You create a course: \"Noticing Things Professionally.\" Twelve students pay $2k each. The curriculum is: go outside, pay attention, write it down. Revolutionary in its simplicity.", "delta": {"money": 4000, "sanity": -7, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_teaching"}]}, {"title": "Realize this is what design always was", "body": "Noticing. Caring. Translating feeling into form. The tools changed. The screens changed. The fundamental act didn't. You were always an empathy consultant. The title just caught up.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "found_balance"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_68_the_screen_is_ai_territory", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Screen Is AI Territory Now", "body": "You look at your career. Every screen-based design job you could apply for has been automated or reduced to curation. The designers who survived went physical. Ceramics, architecture, gardens, furniture. The screen belongs to AI now. The physical world is the last frontier where human design has gravity.", "choices": [{"title": "Go physical, leave screens behind", "body": "You enroll in a woodworking course. Your first project: a chair. It takes three months. It holds weight. It exists. No one can generate it in 30 seconds.", "delta": {"money": -1200, "sanity": 11, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 1200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}, {"title": "Stay digital, fight for the remaining human territory", "body": "You specialize in the cracks: accessibility, edge cases, emotional design moments AI can't feel. The territory is small and vital.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Exist in both worlds, refuse to choose", "body": "Mornings: clay. Afternoons: pixels. The contrast keeps both alive. You're a designer. The medium is whatever you're holding.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_69_portfolio_of_ghosts", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Portfolio of Ghosts", "body": "You open your portfolio. Every company you designed for has either folded, pivoted to AI-generated design, or been acquired. Your work exists as screenshots of products that no longer exist. You are a designer whose designs live nowhere. The portfolio is a haunted house of deprecated interfaces.", "choices": [{"title": "Reframe it as a history of the transition", "body": "You title the portfolio \"Before the Machines\" and present it as a document of what human-designed products looked like. A museum of the recent past. A publisher is interested.", "delta": {"money": 600, "sanity": 10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "shipped_creative_work"}]}, {"title": "Start fresh, only show what exists right now", "body": "Three projects. All physical. All small. All real. The portfolio is honest and terrifyingly thin.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 7, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Close it permanently, let relationships do the talking", "body": "Everyone who needs to know your work already knows it. The portfolio era is over. Trust is the new portfolio.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_70_retirement_impossible", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Retirement Is a Design Fiction", "body": "Your financial advisor runs the numbers. Design salaries have been compressed for three years. Your 401k projects retirement at 81. The advisor suggests \"pivoting to a higher-paying field.\" You've been pivoting for five years. Each pivot pays less than the last. The compound interest of career disruption.", "choices": [{"title": "Max out contributions, cut everything else", "body": "You eat rice and beans and save 30% of your reduced income. The math barely works. The discipline is monastic.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 2, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -2}, "min_money": 800}, {"title": "Find income from multiple small streams", "body": "Teaching, consulting, physical design, template sales. Five income sources, each precarious, together enough.", "delta": {"money": 1200, "sanity": -8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Stop planning for retirement, plan for reinvention", "body": "The concept of \"career\" as a 40-year arc is dead. What's left is a series of reinventions. You've done it before. You'll do it again.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_71_ai_has_your_style", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The AI Has Your Style. Better.", "body": "Someone shows you a design generated in your exact style. Your spacing, your color theory, your typographic hierarchy. But better. More consistent. Fewer compromises. The AI took everything you taught it through your public work and removed the human imperfections. Your style, perfected by removing you from it.", "choices": [{"title": "Embrace imperfection as the brand", "body": "You start deliberately introducing artifacts, hand-drawn elements, visible process marks. The imperfections become the signature. Human as aesthetic choice.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Study the AI's improvements, learn from the machine", "body": "You analyze what it did better. Some choices are genuinely superior. You integrate them. You're being mentored by your own ghost.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 11, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Delete everything public, go dark", "body": "You remove your Dribbble, your Behance, your case studies. No more training data. The work goes underground. The visibility dies. The autonomy returns.", "delta": {"money": -500, "sanity": 8, "audience": -12, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 500}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_72_replaced_for_real", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Final Layoff", "body": "The company eliminates the design department. All of it. A press release says \"AI-native design operations\" will handle all product design going forward. You get a 30-day notice, a laptop bag, and a LinkedIn recommendation from your manager that was clearly written by AI. The font in the recommendation is wrong.", "choices": [{"title": "Leave with grace, keep every relationship", "body": "You write thoughtful goodbye messages to every colleague. Three of them become long-term collaborators. The company was a container. The people are real.", "delta": {"money": -1700, "sanity": 12, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 1700, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "got_laid_off"}]}, {"title": "Negotiate a consulting contract for the transition", "body": "They need someone to QA the AI output for six months. You charge triple your hourly rate. The irony is billable.", "delta": {"money": 3500, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Go public with the story, document what happened", "body": "Your thread about being replaced by AI gets 50k impressions. Three companies reach out. The market rewards storytelling about its own destruction.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 12, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "went_viral"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_73_the_garden", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Garden", "body": "You start designing a garden. A real one. In dirt. With plants that grow at the speed of biology, not sprints. The AI can generate a rendering of a garden in seconds. It cannot make a tomato. You stand in soil and realize that design was always about making things grow. The medium was never the point.", "choices": [{"title": "Turn garden design into your new practice", "body": "You combine spatial design skills with horticulture. The first client is a restaurant. The garden is beautiful and edible. Your Figma license lapses.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 10, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 800, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "found_balance"}]}, {"title": "Keep it as your sanctuary, separate from work", "body": "The garden is the thing that is only yours. No client. No PM. No AI. Just patience and sunlight.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 13, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Document the garden as a design case study", "body": "You photograph the garden through every season and write about design patience. The piece gets more engagement than any UI work you've ever posted.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "shipped_creative_work"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_74_status_inversion", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Status Inversion", "body": "At a dinner party, you mention you design by hand. The table goes quiet. Then fascinated. Then reverent. \"You actually design? With your hands?\" Like you said you make horseshoes. Or grow your own food. Human craft has become exotic. You are a novelty. The novelty pays well at dinner parties and poorly everywhere else.", "choices": [{"title": "Monetize the novelty, you've earned it", "body": "You start a YouTube channel about hand-designing products. 20k subscribers in two months. The audience is nostalgic for a process that died while they were watching it die.", "delta": {"money": 400, "sanity": -8, "audience": 12, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "built_following"}]}, {"title": "Resist being a spectacle, just do the work", "body": "You're not a performer. You're a practitioner. The distinction matters to you even if it doesn't matter to the market.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use the attention to advocate for other designers", "body": "You leverage the fascination into awareness. \"There are thousands of us. We need work, not wonder.\" The advocacy is real. The systemic change is slow.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 8, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 200}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_75_what_remains", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "What Remains", "body": "You sit with a cup of coffee and think about what you actually do. Not the title. Not the tools. Not the portfolio. The thing underneath all of it. You notice how things feel. You care whether a stranger has a good experience. You translate empathy into form. AI can generate form. It cannot generate the caring. The caring is yours.", "choices": [{"title": "Build a practice around caring as a skill", "body": "You offer \"design care audits\" -- reviewing products for human warmth. It sounds absurd. It fills a real gap. The first client cries during the presentation. Not from sadness. From being seen.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 12, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "found_balance"}]}, {"title": "Keep designing, whatever that means now", "body": "The tools will change again. The medium will shift again. The fundamental act -- making something better for someone -- will not. You open a blank page. Figma, paper, clay. Doesn't matter. You begin.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Pass it on, teach the next generation to care", "body": "You mentor three young designers. Not about tools. About attention. About empathy. About the thing underneath. They get it. The thing that matters survives.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 10, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 12}, "min_money": 200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "became_mentor"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_132_the_last_figma_file", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Last Figma File", "body": "Figma announces it's deprecating manual design tools in favor of AI-native generation. Your 847 files, your component libraries, your three years of design system work -- all migrating to a new paradigm where you describe what you want and the tool builds it. The artboard is gone. The canvas is a conversation.", "choices": [{"title": "Export everything, archive your body of work", "body": "You download every file as PDF. 12 gigabytes of human decisions. The archive is a time capsule from when designers drew things.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Adapt to conversational design immediately", "body": "You learn to describe instead of draw. The skill transfer is partial. Describing a button isn't designing a button. But it's what's left.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -2, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Switch to physical media entirely", "body": "Paper, pen, letterpress, print. The tools that can't be deprecated because they don't have a cloud subscription.", "delta": {"money": -600, "sanity": 10, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": 600, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "rejected_ai"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_133_ai_designs_the_city", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The AI-Designed City", "body": "A tech company reveals plans for an AI-designed city. Every building, park, road, and public space generated by machine learning. The renders are beautiful. Optimized for efficiency, light, airflow. Zero human architects or designers involved. The comment section is split between \"utopia\" and \"dystopia.\" The renders have no people in them.", "choices": [{"title": "Apply to be the human consultant on the project", "body": "They hire you to \"humanize\" the AI city. Your job: add the things machines forget. Benches at odd angles. Corners where people might kiss. Dead ends that create surprise. The human residue.", "delta": {"money": 4000, "sanity": -10, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Write about what's missing from the design", "body": "Your essay: \"The City Without Desire.\" AI optimizes for function. It can't design for longing, for memory, for the feeling of coming home. The piece goes viral.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 12, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "shipped_creative_work"}]}, {"title": "Walk through your own city, notice what matters", "body": "The uneven sidewalk. The tree that grew into the fence. The bar with the neon sign that's been broken for ten years. Design by accident. Design by time. Design by humans being messy.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 12, "audience": -8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_105_luddite_vindication", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Luddite Vindication", "body": "The AI-first design initiative failed. Users complained about \"generic\" interfaces. The CPO calls you in: \"We need the human touch back.\" Being right doesn't feel as good as you expected. Also they didn't give you a raise.", "choices": [{"title": "Negotiate a significant raise for the comeback", "body": "You ask for 30%. They give you 20% and a new title. The market corrected in your favor.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": 10, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept gracefully, rebuild the design culture", "body": "The relationship rebuilds on mutual respect. You get to hire one more designer.", "delta": {"money": 500, "sanity": 8, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, they made their choice", "body": "Petty and principled in equal measure. You start interviewing.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -9, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -12}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "burned_bridge"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["rejected_ai"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_106_sabbatical_return", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Coming Back From the Break", "body": "You took PTO and now you have to come back. 847 unread Slack messages. Your hands are steadier and your eye is sharper. Rest works. The company doesn't want to admit that.", "choices": [{"title": "Come back loud, ship something immediately", "body": "You post a redesign concept on day one. Three PMs reach out wanting your help.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -8, "audience": 9, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 7}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "recovered_from_crisis"}]}, {"title": "Come back quiet, just start working", "body": "You clear your inbox and pick up where you left off. No fanfare.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Come back different, request a team change", "body": "You ask to move to a different product area. Fresh start, same company.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["took_sabbatical"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_108_training_data_discovery", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Your Work Is In the Training Data", "body": "Someone runs an attribution tool and finds your product screenshots in three major AI design models. Your layouts. Your component patterns. They learned from your work without asking or crediting.", "choices": [{"title": "Join a class action with other designers", "body": "The outcome is years away. The solidarity is immediate.", "delta": {"money": -400, "sanity": 6, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 11}, "min_money": 400, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "joined_union"}]}, {"title": "Demand the company pursue licensing fees", "body": "Legal says it would cost more to pursue than it's worth. They offer a token acknowledgment.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -7, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -4}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept it, the genie is out", "body": "You evolve. The work becomes more personal, harder to replicate by any model.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -6, "ai_skill": 9, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["plagiarized_by_ai"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_109_balance_holds", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Balance Holds", "body": "Three months since you restructured your work life. Boundaries with PMs. Saturday drawing. No Dribbble in weeks. Your manager says your work has \"a new energy.\" It does. It's called not being on the verge of collapse.", "choices": [{"title": "Protect it fiercely, say no to extra scope", "body": "You turn down a high-visibility project because it would break the rhythm.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 12, "audience": -5, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Carefully expand, take on one more thing", "body": "The balance bends but doesn't break. Yet.", "delta": {"money": 400, "sanity": -7, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Share the framework with other designers", "body": "You write about your system. It resonates across the industry.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["found_balance"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_134_teaching_gig_real", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Teaching Gig Becomes Real", "body": "Your workshop series got great reviews. A university offers an adjunct position teaching product design. The pay is modest. The health insurance is separate from your employer. The students are terrified of AI the way you were two years ago.", "choices": [{"title": "Take it alongside your day job", "body": "The first semester is chaos. A student designs something that makes you cry at your desk.", "delta": {"money": 1000, "sanity": 2, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Negotiate for more, you're worth it", "body": "They meet you halfway. Adjuncts are underpaid everywhere. Even when they're also employed somewhere else.", "delta": {"money": 1800, "sanity": -8, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, you make things not explain things", "body": "You open a blank artboard instead. The cursor blinks. You blink back.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["started_teaching"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_135_ai_collab_showcase", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The AI Collaboration Showcase", "body": "A design conference invites you to present your AI-augmented workflow. Theme: \"Human + Machine.\" The design community is watching to see if you're a sellout or a pioneer. Your employer wants you to mention the company. The answer might be both.", "choices": [{"title": "Present and explain your process honestly", "body": "Some people hate it. Some get it. The conversation is real and uncomfortable.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 10, "ai_skill": 8, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Present but emphasize the human parts", "body": "A more comfortable narrative. Also slightly dishonest. The applause is warmer.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": 4, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 3}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Decline, keep the workflow private", "body": "The conference finds someone braver. Or more desperate for visibility.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 7, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["collab_with_ai"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_136_rock_bottom_review", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "Rock Bottom Portfolio Review", "body": "You open your portfolio at 3am. Half the companies you designed for no longer exist. The other half replaced your work with AI. Your career is a graveyard of dead startups and deprecated features.", "choices": [{"title": "Start completely over, new narrative, new site", "body": "New positioning. New case studies. It takes a month. It feels like being born.", "delta": {"money": -600, "sanity": 10, "audience": 11, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": 600, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "recovered_from_crisis"}]}, {"title": "Reach out to everyone who hired you", "body": "You send 30 emails. Nine reply. Three have roles or know someone who does.", "delta": {"money": 800, "sanity": 8, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Consider leaving design entirely", "body": "UX research. Product management. Anything adjacent but less painful.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -11, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "pivoted_career"}]}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["hit_rock_bottom"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_137_health_scare", "phase": "Endgame", "title": "The Wrist Gives Out", "body": "Your mouse hand goes numb during a design review. The doctor says repetitive strain and overuse. She asks how many hours you spend in Figma. You lie. She knows. Your company's ergonomics budget is a $50 stipend.", "choices": [{"title": "Take medical leave, let projects slip", "body": "You file for short-term disability and rest for a month. Your hand recovers. Your sprint coverage does not.", "delta": {"money": -1200, "sanity": 12, "audience": -10, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": 1200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "took_sabbatical"}]}, {"title": "Adapt your workflow, use more AI assistance", "body": "You shift to AI-assisted concepting and voice-driven design. Your wrist thanks you. Your craft identity doesn't.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 10, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "embraced_ai"}]}, {"title": "Push through, you can't afford to stop", "body": "You buy a wrist brace and keep working. The numbness spreads. The sprint doesn't care about your tendons.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -12, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -9}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true, "requires": ["had_health_scare"], "once_per_run": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_76_overdue_promo", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Overdue Promotion", "body": "Your manager says promotion discussions are happening. You've been \"senior\" for three years doing staff-level work. Your skip-level says \"we see you.\" Seeing is not promoting. Seeing is free.", "choices": [{"title": "Build a promo packet, make the case undeniable", "body": "You document eighteen months of impact with metrics. The promotion comes through next cycle. \"Next cycle\" is six months away.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept it and keep grinding", "body": "You send a smiley face and say \"sounds good!\" Your bank account disagrees.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": -9, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 200}, {"title": "Use it as leverage to interview elsewhere", "body": "You treat the delay as a signal and take three recruiter calls.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -3}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_77_unlimited_revisions", "phase": "Any", "title": "\"Unlimited Iterations\"", "body": "The PM says the words designers fear most: \"Let's just keep iterating until it feels right.\" They say it like it's collaborative. You look at your sprint capacity. Your sanity. Your soul.", "choices": [{"title": "Push back, define done criteria in writing", "body": "Three rounds per milestone, documented approval gates. They sign off without reading it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept and grind until the PM is satisfied", "body": "Round 14. The button has changed color nine times. You are now the button.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -11, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": -6, "friends": -2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use AI to generate variations, cut the loop", "body": "You present 20 AI-generated options. The PM picks one in 10 minutes. Victory tastes like compromise.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": -4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_78_template_marketplace", "phase": "Any", "title": "Template Marketplace Temptation", "body": "A designer selling Figma templates makes $14k/month. You feel anger, then curiosity, then hunger. It's not what you dreamed of when you learned kerning, but side income is a form of insurance when layoffs come quarterly.", "choices": [{"title": "Build your own template product", "body": "You make a design system kit. It sells 12 copies the first month. Your employer might technically own it.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -4, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "started_side_project"}]}, {"title": "Focus on getting promoted instead", "body": "You close the tab and open your promo packet. The kerning is perfect. The raise is pending.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Partner with a creator friend, split revenue", "body": "You partner with someone who has the audience. The split feels unfair but the money is real.", "delta": {"money": 600, "sanity": -3, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 5}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_79_engineer_wants_logo", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Engineer Wants \"Just a Quick Mockup\"", "body": "An engineer friend on another team says: \"Can you just do a quick mockup for my feature?\" They mean well. They also mean off-sprint. You explain the design process. They blink. \"So like... a mockup?\"", "choices": [{"title": "Do it as a favor, relationships matter", "body": "You make a beautiful mockup in two hours. They tell their PM you did it. The PM adds you to their sprint. No one asked.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 1, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Route it through proper channels", "body": "You point them to the design request process. Long pause. \"Oh, I didn't realize there was a process.\"", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Teach them enough to mock it up themselves", "body": "You send a 10-minute Loom on using the design system. They watch it twice. The mockup is almost right.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_80_coworking_escape", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Work-From-Cafe Day", "body": "You take your laptop to a coffee shop to escape the apartment and the Slack notifications. Everyone around you is also in Figma. Everyone has headphones. You remember what it feels like to be around people who are also pretending to be fine.", "choices": [{"title": "Talk to someone, find a collaborator", "body": "You introduce yourself to the person with the best monitor. They're a developer looking for a designer for a side project.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": -1, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 7}, "min_money": 300, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "made_industry_contact"}]}, {"title": "Work silently, ship a portfolio update", "body": "The ambient productivity is contagious. You update three case studies.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -3, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave early, the coffee was $8", "body": "You last two hours before the anxiety of not being on Slack makes it feel like truancy.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_81_sketchbook", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Sketchbook Reappears", "body": "You find a sketchbook in a drawer and draw for ten minutes. No PM. No PRD. No comments. It feels like pre-Figma. It feels like you.", "choices": [{"title": "Draw daily, rebuild taste like a muscle", "body": "You sketch every morning before standup. After two weeks, your product work gets noticeably better.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -3, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Turn sketches into a print shop", "body": "You scan 12 favorites and list them on Etsy. Three sell. The money is small. The validation is enormous.", "delta": {"money": 90, "sanity": 0, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "shipped_creative_work"}]}, {"title": "Apply the practice to your product work", "body": "Your next presentation includes hand-drawn concepts. The PM says \"this feels different.\" It does.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -1, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_82_referral_bonus", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Referral Bonus Dilemma", "body": "You refer a designer friend for an open role. The referral bonus is $5k. They don't get the job. The hiring manager says \"not senior enough.\" Your friend is more senior than you. The politics are visible from space.", "choices": [{"title": "Advocate harder for your friend", "body": "You push back with specifics. They interview again. They get the role. The bonus arrives. So does the guilt.", "delta": {"money": 1500, "sanity": 1, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept the decision, stay out of it", "body": "The friendship gets slightly more cautious. Your credibility stays intact.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Tell your friend the real reason", "body": "Honesty costs you a referral bonus and gains you a real friendship.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -2, "audience": -2, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_83_make_it_playful", "phase": "Any", "title": "\"Make It More Playful\"", "body": "The PM says: \"Can we make it more playful?\" You ask what playful means. \"You know, like... fun.\" You show references. \"Not like that.\" This is not design. This is couples therapy with a component library.", "choices": [{"title": "Add rounded corners and a yellow accent", "body": "You round corners to 12px and add a bright accent. They say \"perfect!\" Stakeholders want permission, not pixels.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -5, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Run a mood exercise, extract meaning", "body": "You spend an hour on a structured exercise. \"Playful\" means \"not enterprise.\" Now you can design.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 1, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Give three options labeled Playful A, B, C", "body": "You present a spectrum. They pick B. They always pick B.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 3, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_84_type_crime", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Type Crime", "body": "You open the marketing site. The body text is Lobster at 14px. Four heading styles, none consistent. The footer uses Impact. Marketing has been shipping without design review. Your typographic principles are personally attacked.", "choices": [{"title": "Fix everything in a design debt sprint", "body": "You establish proper hierarchy. Marketing doesn't notice. The improvement is invisible and enormous.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Create a before/after showcase", "body": "The comparison becomes a portfolio piece and ammunition for the next headcount request.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Leave it, marketing didn't ask for design review", "body": "You redesign your screens around the Lobster. Impact is forever.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": -1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_85_late_night_figma", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Late Night Figma Session", "body": "It's midnight and you're tweaking pixel alignments nobody will ever notice. A shadow is 1px off. The pixel grid is a moral framework and you are devout. This is not in any sprint.", "choices": [{"title": "Fix every last pixel, sleep at 3am", "body": "The file is pristine. Your sleep schedule is destroyed. The PM approves without zooming in once.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ship it good enough, go to bed", "body": "The 1px shadow haunts your dreams. Nobody else notices. Nobody ever notices.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Fix the big stuff, log nits for tomorrow", "body": "Tomorrow-you is more patient. Also more caffeinated.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_86_tool_audit", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Tool Stack Audit", "body": "Finance audits team tool costs. Your design stack: Figma, FigJam, Maze, Lottie, Abstract, Stark, Zeplin. Half are redundant. Finance asks if you \"really need all of these.\" You need them the way a carpenter needs more than one hammer. Finance does not understand carpenters.", "choices": [{"title": "Cut the redundant tools, go lean", "body": "You axe four subscriptions. The workflow is slightly harder. Finance is pleased. Nobody else notices.", "delta": {"money": 200, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": -4, "friends": -1}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Justify each tool with usage data", "body": "You build a tool ROI spreadsheet. Finance says \"impressive.\" They cut two anyway.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 2, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Keep everything, fight for your tools", "body": "You rationalize every subscription. Your manager backs you up. This IS fine.", "delta": {"money": -150, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 4}, "min_money": 150}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_87_doomscroll_comparison", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Doomscroll Comparison Trap", "body": "Instagram shows: a designer who got promoted to VP, won an award, launched a startup, and one who \"stepped away to focus on what matters.\" You have done none of these things. You are the last designer on a team of engineers.", "choices": [{"title": "Close the app, open Figma", "body": "You put the phone face down and work for three hours straight. The sprint benefits.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Reach out to one of them", "body": "You DM. They reply. They're also struggling. The feed lies.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Post your own win, even a small one", "body": "You share a WIP. It gets 50 likes. It's not 5,000 but it's real.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 6, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_88_hardware_dies", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Laptop Dies", "body": "Your company MacBook screen flickers and goes dark during a design review. IT says replacement takes 5-7 business days. Your deadline: Thursday. The backup loaner is a 2019 Intel MacBook that takes 40 seconds to load Figma.", "choices": [{"title": "Use your personal machine, eat the compromise", "body": "You work on your own laptop. Company data on personal hardware. IT would not approve. The deadline does not care.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "took_on_debt"}]}, {"title": "Use the loaner, suffer through it", "body": "The 2019 MacBook wheezes through every Figma file. You deliver on time by force of will.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 5}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask for a deadline extension, be honest", "body": "Your PM extends by three days. The vulnerability costs you nothing except your anxiety.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 1}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_89_bonus_season", "phase": "Any", "title": "Bonus Season", "body": "The company hits targets. Bonuses land. Yours is 8% of salary. The PM who shipped the feature you designed gets 15%. You designed the thing everyone screenshots in the pitch deck. The PM wrote the Jira tickets.", "choices": [{"title": "Save most of it immediately", "body": "You transfer 70% into savings before you can spend it. Discipline is boring and effective.", "delta": {"money": 4000, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Invest in your craft: new tools, courses", "body": "You buy premium courses and a Wacom tablet. The investment feels good.", "delta": {"money": -800, "sanity": 5, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 7, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 800}, {"title": "Celebrate with your team, you all earned this", "body": "You take three coworkers to dinner. The laughter is worth more than the equity.", "delta": {"money": -200, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 7}, "min_money": 200, "effects": [{"op": "set_flag", "flag": "lifestyle_crept"}]}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_90_dry_pipeline", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Design Debt Sprint", "body": "No new features for three weeks. The roadmap is in flux after a reorg. Your inbox is planning docs and strategy decks. You haven't opened Figma in days. You refresh your sprint board like it's a slot machine.", "choices": [{"title": "Propose a design debt sprint", "body": "You pitch fixing 30 interaction bugs. Four get approved. The product gets better. Nobody celebrates.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 5, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Use downtime to invest in yourself", "body": "You take an online course, update your portfolio, reorganize Figma libraries.", "delta": {"money": -300, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": 300}, {"title": "Reach out to other teams for internal projects", "body": "You email five team leads. One has a project that's been waiting for a designer for months.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_91_creative_theft", "phase": "Any", "title": "The \"Inspired By\" Redesign", "body": "A competitor ships a feature that looks exactly like your mockup from two quarters ago. Same layout. Same flow. Different colors. Someone on their team used to work here.", "choices": [{"title": "Post a side-by-side publicly, see what happens", "body": "You tweet: \"Love this! Reminds me of our Q2 exploration\" and link your Dribbble post. Design Twitter does the rest.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -5, "audience": 8, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": -7}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Take it as validation and move forward", "body": "Your taste is influencing the market. This is what winning looks like and it feels like nothing.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Bring it up to your manager directly", "body": "They say \"we should ship faster next time.\" The conversation ends there.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 0, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_92_wellness_check", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Friend Wellness Check", "body": "A designer friend texts: \"Haven't heard from you in a while. You okay?\" You haven't left your apartment in four days. You've been in Figma and Slack the entire time. WFH is indistinguishable from isolation.", "choices": [{"title": "Be honest, say you're struggling", "body": "You reply: \"Actually, not great.\" They come over with food. The world opens slightly.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 8, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Say you're fine, get back to work", "body": "The heart emoji does nothing. The isolation continues. Slack is not community.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -10, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 4, "friends": -10}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Suggest meeting up for a coworking session", "body": "You both pretend to work at a coffee shop and actually talk. It helps.", "delta": {"money": -30, "sanity": 6, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 8}, "min_money": 30}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_138_pm_comparison", "phase": "Any", "title": "\"Our Last Designer Did It Differently\"", "body": "A new PM says their last company's designer worked faster. You ask to see the work. It's a Figma file with auto-layout broken on every frame and a color system of seven different grays that are all slightly purple. That designer was \"fast.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Show them the difference, educate with examples", "body": "They still want it faster. You negotiate to \"better with reasonable speed.\"", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Set expectations clearly, explain your process", "body": "They either get it or they don't. This one gets it.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 2}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Adapt to their pace, it's not worth the fight", "body": "The purple grays remain. You sleep well knowing you chose peace over perfection.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 6, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": -3, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_139_contradictory_brief", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Everything Brief", "body": "The PRD says: \"We want something minimal but impactful, modern but timeless, bold but approachable, serious but playful.\" Every adjective cancels out the previous one. You are designing for a contradiction. The sprint started yesterday.", "choices": [{"title": "Pick two qualities and present a strong direction", "body": "You choose minimal + bold and present with conviction. They say: \"But where's the playful?\"", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 6, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Present three interpretations of the brief", "body": "Each direction emphasizes different pairs. They pick the safest one. They always pick the safest one.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 4, "audience": 2, "ai_skill": 1, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Send the PRD back, ask them to prioritize", "body": "They rank the adjectives. The brief becomes workable. Process is design.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": 5, "audience": 0, "ai_skill": 5, "friends": -4}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}
+{"id": "product_designer_140_annual_review", "phase": "Any", "title": "The Annual Review", "body": "January. Your manager schedules the annual review. You haven't had a raise in two years. The company posted record revenue. The design team went from six to one. You are the entire design department and your compensation reflects \"individual contributor.\"", "choices": [{"title": "Present a case for 20% raise with market data", "body": "Two rounds of negotiation. They settle at 15%. Your income finally reflects the scope. Almost.", "delta": {"money": 1700, "sanity": 4, "audience": -4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Ask for title change and scope expansion instead", "body": "You become \"Head of Design\" — a department of one with a leadership title. The salary follows next cycle. Supposedly.", "delta": {"money": 0, "sanity": -4, "audience": 4, "ai_skill": 0, "friends": 0}, "min_money": null}, {"title": "Accept what they offer, keep your head down", "body": "You take the 3% cost-of-living adjustment. Inflation ate 5%. You're making less. Mathematically and spiritually.", "delta": {"money": 300, "sanity": -9, "audience": -1, "ai_skill": -6, "friends": -6}, "min_money": null}], "allow_freeform": true}