# LADDER: Corporate Deckbuilder — Roguelike Card Battler RPG

> Roguelike Card Battler RPG (iPhone/iPad app by Baran Kucukguzel.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ladder-corporate-deckbuilder/id6797046665 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Baran Kucukguzel](https://appshunter.io/developer/6797046667)
- Category: Games, Card, Strategy
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 15.1 · 121 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-08-12
- Data updated: 2026-09-11
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ladder-corporate-deckbuilder/id6797046665/reviews.md

## What is LADDER?

It's 2026. Every engineer works alongside AI agents, every PM promises an AI-native future, and "just use Claude" is both a solution and a curse.

LADDER is a roguelike deckbuilder about the job.

You start at L3. You draft a deck out of the things people actually do at work: pairing sessions, design docs, one-on-ones, and the shortcut you will regret in two sprints. You fight the things that actually stop work: scope creep, spec ghosts, the reorg. A run pauses whenever real work interrupts, and resumes right where you left off.

THE SATIRE IS IN THE RULES

AI-leveraged cards genuinely are faster. Delegate the ticket and it ships by lunch. The card that writes itself costs you one Tech Debt, and Tech Debt is a real resource that really comes due. Nothing here is flavor text pretending to be a mechanic. The shortcuts work, and then the bill arrives.

FOUR CAREERS, ONE COMPANY

LADDER is free to install, and the Engineer's first two levels cost nothing. The Engineering Manager and the Product Manager each let you play their opening level before you decide. The CEO is a paid role from the start.

Each role is a one-time purchase with its own resources, its own enemies, and its own way to win. The EM balances AI Literacy against Politics. The PM races a roadmap clock against stakeholder trust. The CEO does not climb at all, because she is already at the top: her ladder is time, and each tier is another fiscal year she has to survive.

All four work at the same company in the same fiscal year. An event you live through as an Engineer is one you caused as a CEO.

WHAT YOU GET

- Over 600 cards across four characters
- Over 380 enemies, from the daily standup to the board room
- Over 220 workplace events, most of which have no good option
- Over 150 relics, several of which are just bad habits
- An AI companion who comments on your run, and occasionally on you

No ads. No gacha. No timers on your run. Portrait, one-handed, and the game itself plays offline. The AI companion is the one part that needs a connection: it runs on a daily allowance of Cognits that refills each day, with optional top-ups and a monthly plan if you want more of it.

LADDER is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic, OpenAI, or any AI vendor named or parodied within it.

Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Privacy Policy: https://laddergame.ai/privacy

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cognit+ | $4.99 | per month |

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The Engineer's Climb | $4.99 | one-time |
| Product Manager | $5.99 | one-time |
| Engineering Manager | $5.99 | one-time |
| CEO | $7.99 | one-time |
| Org Chart Bundle | $14.99 | one-time |
| Coffee Money | $0.99 | one-time |
| The Productivity Pack | $2.99 | one-time |
| Tokenmaxxer Bundle | $6.99 | one-time |
| Series A Whale | $19.99 | one-time |



## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.0.5 — 2026-08-27

Fixes the freeze on the Daily Reward.

Tapping through the daily grant could leave the app unresponsive. It was a timing race between one dialog closing and the next one opening, and it is fixed.

Thanks to everyone who reported it.

### 1.0.4 — 2026-08-21

The Daily is here.

- One seeded run a day, the same for everyone, with a mutator that bends the rules. You get a grade against a par, a streak, and a card worth sharing.
- Mutators now spell out exactly what they change, right on the card.
- Two-stage report plays were understating their risk. They showed 11% when the real end-to-end chance of the play producing nothing was 21%. The picker shows the honest number now, and every misfire tells you which roll failed.
- Effects that fire only once per combat say so, and tell you when they have already gone off.
- Balance pass across the roster: Engineering Manager levels 3 to 6 retuned, the CEO best endings reachable again, and the acquisition archetypes given a real strategic-bet path.
- If you have daily notifications on, some days that nudge is the Daily.

### 1.0.3 — 2026-08-18

Fights have a clock now.

- Every regular enemy escalates the longer an encounter runs, so sitting in a stalled fight stops being safe. Tuned per character across the whole roster.
- Card faces now show every effect they actually have, as chips you can read at a glance. Conditional effects are no longer counted in with the unconditional ones, so what a card says matches what it does.
- Color carries meaning now: damage, healing and interception read differently across cards, banners and the ledger.
- A card you are holding no longer clips at the top of the hand.
- Momentum free-play is legible on every character, and a delegated report attack now shows feedback when it lands.

### 1.0.2 — 2026-08-15

Bit can now check in on you.

- Daily notification, if you want it: one message a day from Bit in the evening, in your own timezone. Opt in when the game offers, and turn it on or off any time in Settings.
- Bit's replies are less likely to get cut off mid-thought.
- Settings now reports the version you are actually running, which makes bug reports much easier to act on.

Still no ads, no gacha, no timers on your run, and the game itself plays offline.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-08-12

Version 1.0.1 is a readability and accessibility pass, plus the fixes you would expect the day after a launch.

- Card text now fits and scales properly at larger Dynamic Type sizes, across all four characters
- A card you cannot play now spells out exactly what is blocking it
- End-of-run promotion levels and career progression on the run-end screens are correct
- VoiceOver focus behaves properly in dialogs
- Reward toasts no longer interrupt full-screen moments
- Your Cognit balance updates immediately after a purchase
- Bit's replies are cleaner and better grounded in how the game actually works

Thanks for playing. Tell us what breaks.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-11.*