---
title: Brad Did Something
emoji: 🚀
colorFrom: pink
colorTo: yellow
sdk: docker
app_port: 7860
pinned: false
license: mit
short_description: Argue your way to $1M before the quarter ends
tags:
  - track:wood
  - sponsor:modal
  - achievement:offbrand
  - achievement:llama
  - achievement:fieldnotes
---

# 🚀 Brad Did Something

![Brad Did Something](docs/media/cover.gif)

> *Corporate bureaucracy is already a chaotic simulation — I just replaced middle management with an LLM to see if the company could survive the quarter.*

A 2D top-down **office comedy game** where every line your coworkers say, every
unhinged decision, and every dollar of revenue is **generated live by an LLM**.
You're the new Head of Sales at Veloura Technologies; your five underlings are
enthusiastic, well-meaning, and completely off the rails. Survive **15 workplace
crises** and one fiscal quarter, and hit **$1,000,000** — by literally *arguing
your way there*.

**🎮 [Play it now](https://huggingface.co/spaces/build-small-hackathon/brad-did-something) · ▶️ [Watch the trailer](https://youtu.be/BJSE5WDZvPs)**

![Gameplay](docs/media/gameplay.gif)

## Not just a chatbot in a trenchcoat

- **🧠 The AI is load-bearing.** NPC dialogue isn't decoration — through strict
  JSON-schema validation the model's output *directly drives the game economy*.
  Talk Brad into rescuing a deal and revenue jumps; offend him and the pipeline
  collapses. The server hides the morale & relationship scores, so the model
  moves them without ever seeing (or gaming) them.
- **🎨 Comics on the fly.** Each crisis, the text model writes a scene and a
  second GPU renders a wordless **FLUX.2 [klein] 4B** comic panel that drops over
  the office — the caption is drawn crisp by the UI (FLUX can't spell, so words
  stay out of the image).
- **🕹️ A genuinely custom frontend.** A hand-built HTML5-canvas + DOM pixel-art
  game served through **`gr.Server`** — zero default Gradio widgets, desktop **and**
  touch.
- **⚙️ Small models, tight plumbing.** Qwen3.5-9B (llama.cpp) for text, FLUX.2-
  klein-4B for art, both on Modal GPUs, JSON-grammar-locked with a one-shot retry
  and a fast fallback so a slow call never kills the joke's timing.

📖 **[Read the full build story →](https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/brad-did-something)** — the sub-4B model bake-off, fighting the model's "helpful AI" reflex, and the comic pipeline.

---

## Run it yourself

```bash
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py     # → http://localhost:7860   (mock mode: fully playable, no keys)
```

With no `MODAL_URL` set it uses a template-based offline generator. For the real
AI, deploy the two Modal GPU apps and point the game at them:

```bash
modal deploy modal_app/inference.py   # Qwen3.5-9B text  → MODAL_URL / MODAL_TOKEN
modal deploy modal_app/image.py       # FLUX.2-klein art → FLUX_URL / FLUX_TOKEN
```

On the HF Space these four go in **Settings → Secrets**; locally, `.\run_modal.ps1`
wires them up for you.

## Deploy (HF Docker Space)

Built on **`gr.Server`** so the custom FastAPI frontend *is* the app — HF's
`sdk: gradio` runner only launches a bare `demo`, so the Space runs `sdk: docker`
with a `Dockerfile` that does `uvicorn app:app` on port 7860. Dry-run locally:
`docker build -t bds . && docker run -p 7860:7860 bds`.

## Controls

**WASD/arrows** move · **SPACE** talk / answer / advance comic · **G** gift ·
**1/2** choose · **ENTER** send a typed reply · **ESC** close · **M** mute.
**📱 Mobile:** an on-screen joystick + ACT/GIFT buttons appear automatically, and
tapping the floor walks you there.

## Tests

```bash
pytest tests/                  # unit: validator, economy, events, comic, idle
python tests/smoke_http.py     # full-quarter API playthrough (mock)
python tests/smoke_browser.py  # headless-browser UI smoke
```

---

*Code MIT. Text model: Qwen3.5-9B (Apache-2.0). Image model: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B
(non-commercial — fine for this demo). Built for the Hugging Face **Build Small
Hackathon**, "An Adventure in Thousand Token Wood."*