Play free

A browser game for learning the cloud

Practise the cloud you can't touch, and see exactly why it fails.

A browser game for the exam topics you can't try in a free-tier account: hybrid networking, identity evaluation, data lakes, scaling and incident response. Build the design, send traffic, and watch the request stop at the hop that drops it, with the reason and the exam tip. 168 stages across 6 domains. AWS now; Azure and GCP coming soon.

Play free, no sign-upHow it plays
  • Desktop browser
  • Nothing to install
  • Not affiliated with any cloud vendor
Dock

How to play · 1 of 18

Network build

Place gateways, routes and rules on a VPC, then follow each packet.

Predict, then follow the packet. Before the traffic goes, the dock asks where check 1 will stop; pick a station, or send it anyway. Then Next hop (or Play) walks each packet along the map, and it stops at the first thing that refuses it.

23 stagesPlay a free one

Run

How to play · 2 of 18

Solution board

Drop services into each row's slots, then run records through them.

Run the rows. Running the board sends records along every row, one row at a time. A record stops at the tile that cannot handle it.

58 stagesPlay a free one

Run

How to play · 3 of 18

Edge security

Set the CDN, the web firewall and the bucket in front of an application.

Send traffic. Each request flies from the internet through the edge to the origin, and stops where the edge refuses it.

3 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 4 of 18

Wire

Choose where each connection's encryption starts and ends.

Send traffic. Each check follows one connection and stops where it travels in the clear or meets a certificate its client does not trust.

1 stageHow it plays

Run

How to play · 5 of 18

Lake tuner

Tune a lake's tables until the queries fit their limit and budget.

Run checks. Run checks runs each query and the month's storage against their limits, one row each.

13 stagesPlay a free one

Run

How to play · 6 of 18

Sizing tuner

Size volumes and tables against the Tuner's meters and the bill.

Run checks. Each row runs its workload against what you sized: a volume that is too slow, too small or throttled fails its row.

2 stagesPlay a free one

Components

How to play · 7 of 18

Warehouse

Shape a warehouse's loads and tables so every slice does its share.

Find the warehouse's parts. Components lists the warehouse's parts under In this warehouse: each load, unload and table with its files and format.

3 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 8 of 18

Cost meter

Cut the month's bill line by line without breaking a requirement.

Run checks. Each row is a requirement the cheaper design must still meet: the fleet still fits, the analyst still sees the line items.

1 stageHow it plays

Run

How to play · 9 of 18

Stream clock

Key and size a stream, then play every second of its peak.

Run checks. Run checks plays the clock through the peak; a check fails at the second a shard rejects a write or a record arrives out of order.

5 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 10 of 18

Fleet clock

Choose how a database fails over, then play the outage.

Run checks. Run checks plays the day: the zone is lost at its second, and each requirement reads when writes, reads and connections came back.

6 stagesHow it plays

The scene

How to play · 11 of 18

Alarm clock

Tune metric filters and alarms, then play the day to see who gets paged.

Read the rows. Each row is an alarm chain: a source of events, a metric filter, an alarm, the action it takes. The checks say who must be paged, and how fast.

2 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 12 of 18

Container clock

Set how tasks and nodes scale, then play the morning's load.

Run checks. Run checks plays the morning: requests rise, tasks start, nodes join. A check fails at the second requests go unserved.

1 stageHow it plays

Run

How to play · 13 of 18

Policy stepper

Edit identity, resource and key policies; the matrix shows the gate that decided.

Run the requests. Each check is one request, run through the IAM evaluation order: an explicit deny wins, then each policy type must allow it.

11 stagesPlay a free one

Run

How to play · 14 of 18

Lake access

Grant a governed lake's tables; the matrix shows each principal's cells.

Run checks. Each check is one principal's query. It passes only when the principal gets exactly the cells the requirement names.

5 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 15 of 18

Organization tree

Set controls on an organization's tree and read each account's verdict.

Run checks. Each request runs through the organization's policies first, level by level, then the account's own.

3 stagesHow it plays

Dock

How to play · 16 of 18

Network detective

A network fails: find the cause in flow logs and analyzers.

Send traffic as you find it. Run the checks on the network as it is. The dock asks where check 1 will stop; a guess is optional. A failed check says only what the client saw: a timeout, a refused connection.

4 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 17 of 18

Evidence desk

Each ticket is the reporter's words: find its cause in the evidence.

Run the checks. Each failed check is a ticket in the reporter's words: slow on the 30th, 503 on uploads, a backup that failed.

22 stagesHow it plays

Run

How to play · 18 of 18

Runbook

Order the response steps, run the runbook and read the timeline.

Run the runbook. Run the runbook plays the steps in order; each one lights the resource it acts on.

5 stagesHow it plays

Watch it fail

Packets, requests and jobs stop at the exact hop that drops them, with the reason and the exam tip. You see why, not just that it is wrong.

Built from the docs

A deterministic simulator written from the cloud's own documentation, with the sources on every stage. Nothing is graded by AI.

Free to start

7 stages free without an account. Then $25 a domain or $10 to $30 a certification path, yours for good.

Six domains of scenarios

Each domain is a campaign of worlds, from associate to specialty difficulty. Hours are the game's estimate of a first attempt, 15 to 40 minutes a stage by difficulty, until it has measured them.

CloudAWSAzure · coming soonGCP · coming soon
5 worlds · 24 stages

Networking

VPCs, hybrid connectivity, enterprise routing, inspection and troubleshooting.

~11.5 h · $252 of 24 free5 worlds · 30 stages

AI and machine learning

Build, train, secure and run AI on Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker AI.

~12 h · $251 of 30 free6 worlds · 36 stages

Data engineering

Lakes, pipelines, streams, data movement, governance, warehouses, data quality and troubleshooting.

~14.5 h · $251 of 36 free6 worlds · 36 stages

Security

Identity, organizations, keys and secrets, the edge, and detection.

~18.5 h · $251 of 36 free6 worlds · 36 stages

Core architecture

Storage, databases, scaling out, containers, decoupling, and server migration: the 7 Rs, Application Migration Service, Application Discovery Service and Migration Hub.

~16 h · $251 of 36 free1 world · 6 stages

Operations and delivery

Observability, automation, stacks, delivery pipelines and recovery.

~2.5 h · $251 of 6 free

Study for an exam

A certification path is every stage its exam guide covers, in study order, across domains. Each stage names the guide section it practises.

SAA-C03Associate

Solutions Architect - Associate

60 stages · ~25.5 h$15 · exam $1505 of 60 stages freeSOA-C03Associate

CloudOps Engineer - Associate

32 stages · ~14.5 h$15 · exam $1505 of 32 stages freeDEA-C01Associate

Data Engineer - Associate

56 stages · ~23 h$15 · exam $1502 of 56 stages freeDVA-C02Associate

Developer - Associate

16 stages · ~6.5 h$15 · exam $1501 of 16 stages freeSAP-C02Professional

Solutions Architect - Professional

70 stages · ~32 h$30 · exam $3001 of 70 stages freeDOP-C02Professional

DevOps Engineer - Professional

27 stages · ~12.5 h$30 · exam $3001 of 27 stages freeSCS-C03Specialty

Security - Specialty

63 stages · ~31 h$30 · exam $3002 of 63 stages freeAIF-C01Foundational

AI Practitioner

18 stages · ~7 h$10 · exam $1001 of 18 stages freeMLA-C02Associate

Machine Learning Engineer - Associate

40 stages · ~16 h$15 · exam $1502 of 40 stages freeAIP-C01Professional

Generative AI Developer - Professional

35 stages · ~14.5 h$30 · exam $3001 of 35 stages free

Pay once for what you study

No subscription, no bundles. Regional prices show at checkout.

Free
7 stages, no account
$25
a domain, every world to come
$10 to $30
a certification path, by exam fee
See pricing

Questions people ask first

Do I need an account to play?

No. 7 stages play free without one. An account keeps your progress on every device, and you need one to buy. More

Does it work on a phone?

The game needs a desktop or laptop browser: the stages are built on a screen-sized scene. This site reads fine on a phone; open the game on a computer. More

What does it cost?

$25 for a domain, or $10 to $30 for a certification path, set by the exam's fee. One-off, yours for good, no subscription. More

Can I get my money back?

Yes, within 14 days, no questions asked, while you have cleared fewer than 20% of what you bought. More

Is it made by a cloud vendor?

No. Tracesleuth is independent, and not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon, Microsoft or Google. Every stage is written from the vendor's public documentation. More

Start with Open for Business

World 1, stage 1: Internet gateways, route tables, and what really makes a subnet public.

Play it freeSee every stage