Playing as I find time, currently I've upgraded my system to Tier 3 and need to automate the process of cracking higher level locks. I'm a programmer by day (but not Javascript....eww!) so that part of the game sort of appeals. Although the possible locks are fixed by the game so there isn't much of a variety there (it wouldn't be feasible to let people write their own locks since it would be easy to make a nigh-uncrackable one...unless alternative mechanisms like revealing script source get added).
Overall this game is a cool idea but right now it is very limited. And the basic system actually makes no sense from the perspective of the real world (why does "executing" an npc loc give you money? what does "hardline" even mean? why would "scripts" be a limited & discrete resource that you have to find / buy? is there not a way to breach & impersonate another user --- which is basically the go-to strategy of hackers?). Or even at a basic level, the CLI of passing parameters via JSON is really quite bonkers.
The tutorial was pretty cool and dramatic (even there it seemed like there was some inconsistency, like at least once I saw access log without having the required script...why did that work?). Though once you finish that there is a bit of a vacuum; you can figure out how to get some money from the lowest level npcs and upgrade your system, but it's not clear what there is to do other than that. Of course you can write scripts and charge people for using them (or try to trick them into running malicious scripts). Maybe something more opens up as you get further in the game.
@rocketblast0063:
- you can trick other players to run a script that transfer money to you. What do I need money for?
Money (GC) is basically the "score". You use it to level-up your system (enables access to more functions & upgrade slots), buy upgrades (e.g. more scripts, more characters for scripts, more locks protecting your account), and even use scripts published by others (unless they were nice and made them free). Right now the only overall goal I know of in the game is "become able to hack the highest level npc", but I'm nowhere near even wanting to try that (from my perspective, it seems like there's a huge gap of knowledge between me and that, so hopefully I just haven't looked in the right place yet).
- Other than stealing money from others, what to do in the game? Just chatting?
Most people are getting money from npcs, which are basically small puzzles (unfortunately, there is not a huge variety). Then there is a mini-industry around writing scripts to help others do that, as well as just to do cool things in the game (e.g. "dtr" created a whole manpage system, you could write your own text adventure, stuff like that). It is largely a scripting sandbox.
- What's money used for (other than getting rich)? Like buying and configuring proxies? Setting up network services that can run 24/7 (or penetrating/taking down) others? Bribing people to delete logs?
Unfortunately none of those things are possible right now. The closest is posting bounties for other people to do tasks, though deleting logs is not a thing in this game (which gets to my earlier point of unrealism...deleting the logs is hacking 101!). I'd hope that in future it would be possible to spend GC to create fake accounts or something like that.
- Nuanced and engaging storyline - It's just in the tutorial right? I'm not that interested in a good story in a game like this.
AFAICT yes. There is flavor text in the NPCs but that's about it (and it's very repetitive). Though there might be some deeper story that I just haven't found yet.
- Retro-futuristic text-based computing visuals - Cool, even though I wouldn't mind a simple secure shell.
This game would be amazing if I could just use PuTTY to talk to it.
- 90s film style ‘hacking mode’ - ok, why not.
Gets old :( this mode doesn't make much sense to me. Activating "hardline" doesn't seem to actually do anything...if it was a 90s film, this is what would trigger the FBI getting on to you.
- Immersive soundtrack - sweet.
I like it generally. Though you'll eventually end up playing your own songs instead.
- Persistent and constantly-evolving game world with user created content - Like what? Money stealing scripts?
Pretty much anything you can do in Javascript emitting to a terminal, with the limitation that your script has to be reinitialized for each user interaction (i.e. you can't prompt for input within a script). There's local db access to save state.
However this aspect of the game is very undirected. One significant segment is scripts to help get money from NPCs, another is scripts trying to trick other players into exposing themselves to attack. But there seem to be a ton of scripts that aren't really related to any particular game goal.
- Global game economy - Nice, but what to do with it?
A big question mark for me too. So far there is a leaderboard.
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