Hack The Planet! Hacknet Coming In August
Terminal-based hacking
I dig games which turn your screen into another computer, hauling you into their fiction. TIS-100, Digital: A Love Story, Her Story, and so on are grand and all but, like anyone with blue hair and a leather jacket who grew up in the nineties, what I really want is to hack the planet. Uplink and its admirers are grand, but I need more.
I'm really digging the look of Hacknet [official site], an upcoming terminal-based hack 'em up which uses real-ish techniques and will have us typing in terminal commands ourselves. Cracking! Slip on your fingerless leather gloves (studs optional but preferred) for a peek in its trailer:
Hacknet has its own hacking techniques and terminal commands for would-be-super wizard class hackers to master, but one-man team Team Fractal Alligator say it won't hold your hand. They say it uses "real hacking processes" that are "based on actual UNIX commands", which look like they ape actual hacking techniques but use fictional code and tools so you won't actually learn how to hack the gibson.
You will have a little help, mind. The plot is that a swanky hacker has died and their dead man's switch activates, sending their suite of hacking tools and instructions out to you, asking you to find out what happened. You'll be breaking into servers, digging into e-mails, and generally going wherever you please, as it's a bit freeform and branching. That all sounds splendid.
Hacknet is due on August 12th, priced at $9.99.