It has been a few months since I uploaded v0.43 and took a short break. Recently I have been adding things for v0.44 which I hope to put out this month.

SOME PLAYER FEEDBACK
One issue that has been on my mind was some negative feedback where a player noticed I was not following certain conventions within existing real world terminals. They felt certain commands should exist, other commands shouldn't and that my game wasn't accurate enough for them.

This kind of criticism also shows up in other hacking games. For example, Hacker Simulator. I was looking through their user reviews and you see people having problems with various "technical" issues. These players may or may not be experts in computer security but feel the simulation needs to be more true to real life. Whether it is syntax, memory discrepancies or how passwords reset.

On the other side of things I was recently told by a non-technical player that they felt developers of hacking games forget they are making a game and as a result all hacking games feel the same and are kind of boring. Basically they sacrifice accessibility, feedback mechanics and other things to make the simulation as realistic as possible.

WHAT TO DO?
I am not trying to make a simulation for real hackers to practice their skills. Those resources already exist. Neither I am looking to make an overly goofy game with too many flashy warning signs. I want to make a game that makes you feel like a hacker for a few hours and have fun doing so. With a balance between the game and simulation aspects.

Everything in the game so far has been put there with this balance in mind whilst also referencing not just movies, tv shows, anime and other pop culture but also real world software both modern and old. I want to mix them with very basic hacking concepts that might allow a non-technical player to pick up the game, have fun and maybe feel some nostalgia if they are old enough.

FOR EXAMPLE
The main hacking challenge in my game is basically running a vulnerability scan, configuring a hack and then executing it within an allotted time to keep things tense.

All the hacking information is brought up in the main window with anything the player doesn't need to focus on grayed out. It is designed to look like something of a .bat file report.

The commands used for hacks all use ":" at the beginning to let players quickly finish them with tab autocomplete. Since all 5 commands have a unique starting letter the player can type ":i + tab" for example and quickly have the command they need. Using ":" may not follow real world conventions but I think this is good design because it is a simple thing for new players to remember and enter commands quicker than they might do otherwise. This can give that cool speed type feeling to the player that you often see hackers in media doing.

CONCLUSION?
In the end I know I can't please everyone. I do appreciate any feedback and will consider technical inaccuracies but there is no percentage or style to simulation to game ratio I can put down so people will know exactly what I am aiming for. I want the game to be accessible, fun and look cool. If that sounds like something you would enjoy that is great and please keep an eye on my game. Have fun.