IC Forum Archive

internisus · Posts: 961

I want to make a cracking game. That's like hacking but more illegal if you don't know. What I have in mind is something that marries the features of Uplink and some of those of Street Hacker while offering more robust, emergent, and narrative gameplay. It would be better than any existing game of its genre, and when it's done we can sell it online or maybe even get it distributed via Steam.

If you want to read some quick thoughts on the above two games, there's a thread here. Just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

I will handle design, in-game and documentation writing, and project management, starting with the writing of a design document. But first, I need to get some people on board. These people have to be skilled and committed people! These people can be you! Basically, assuming that I myself have zero practical skills for coding or otherwise developing a game outside of the theoretical arena (where I make up for this with an excess of talent, to be sure), I need to have all of the skills covered by these skilled and committed people to create everything you see in Uplink. That's the base minimum for skill coverage.

That's not to say that we're going to recreate Uplink, people! Not at all! Uplink is Very Disappointing even though it's kind of awesome; that's why we're going to top the shit out of it! This is for realz!

The spirit of this project is to be open and conversative, not cold and compartmentalized! I do not know if it would be better to create such a game from scratch or to use some form of game making software. I am open to suggestions from applicants as well as non-applicants, and I hope such suggestions will consider any necessary differences in distribution and sales strategies that would result from one or another platform base.

So, with introductions complete, we need someone who can CODE. This person is capable of creating a core gameplay system handling all of the features you see in Uplink as well as a robust fake file tree system like you see in Street Hacker. This person is also capable of creating a complex emergent event system that alters the pace of the game's unfolding and very open narrative according to the player's accomplishments. Naturally, the coder must also be proficient in coordinating with an artist for seamless interaction between the game and its graphics and sound.

We need a GRAPHICS person! This person can create a gloriously kewl and darkly stylized graphic interface from which the game will be played! If you could make Uplink's visuals and animations as well as properly sync them with the coder's activities then you should be pretty okay! Please let me know!

A SOUND and MUSIC person would be fabulous as well! I think the music and sound design in Uplink is pretty okay and a good benchmark for what I have in mind. Oh, come to think of it, I know a guy who does awesome and possibly very appropriate music, so I'm not sure how much we need to worry about this position right now. Applicants will nonetheless be considered!

Some sort of previous work shown for all positions would be nice, but you can also just talk about how awesome you are if for some reason you can't produce a portfolio. Hell; I can't.

I know everyone is wondering, considering the number of times I've mentioned the Introversion game, just how this project is different from Uplink, anyway. I assure you, it is very! As I write design I will update with specifics, but, as I mentioned, you can read the thread linked above for some idea.

internisus · Posts: 961

For reference, here are wikipedia's images for Uplink: 1; 2

What this project would entail is only a little more complex than from an aesthetic point of view. There are a number of clean animations within that interface, the most demanding of which is probably the cypher matrix, which features a bunch of random alphanumeric characters cycling over a colored rectangle, and as you decypher the rectangle changes color in a straightforward sweep from one border to its opposite while rows of characters stop cycling in sequence. I don't particularly like the device, so we probably wouldn't be doing that, but I only mean to give you an idea of the most complex in-game animation.

oligophagy · Posts: 110

internisus wrote:

This person is also capable of creating a complex emergent event system that alters the pace of the game's unfolding and very open narrative according to the player's accomplishments.

Um, what. That could be straightforward or a huge epic research project that eats up your life for fifteen years and is never ever finished. You should maybe reveal more?

ALSO: This is something I'm just curious about, no judgment implied. People with wonderful game ideas looking for programmers isn't an internet rarity. Why don't they -- here, you -- learn to program themselves? The proficiency needed to make shit really isn't that hard to acquire!

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

Guardian is doing what every eleven-year-old has done on the Internet since antiquity; the only problem is he's gone into the various phases of obsessions and brilliant "unique" ideas about ten years and one college education too late.

internisus · Posts: 961

ROFL! LegotoB, you're so internetclever, yet still discerning about where you post it! Marry me!

Maybe I will learn to code and do graphic work myself for this project. But I would rather work with others who have prior experience and consider their skill a specialty, an investment, and a personal priority.

oligophagy, you'll find some preliminary parameter thoughts regarding potentially complex emergance in gameplay in the chat below. I, too, was worried about how complex this would be, but now I think it will be a series of carefully interwoven simple tasks. The entire game might be like that, to tell the truth. On second thought, fuck all y'all; I'm gonna code it myself.

No, not really. Anyway, Maztorre has signed onto the project as a scenario writer and local designer. We'll be working closely in a very back-and-forth fashion. I'm going to do global design, which he'll turn into specifics, describing how things fit together in more focused detail while innovating on that level. In the opposite direction in terms of scope, he'll be coming up with the majority of the game's fictional meat, which I'll implement as in-game text.

Some things I'd like to clarify! First, the reason why we are doing this project is first-and-foremost that we want to be able to play it. I want to make the greatest damned hacking game because I want to play the greatest damned hacking game. Secondly, I really think that, if we get some serious people together and work long and hard on a very fine-tuned and ambitious project, we'll wind up with something highly noteworthy, giving us all legs up in the industry. In addition, it seems to me that the final product will most likely be very marketable, and, though I have no intention of making promises here, the game could yield serious financial return, in which case every participant would split the profits.

I also want to reiterate that everyone is welcome to continually discuss design and stuff, no matter what "department" they represent. This can be a very open project, but I've needed to speak of potential recruits as THE CODER or THE ARTIST because of the skillset we need. It's not going to be like that. We'll all have lots of ideas to bring to the table, but at the same time we'll all have our distinct roles when it comes to specific tasks for implementing those ideas. Hell, it's because of those distinct roles that we'll all have such different perspectives with which to discuss those ideas! So that's the spirit of the thing.

Maztorre and I have already spent a couple hours just excitedly talking about ideas for the game. I'm going to try to distill or at least segment some of that for interested parties:

Maztorre
so where the hell are you going with this idea of yours

internisus
what do you mean?

Maztorre
whats the hook
what seperates it from uplink

internisus
if you played Uplink like I told you and saw how disappointing it was you would know!
For one thing, right, the entire game occurs within this GUI and terminal console with intimations of an outside world via newly available soft- and hardware, news postings, email, job listings, and the availability of servers for you to hax0rz
Don't you think some interesting shit could be done with such an abstract representation of a world?
Imagine that you spent your entire life at your computer.
Everything you know of the outside world is gleaned through your computing.
First of all, you've got a weird view of the world. More interestingly, what does it look like to you when THINGS HAPPEN?
For one thing, there's the impersonal nature of it all combined with the ripple effect of information spreading that would make everything seem cold but bigger than it really is. Plus, in the hacking game, those THINGS THAT HAPPEN are also computer-based, so they have the potential to impact the very fabric of the world you inhabit!

Maztorre
dont know if this was done in uplink
but say you start doing missions for a certain group
it could lead to actual terrorist attacks that you read about on news postings
further than that
if say london got bombed at the main network exchange
the entire UK and western europe would be blacked out of the internet for a while
so you would have an entire "route" closed off
through your own choice of clientele

internisus
and what would happen to your email contacts out there?

Maztorre
some of them could actually be killed
some would disappear for an undisclosed period
you would hear about arrests and start matching faces to names

internisus
and you would actually care
especially if some of the not-dead ones manage to get a message to you telling you what's happening -- oh and TOM DIED

Maztorre
so in a more complex system there is a long-term possibility of being found out by the police
say you leave too much of a trail by doing too many missions for a certain group that you aren't really getting positive feedback from
it would be advisible to cut your ties
and remain impersonal rather than becomign to involved

internisus
and make them your target.
remaining freelance.

Maztorre
being trained to be impersonal?

internisus
see, i was thinking the game could start with you sort of in-narrative being trained by a corporation like the Uplink Corp. in that game.
but as time goes on (and you become capable of leaving the tutorial nest), the jobs you take open a rift between you and your employer.
the choices and pace of the player determines in what way and speed he moves towards a more freelance structure.
He develops contacts outside the job bulletin board.
He takes on missions that haven't been approved by the parent corp.

Maztorre
yeah you could set that up through an IM client interface
the IM listing could be divided by faction

internisus
Yes, you could have IMs with standard dialogue tree stuff.

Maztorre
actually you could just have a y/n prompt
a dialogue tree is a bit much for the purpose don't you think?
well, i think if the player is trying to remain impersonal
the y/n thing is pretty good for that kind of thing since it has that kind of IM/hacker speak style
every assignment will simply end with y/n
it also means you can be vague where you want to be in the mission briefing without the player being frustrated at not being able to ask why or how

internisus
It depends.
It could be, but it depends on what you really want to do with it.
It would be a neat solution to have a stipulation of mission funders be that contact with you remain simply y/n.
That way, you can't ask unwanted questions, for example.
But, on the other hand, it could be extremely cool to have the opportunity to get additional intel when your employer briefs you.

Maztorre
well the client in that circumstance could be providing additional assistance depending on your progress with them (the size of your IM list)

internisus
It would be supercool if you had to manually organize your IM list as you saw fit -- you can create folders to help you organize your contacts into friendly / less friendly or according to larger regional groups or even whatever secret organizations they belong to.
I really wanted Uplink to have more real computer applications, and I really like some of the realism in Street Hacker. I'd like to see a simple Notepad application that you can keep open, for instance.
Street Hacker has some more realistic computer stuff that makes the idea that you're using YOUR desktop more believable. I'm into that.

internisus
Here's something you'll like.
Let's say your computer becomes infected with a virus, or someone else is hacking your system and launches a script that disrupts your input/output for a time. Now, tell me, how could such things be expressed to the player? How about intentionally glitching the interface graphics?
You like that shit, son?

Maztorre
how about even causing a crash

internisus
How about BIG RED LETTERS across your screen

Maztorre
make the system fall back to a reboot and do a fake startup with a fake OS

internisus
yes!
yes!
that's awesome!

Maztorre
or...haha...make the hard drive fail during that boot
give the player a scare
then have it boot again fine

internisus
when you first start Uplink it does some cool stuff like pretending to load your fake GUI.
But it never follows through. See, we could follow the fuck through.

Maztorre
one thing I was thinking of was that you could have a very faint reflection in the monitor

internisus
oho!

Maztorre
like over time you would see envelopes piling up in the reflection on-screen
coffee cups, etc
never show the players face directly but maybe the bottom of his mouth and chin
put some facial hair on over time

internisus
If you get busted you see the cops break in the door!
And you watch yourself get taken away and then you can't input anything anymore
The cursor blinks

internisus
See, there's a ton of stuff we could do with a hacking game, and we haven't even talked about stuff on a fundamental level. We've just been running with it. In the nitty-gritty it could be incredible and so much more fine-tuned than the mediocre stuff already out there in the genre.

Maztorre
will the game have music? i think if possible there should be an mp3 player you can boot from the UI
like an in-built basic mp3 player if someone could code it

internisus
there definitely would be!
Street Hacker has a Jukebox program.

Maztorre
awesome.

internisus
Right,I would want lots of realistic in-game apps
an mp3 player included.

Maztorre
calculator

internisus
ideally one could use mp3s from outside of the game if one chose to

Maztorre
keep it focused so we can design all the UI elements specifically

Maztorre
I've also been thinking that from a pure coding perspective this shouldn't be overly difficult
your standing amongst factions would be as simple as an experience meter per faction that gets raised and decreased to differing amounts depending on your actions
none of this would be visible tothe player of course
but it would be a simple method of "unlocking" paths and closing off others
the major news events would then cause dramatic twists on those meter values
your suspicion would then be an overall chart of your actions and whether you were detected in any way

internisus
that makes sense. it's a straightforward means for implementation.
However
the stuff that I'm concerned from a programming point of view isn't that
I think the really hard work would be in two areas: 1) the GUI and its applications as well as the file structure and OS systems; 2) procedural scripting that determines how the game plays out according to how the player plays it. You know, emergance and all that.

Maztorre
emergence realy would be a set of parameters that are flagged as you trip them
unique situations would then be fostered out of combinations of flags you trip
for example you could determine if a player is a high stakes sort of player by how eagerly they attempt difficult missions
so say a player at the start of the game is level 1 (this is an abstraction, the player is not aware of levelling up or anything)
and he attempts a level 5 mission
you could have something as simple as the "high stakes" flag being a numerical value
the game would subtract the players level from the mission level
in this ecase 5-1=4
and add that to the flag
divide that number by the number of missions he has attempted
and you have a value that indicates how often he aims high
thus spawning more tempting scenarios for a gamlbing-type player
something that appeals to that mindset
maybe a major fraud of a casino

internisus
But would you do away with all scenarios of a level too far?
from his value
because in Uplink you only see like 3 out of the 15 available mission types at any one time, and as you move up in the imaginary difficulty tree the 3 shift up the 15. You can almost see it.

Maztorre
they would pop back up again when the player "calms down" or takes a bad hit from a failed mission
if the player starts drawing attention he may fall back on more reliable easy missions
the high stakes value would decrease over time since the number of missions would be incrementing higher than the gap in difficulty

internisus
That's another difference we will have between this and existing hacking games -- the possibility of failing a mission for reason other than missing its deadline.
We'll have to come up with ideas about how that will work.
and not failed in the sense as you are tracked and caught. Not just that.
That's extreme.
More likely later in the game when other hackers are tracking you down, for instance.

Maztorre
it could be something like failing to setup a data transfer on time for the client who is on the ground
in the case of scamming an ATM
you would need to hit a sweet spot
where the guy is at the ATM ready to take the money

internisus
"hit a sweet spot"?
you mean in timing?

Maztorre
a timer
yes

internisus
what about something within the hacking job itself -- i mean, within your manipulations of the target system?
like, when you hack into a corporate server, maybe an admin could monitor your actions if you don't properly camouflage yourself or distract him
and he'll move a file you're supposed to delete off-server?
then you fail.

Maztorre
yeah
that would work

internisus
The game ought to have a very freeform structure, but it should be capable of developing narrative both 1) through the naturally emerging "clumping" of freeform work and 2) through set piece narrative nodes. The difference between the two should NOT be obvious to the player! It's important that there is such a sheer quantity of forms that jobs and general gameplay can take, and such a variety of writing and basic content, that the player never feels "this stuff was all generic mission play, but this thing here is obviously story mission #2"

internisus
Also something I had thought about earlier a lot was reputation,
i want the player to organically develop contacts as he moves away from the parent hacking corporation towards freelancing. It should be a natural development, and I want the growth of contacts to both quantitatively and qualitatively result from "reputation" -- from the work you do.
And contacts should not be generic. There could be a base of generic corporate agents -- middlemen communicating missions to you -- but I want a lot of special guys, especially as you gain reknown.
I want everything about the game to be organic. Also I want there to be a certain amount of complexity required in making contact with people.

internisus
Every viable step in using your computer that involves your profession, such as using IM to contact someone about a job, should be detailed and complex. You should have to activate some kind of protocol that renders IM contact anonymous, for instance. If you don't, your contact could double-cross you. These detailed yet mundane operations can even involve multiple steps and smaller scripts, and the player's OS allows him to create macros of whatever complexity he wishes. However, no automated programs are sold. If the player wants to simplify routine tasks, he has to create his own script from terminal code.

Maztorre
yeah something i was thinking about was being completely anonymous or leaving an untraceable signature of sorts
as in you could be completely unknown or you could make a name for yourself among the hacking community itself
so say you're on a timer-based mission with seconds to spare, do you go to the bother of attaching your signature
or do you just throw the code out there and nobody could directly tell which hacker did it

internisus
oh wow
I didn't even think about signatures
that's great
that's really, really great
you're great!!!
i luv u

Maztorre
It would basically be a stylistic flourish
and its also something that would never have been used i nthe training

internisus
it's a good idea! and the player could actually design his own signature!
like creating a stamp or grafiti in another game

Maztorre
yeah maybe give them a 16x16 tile to draw something

internisus
so it would be a graphic you leave behind? i was thinking like a text string identifying you
like, for example, when professionals fabricate audio files, they leave a non-audio string of code that's called a marker to identify themselves as the manufacturer

Maztorre
that too
maybe both!
you could change it whenever you want and people will think there are two of you!

internisus
that's awesome!
you could throw people off your trail if you get suspicious by altering your marker!
but how would you ever get wind of someone tracking you?
oh!
you could leave behind tiny worms whose sole purpose is to activate and inform you when someone undeletes a log line you erased!
we didn't even talk about virii, trojans, and worms yet -- in Street Hacker there is this interface you use to build them. It's actually pretty cool, though I'd like something a bit more robust. For what it is in that game, it makes sense because you choose all these parameters and then place the order with Virus Tech, Inc. or someone

internisus
oh man
all these details make me so excited about how PROFESSIONAL you'll feel playing the game. that, plus the steps you take to preserve anonymity, everything!

Maztorre
So yeah, about the hacking community, it would be fairly easy to create a few hundred of the 16x16 icons and dump them into the game
and assign them to randomly generated hacker names

internisus
oh, definitely
we'd have a big database of cool hacker names

Maztorre
so there is a fictitious "community" that challenges you to do things for "sport"
as an aside to the professional jobs.

internisus
nice!
and you have the option of working your way up their 'secret society' -- which you have to FIND in the first place to even know of, aside from little hints here and there -- and doing so gets you access to L337 tools!
that's so exciting!

Maztorre
yeah I was thinking the community itself would unlock more specialised tools

internisus
also it gives a good localized structure for some kind of ranking system that doesn't arbitrarily exist overtly all over the game.

Maztorre
but the professionals would be providing you the general tools required for each individual mission
so working up through the real jobs will get your tools for any situation
and the community would give you bonuses
essentially the same as elemental weapons or +5 modifiers or whatever

internisus
right, and the best weapons in the game are the hidden bonuses you only get by rising to the top of that secret group

Maztorre
yeah
they're unnecessary but cool

internisus
I want to have hardware and especially software upgrading, again, be a very organic thing, with a number of different ways in which you can procure new and upgraded software both for protecting your system and attacking others. but at the same time I wonder if there's a way to also work with a nearly metroid-like ability system within that.
i think it can work.
do you know what I mean by that?

Maztorre
Yeah I understand

internisus
you know, i think the metroid skills could be hidden within set piece nodes. As long as these are indistinguishable from generic content, their acquisition will seem organic.

Maztorre
Yeah
the point is to diguise the abstract systems

internisus
As far as what NOT having them means to you when run up against a place where you'd need them...

Maztorre
i'm trying to keep the actual workings of everything as basica as possible in terms fo mathmatics and simple logic
then by combining those in some sort of scale will provide content
for example, i think D&D and general RPG systems are a great mechanic for game design
the problem is that they are made obvious
and there is no integration of them into the game world

internisus
oh, i completely agree! what makes them so appealing when they're visible is the fact that they're so sensible!
they are delightful structured systems for abstractly -- that is, numerically -- representing the kinds of development we all know occur in real life, rendering them more plainly visible and that much more immediately satisfying. That's why they're addictive!

Maztorre
they're made too abstract on all sorts of levels though
you have scenes like in resident evil 4 happening at the same time a developer will put outa game where you still get a purple cloud over your head if you're poisoned

internisus
i see what you're saying
the bones are a good skeleton but for god's sake hide them under the skin

Maztorre
yes

internisus
you know i'm with you on that. we've been in agreement on that since the beginning of our talks.

Maztorre
yeah

James · Posts: 1735

insert credit
Everything you know of the outside world is gleaned through your computing

internisus · Posts: 961

Is all the danger and excitement just a postmodern allegory for our contemporary existence? =(

oligophagy · Posts: 110

I'm . . . I'm interested? I can program, though I don't know if I've got the professionalism. (How would I even test that?) Some of the things the chatlog describes (could've used formatting but made up for by being FANTASTIC) sound awfully complex, particularly the clumping of mission outcomes, events, and other factual elements to generate story. Even in the presence of a sort of logical system that can automatically decude some further facts from given facts, it's still very hard to wrap that in the characters and prose that make a story. Unless the beauty of the total computer system is that facts can be relayed directly, numerically, without embellishment, and that is meaningful and in fact expected. . . .

Beyond that, the . . . programming macros and the other technical intricacies of the hacking itself look like the edge of a continental shelf. Is there, in fact, a full scripting language in the game itself? Programmable games have a big draw for me (like robot-battle-arena games where you script behavior and then pit it against other behaviors), but they never seem to take off. Not enough restriction means less impetus for creativity. The game's infrastructure maybe ought to be a little oppressive (making its subversion more rewarding).

ASIDE: just an impression, parts of this strike me as abstract interactive fiction. Still trying to distill useful metaphors from this.

aderack · Posts: 5018

That's one cracking game you got there, gov'na!

Pip pip!

Maztorre · Posts: 1175

aderack wrote:

That's one cracking game you got there, gov'na!

Pip pip!

thread validated we cannot be stopped now!

internisus · Posts: 961

oligophagy: Well, I'm going to need Maztorre to speculate on some of your questions about complexity. We decided that he's better than I am at breaking down big ideas into programmable implementations. Actually, I'm kind of notorious around here for having demanding ideas with no idea what it would really take to make them happen. But he assures me that the stuff we talked about is pretty painless.

Now, I'm not ready to get very specific about narrative structure, but I think you've got a good idea with abstract interactive fiction. You have to add emergance and quasi-RPG elements, among other things, to clarify that, but it's the right drift. As far as how the narrative comes to be, I had images earlier when we were chatting but I'm going to need some time to solidify it and talk about it. I know it sounds like a daunting programming task, but I am quite sure that the answer to keeping it managable lies in a careful design approach to the problems. Give me a bit of time. Fundamentally, though, you have to think of narrative as something that emerges naturally through the player's actions and choices. The jobs he accepts and completes influence his (hidden) reputation and contact acquisition as well as the circumstances of other jobs (a target company may guess who funded the job and ask you to counterattack without knowing that you were the perpetrator, for example). Narrative develops organically rather than being hardcoded into the game structure. There will be "story" missions that insinuate an insidious overarching plot, but they will be overtly indistinguishable from "generic" missions and the nature of that overarching plot as it unfolds is malleable according to the player's other activities. Again, as Maztorre explained to me, the effects of any one action upon future possibilities can be programmed with careful design as simply as a series of flags. That's... the basic idea, I guess.

As far as the complexity of the game system, it's going to have at least as much as Street Hacker does, which is a faux file tree system, a full complement of DOS commands for file manipulation, navigation, program execution, internet connection and lookups, etc. A lot, but not all, of these functions are alternately available through the GUI. Many basic operations can be done in either the GUI or the terminal console (or a macro). I can grab some screenshots from Street Hacker to give you an idea. So, to directly answer your question, the game will have its own script language that is basically DOS with some variable statements so that the user can create macros. There will be GUI applications that visualize elements such as complex LANs which would be difficult to understand through terminal code, but every element represented through such a graphic tool must have an in-game code equivalent. I haven't decided anything yet about virus/trojan/worm construction. In Street Hacker, there is a system for setting the parameters and script function for a virus from a given set of options, and then you simply order the virus from a company that puts it together. I'd like to do something a bit more complex, but, like I said, I still have to think about this.

Addressing accessibility, I think that this type of gameplay only yields deeper and more addictive possibilities as the fundamental player ability set expands. Of course there is an issue of overwhelming the player from the onset, but that can be carefully contained with a well-designed in-plot tutorial or early missions that are very simple, starting with such basic tasks as setting up programs on the player's own harddrive and gradually moving forward from there.

The shortcomings of Uplink and Street Hacker, the only noteworthy cracking games (I know I use "crack" and "hack" interchangably; it's just carelessness) I've found, stem most obviously from a very limited amount of repeated content writing and job types in the former and a general lack of imagination in jobs in the latter. With a robust system combining the best interface features of both games as well as superior design and far greater quantities of content, to say nothing of the unique emergant experiences each individual playthrough would yield, we could decimate the offerings of every game available in the genre with sheer depth and intricacy of dynamic content. In a number of senses, the player only truly needs to put so much effort into the game's system -- macros, for instance, would be totally optional, but the curious player would find that them very useful and not a difficult step beyond what he has learned by using the terminal. I have not used DOS for years, and when I first booted up Street Hacker it did appear daunting to me

I firmly believe that, if carefully controlled in its presentation to the player, interface complexity can deepen the gameplay exponentially, extend the game's longevity in a positive manner, fill out the game's realism and congruity, and provide fun and satisfying ways for the player to customize his experience both in the immediate and the long run.

You don't have to decide just how interested you are right away or anything. Me 'n Maztorre have more discussing to do and certainly a good number of days of thinking and writing before you would even really know what you're signing on for, anyway. I know that I have to develop much more precise design descriptions before anyone is going to want to commit -- I just wanted to get myself started and maybe plant a seed, you know?

By the way, how would you have had me format the chatlog? I wasn't really sure about it and kind of gave up. I don't like posting chats. But if you give me a push in a presentable direction, I'll edit it better.

I really appreciate your interest and I hope you'll stick with us as we hammer this out. I don't expect anything from you, so please don't feel pressured, even though WE REALLY DESPERATELY WANT YOU. It's also very helpful just to have your input from a programmer's perspective! Please continue to ask questions.

oligophagy · Posts: 110

Cool. You seem levelheaded and reasonable about this. If you have more crazy, sprawling design chats, posting them would be great. In way of formatting, I would collapse one-sided runs into single messages, remove time stamps, and color the names. Pretty easy to automate. The last section might look like:

Maztorre:
i'm trying to keep the actual workings of everything as basica as possible in terms fo mathmatics and simple logic
then by combining those in some sort of scale will provide content
for example, i think D&D and general RPG systems are a great mechanic for game design
the problem is that they are made obvious
and there is no integration of them into the game world
internisus:
oh, i completely agree! what makes them so appealing when they're visible is the fact that they're so sensible!
Maztorre:
they're made too abstract on all sorts of levels though
internisus:
they are delightful structured systems for abstractly -- that is, numerically -- representing the kinds of development we all know occur in real life, rendering them more plainly visible and that much more immediately satisfying. That's why they're addictive!
Maztorre:
you have scenes like in resident evil 4 happening at the same time a developer will put outa game where you still get a purple cloud over your head if you're poisoned
internisus:
well that's a whole other issue
i see what you're saying
the bones are a good skeleton but for god's sake hide them under the skin
Maztorre:
yes

internisus · Posts: 961

Software Acquisition

Upon beginning the game, your parent organization connects you to a third-party black-market corporation specializing in hacking software. Like in Street Hacker, this corporation will offer you a subscription service that grants you FTP access to their selection of software, which updates with new products over time. However, the similarities to Street Hacker end there. This service offers both individual programs and a variety of packaged suites that cost less than the sum of their parts. Overall, the use of this service is very expensive, whether you buy program by program or make use of the package deals, encouraging the player to migrate away from this means of procurement. The market corporation's server is hackable, but naturally their security is of a very high level and the player will be unable to steal from them until late in the game.

Most systems you hack into will have appropriate programs installed, but you won't be able to steal them because you need an installer. The best means to acquire software is by locating the servers of developers. For instance, you can steal such public-use utilities as encryption and compression software, as well as visualization tools such as LAN builders. More obviously illegal applications like brute force password crackers are harder to come by; one way to get ahold of them might be to track other hackers and nab software from their personal systems.

Some contacts may make offers of tools to the player in exchange for software you already have or "a favor". These will not be the same people who fund your jobs, but other "professionals". Quality software will also be rewarded for your activities in the secret society of hackers.

Some software you acquire, depending upon the context of the acquisition, will be pre-release and carry bugs. Though they may happen to be the most powerful tool of their respective types in your arsenal, their use is accompanied by a small risk of failure. In such an event, the software will need to be reinstalled before it can ever again work properly. This task, as well as the failure itself, can cost valuable time during a mission or even compromise it more directly, depending on what sort of operation failed.

Along with software, a number of other usable files can be obtained through these methods. A pretty big find might be an operating systems are available (these will be described in a separate section). More frequently, the player can come across individual music files that can be downloaded and plugged into the player's music player application. He can also find skin sets to be applied to his GUI, and maybe even little applications along the lines of calculator and notepad that were not included in his OS or little games like a simple breakout clone.

All software applications that do not carry unique features are named and described using a universal numbered classing system. For example, a level 5 decompression utility can handle anything compressed by a utility of equivalent or lower level. However, matters are not always this simple. Some applications will have unique features that the player needs to be familiar with and weigh against alternatives in the midst of a job. Other applications require the insertion of subscripts and routines -- for example, a decryption utility must have, say, the Blowfish algorithm set in the proper location within the program's file tree in order be of any use with a file that has been encrypted with that algorithm. Separate analysis software can determine file properties such as its level of compression or the encryption algorithm in its makeup, allowing the player to decide the necessary course of action for any situation.

On a general note, the acquisition of ever-superior software strikes me as one of the most addictive, satisfying, and motivating elements of a hacking game; however, I very much want it not to be. Although the complex choices and fun customization offered by a robust software set can be delightful, they ought not to be the driving focus of the game, and I think some of the ideas outlined below take steps to ensure that they are the means to an end.

Hardware

All traditional hardware components are subject to upgrading, including processors, storage memory, connection speed, and specialized chips that either grant unique abilities or supplement certain attributes and tasks -- for instance, a certain chip might be dedicated to burdgeoning brute force cracks. Careful strategic coordination of available software and active hardware in the limited available slots will be important to the player's efficient handling of the circumstances presented by any given job, and making certain in advance that the appropriate tools are in place for his analysis and processing needs is a fundamental tactical mandate throughout the game. Security devices such as self-destruct mechanisms or auto-backup systems are available to protect you in the event of your arrest. Of course, the amount of physical space available for the installation of all categories of hardware can also be upgraded with improved motherboards and cases.

Hardware is, for the most part, legitimately purchased from appropriate vendors; however, there are a few opportunities to alter delivery instructions for components in transit when uncovering sales records on personal systems. In addition, it is possible to test experimental hardware for a price far more comfortable than its specs might suggest. While it may be glitchy at times, you will receive a new, finalized version for free after a certain amount of use, and the overall market development of better technology will advance faster to reflect this open-spirited testing environment of which you are a part.

Operating Systems

A variety of operating systems exist with a basic set of differences from one to the next. For one thing, system file tree structure differs, just as in Street Hacker. Different time passage manipulation is possible from one system to the next, and a more advanced OS allows for a slower base time rate. For instance, when you start the game, 4 seconds = 1 minute, and this is the slowest you can get time to pass, but a better OS might allow for 8 seconds = 1 minute. Compatibility with more sophisticated hardware compnents, such as a satellite connection, require a more advanced OS. There may also be some differences in right-click menus for file manipulation, desktop usage, default utility suites including system tools, and GUI styling.

Visual Representations of the User

Throughout gameplay, at all times, a very subtle transparent image of the fictional user and his environment can be seen reflected in the screen (which covers the player's full screen). The overlaid image exhibits realistic properties of reflection in conjunction with screen activity -- for instance, when more bright objects are on screen, the reflection is significantly less apparant. All of these overlays will be stylized drawings that fade from one to the next at various rates, depending upon context, rather than animate in a strict sense.

When the game is loaded, every aspect of its startup is presented under the fictional device of the in-game computer booting, including a brief splash screen for whatever OS is installed on the system of the user who last exited the program, load bars for processing various aspects of the GUI, etc. This is accompanied by images of the user, a man of about thirty, moving from the side of the screen to sit down in front of it. Throughout the game, the appearance of this user will gradually change. He and his space will appear more unkempt over time; he will grow stubble and develop rings under his eyes; coffee mugs will shift around; and papers will pile up around the visible workspace. The user's appearance resets after system shutdown (exiting the game) but not at logoff (returning to the player select screen).* During normal game activity, the user shifts from time to time, rests his head on his hand, etc. When the system's hardware configuration is modified, the user gets up and moves to the lower corner of the screen, crouching to work. If the authorities break in on him, the player sees it in the screen along with the appropriate sounds, and input is no longer accepted from the point at which the user is made to get up; the screen remains idle as he is taken away.

*It's sort of bizarre/interesting to note that this will inadvertently imply that multiple players are the same consistent user within the game's fiction. This may even be something we could use for SECRET gameplay tactics to manipulate multiple identities -- in other words, user accounts could all be made, to a certain extent, to live in the same world, allowing for appropriate exploitative methods.

A warning: The following sections of design sketchwork are more specific in their vagary than an introduction to each set of ideas ought to be. I am merely presenting what I wrote down today. More basic details will be embellished upon at a later date.

Notes on Narrative

Even the most mundane of jobs carries with it morally ambiguous political themes. To a point, the player can see and know as much or as little as he chooses to about the corporations, organizations, and governments that he is working for and against. A very significant portion of the information available regarding any entities and their activities lies within their respective systems in files that can be opened and perused at any level of detail. Again, a lot of this information is optional in terms of gaming success; however, information directly applicable to hacking these entities is frequently intertwined with narrative information.

The player is free to remain as detached as he likes or to ally himself with whomever he likes; such matters of allegiance are simply expressed through the patterns of his chosen activities. There are many avenues open to him. For example, he is able at any time to anonymously forward evidence of an organization's underhanded activities to a relevant authority. Thus action would take place outside of paid work, on his own time. However, blowing this whistle would come at the expense of that organization's overall goals, which may be altruistic enough to justify the devious deed in some opinions.

These ambiguities and their consequences form an emergant narrative web. The game's discretely overarching plot also involves politics and moral ambiguity but envelops the relatively more mundane events, giving the web form and context as it develops. The Big Plot may involve the player's dispositions regarding government or anarchy, or it may reflect on how much loyalty versus detatchment he exhibits. A working possibility is that the plot revolves around the parent hacker organization with which the player starts the game and with which he can choose over time to gradually enhance or break his ties; however, I very much do not want anything like the straightforwardness or obviousness of Uplink's plot. Whatever we decide to use as a vehicle for the overarching plot, whether or not it comes back to the starting parent organization, it has to be subtle and indistinct from the game's normal content.

Notes on Contacts, Feds, and You

The player will find it impossible to remain totally impersonal about his work. His activities are bound to catch up with him. As an example, if he has a good, solid network of contacts, he may receive a tip that someone is planning to double-cross him or set him up. He may find it prudent to preempt such an attack, not knowing whether or not the rumor is founded (and some might try to manipulate you in just such a manner as this), by taking measures such as hacking admin access for his own bank account and removing all records of certain transactions having ever taken place. No matter how careful he is, however, it is inevitable that the Law will one day know at his door.

When the user is taken away, the game will become idle, and the only thing the player can do is watch as his system automatically shuts down, destroys itself, or carries out any other designated security protocols, and the game will automatically exit. When the player loads the game up again and logs in, he will find out how much time has passed and on what terms the user was released. The government may have looked favorably upon some of his actions or had insufficient evidence to prosecute. A "friend" may have cause his release by altering his criminal record out of any number of possible motivations. In the worst case, the user will have been locked up for a significant period of time, and his contact list, reputation, and general influence on the events of the world will have suffered for it.

More is coming tomorrow. I already have a list of topics to roll with. If anyone would like more detailed elaboration on any point, however minute, asking for it would really help me to delve deeper into the pertinent ideas. Please do so.

internisus · Posts: 961

Virii

Virii, trojans, and worms perform many functions in the game. They can be used to intercept and return information such as protected login credentials, to distract administrators by temporarily disabling system functions as essential as input/output, to monitor activity in a semi-permanent fashion, alerting you when someone is undeleting logs or conducting other activity that suggests that you are being tracked down, or to set up money-making automated spam initiatives on slave systems.

You design these little wonders within a proprietary building suite as in Street Hacker, choosing the script type and other parameters you desire, naming the virus and providing a brief description, etc. However, unlike Street Hacker, the process is made more complex by only providing you with the options offered by your contacts who will build each part of their virus according to their individual specialties. You can collect behavior scripts yourself to develop the virus applications available to you, but aspects such as intelligence type need to be outsourced. For example, you want to build a KeySniffer virus that watches for secure LAN packets containing protected login creds, so you have to have the script for that behavior on your hard drive. You choose it within the development suite, but you also want to add size stealth, memory resistance, mimic intelligence, and set the virus to infiltrate the system registry, which is more secure and effective than, say, attacking an email proxy. These parameters must be filled by specialists who can build them for you according to the script type you have selected. If you don't know people who can put it together, then a specific parameter is unavailable to you in the building suite.

When you finalize your choices and order your virus, the design software automatically sends the appropriate requests to individuals who handle those features, and each of those contacts deducts their individual payments from your bank account. Sometimes, they might charge more than the estimate if the game sees that the funds are available, explaining why it was necessary in their emails to you. After a few hours, the pieces of your virus will trickle in through separate emails from each of these developers, and once you put the attachments in the right file folder and you have all of the parts, you can compile the virus within the software suite. The finished virus is contained in a secure area of that program, which has a specialized DOS command through which you launch your virii.

Contacts

One of the basic activities of gameplay is to seek out new contacts for your various needs. A lot of the time, they will find you, depending on your reputation and the thrust of your activities. However, you will want to connect with people such as virus development specialists. When you manage to locate one of these people, you can initiate contact by sending them an email.

Unlike most games in this genre, you can't just go around sending blank emails to people. When you send an email, unless it is a straight-forward and routine mission complete notification with one or more files attached, the game will require a minimum of text within the body of the message -- say, at least five words -- and the game searches for, say, words like "virus". If these simple conditions aren't met, the email is returned to you with some kind of annoyed response from its recipient. This isn't meant to be a challenge of any kind, but it's a way to enforce realism without getting too demanding as well as to ensure that the player knows what the prospective contact is good at. It would detract from the value of abilities and contacts if the player could just suck them in without understanding what they are, how to install them, and who he is trying to contact and why. Information is extremely valuable in this game.

Contacts are important for all of the following and more:
-funding jobs
-building virii
-exchanging software
-acquiring technology
-keeping tabs on actions taken against you

Once contact is initiated via email, the person is added to your IM client's contact list. It is up to the player to organize this list and keep track of what each contact is there for, how trustworthy he considers them, and what their known allegiances are or to what factions, if any, they belong to. All IM action is y/n, explained by these people wanting to keep things simple and avoid exchanging unnecessary information. They don't want to chat with you; they want to give you their tip or make their offer and be done with things. They provide services in exchange for yours, and they like to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. You know little about them, and they know little about you. There may be exceptions to this last bit, though.....

oligophagy · Posts: 110

Are all virii cross-platform? If not, how much is portable? Does every behavior script, say, exist in n binaries for each of the n OSes? This seems like variety without depth, too arbitrary. I'm . . . not fond of the multiple OS idea? Feels too literal. I mean, the hacking itself is heavily stylized and at a fair disconnect from what infrastructures presently obtain in the real world. Similarly, I think a single OS could exhibit qualities of being simple or advanced, having various file tree structures, being strong or weak with particular utility suites, etc. There's one OS but it can configured in different ways. Typically, this would be at installation, kind of analogous to Linux distributions; some are built for servers, some for low-specs, and most in-between. Dynamic reconfigurations (like teutonic shifts) could open interesting possibilities.

This seems to breaking down to a mere semantic point, but a single OS would make more plausible the cross-system compatibilities that you want to preserve, like the command-prompt and batch-script syntax. Furthermore, a fictional world with a Single Operating System has a sort of pleasing economy, a simplicity of expression. Honestly, real computers are damn ugly. All their wonderful capabilities are the peaks of mounds of shit just shoveled on for decades. It'd be nice if all the vicissitudes of history weren't so blatantly visibile, if the computer as whole -- its hardware, its software, its protocols -- was made with an eye to aesthetics. On the other hand, a fictional computing environment, designed a priori, could be pure, so to speak.

internisus · Posts: 961

To be honest, operating systems is the area into which I've probably put the least thought so far, even including things I haven't written anything about. I see the fiction as taking place in a near-future, possibly 2020s or so, and I am definitely onboard for the kind of purity you're talking about. I feel the same way about our real life computer systems and their built-in historical baggage. There's no reason why what little I said can't be restated in terms of a single universal OS with slight differences from one entity's needs to another's, so I'm all for everything you've just said, especially considering the aesthetic benefits and the boost to realism with regard to compatibility issues. This also neatly solves any questions regarding the use of virii/trojans/worms and code/script. Frankly, I'd like hacking to feel deep, complex, involved, ambiguous, and therefore professional, yet I'd also like it to be stylistically idealized such that there is a strict limit to how much the player ever feels the need to worry about differences between systems. Cleanliness within the complexity is in order.

I also like the idea of having no objectively superior OS version, instead forcing the player to make strategic choices regarding the advantages and disadvantages of all available options. I'm not sure how much it came through when I was describing software and hardware, but this is an important gameplay paradigm I'd like to keep at the basis of all design choices. Believability is also very important. I will have to do more and more research as these ideas are deepened and embellished. With operating systems, for example, I've spent my entire life moving from version to version of Windows and only used Mac platforms here and there, so my perspective is very limited, especially regarding open source. I will need ongoing help and advice like you've just given me, so please keep it coming.

Broco · Posts: 546

internisus, it sounds like you are unaware that Introversion provides Uplink's source code for a small fee for modders (or at least you haven't explained why you intend to start from scratch instead of using it). See http://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/developer/developercd.html .

Ratoslov · Posts: 252

internisus wrote:

Unlike most games in this genre, you can't just go around sending blank emails to people. When you send an email, unless it is a straight-forward and routine mission complete notification with one or more files attached, the game will require a minimum of text within the body of the message -- say, at least five words -- and the game searches for, say, words like "virus".

Sounds obnoxious. Text parsers are really annoying, and I could easily see having to spend a half hour trying to come up with the exact word that the parser wants me to write.