http://store.steampowered.com/app/365450/

So it's a computer game where you pretend to hack into stuff.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that it's approximately 0% like real 
hacking. It *is* quite entertaining, though.

99% of the gameplay involves figuring out how to hack into network 
nodes. The remaining 1% involves figuring out what you're supposed to do 
once you're in there. You get given missions like "steal this file", 
"delete that file", "replace the other file" and so on. Usually you have 
to figure out exactly where to look, though.

A game like this needs to tread a knife edge. On the one hand, it's 
supposed to be playable be people who know almost nothing about 
computers. So you can't make it too challenging. On the other hand, 
experts like me end up playing it, so you can't make it too obvious either.

I enjoy how you naturally figure stuff out with pretty minimal 
tutorials. You basically learn most of your stuff on the job, yet you 
never end up feeling like "um, WTH am I meant to be doing?" or "how the 
heck am I supposed to do that?"

It would be easy to end up making the game way too hard, by making it 
too difficult to find the clues. And there *are* clues; you'd never find 
anything otherwise. On the other hand, it would be easy to make the game 
laughably easy by having *too many* clues. The designer seems to have 
struck a nice balance.

I enjoy how you can operate the whole game using just the GUI, or using 
just the CLI. That's a nice touch. Not wishing to spoil *too* much, but 
there's a point in the game where *you* get hacked. All the hacker 
actually does is delete your X configuration file and crash your system. 
So it reboots and then... no GUI. You have to somehow restore the X 
configuration file to get the GUI back.

If forum posts and Metacritic reviews are anything to go by, this is one 
of *the* defining moments of the game. A lot of people report that they 
"froze up" or were "terrified" when this happened. "I just sat there and 
didn't know what to do next!"

This is where I get to feel really smug; I do this crap FOR REAL! >:-) 
As in, people may me money to fix Unix systems which *really are* broken.

I really enjoy how if you just calmly think it through, you can 
eventually restore the file, all by yourself. The game hints like crazy 
that getting this specific file back is the thing you need to do next, 
but gives you absolutely no help beyond that. And yet, I saw no evidence 
of people who *could not* figure this out at all. It's one of those 
moments where figuring out a challenging puzzle makes you feel really 
smug afterwards. (The solution is really trivial once you already know 
what it is!)

I also really enjoy the flavour text. Some of it is hilarious! Of 
course, if the people running the systems were half-way competent, you'd 
never get into anything. (Which would be very boring.) So of *course* 
the passwords have to be scattered somewhere you can find them. But you 
gotta invent a reason for why. The result? Cutting social commentary. 
People will defeat any and all security mechanisms if it stops them 
doing stuff. ;-)

Also still chuckling over "Macrosoft", "eOS devices" and "FaceSpace".

The CLI tries to be a Unix environment. If you've never used a computer 
before, this is a passable emulation. If you actually get paid money to 
use Unix systems all day... not so much. I keep wanting to use commands 
that don't exist! Who the hell uses "cat" to view files? Obviously you 
use "less"! Why is there no "mkdir" command? Globbing doesn't *quite* 
work right... it's nearly there, but it's slightly buggy, unfortunately.

It amuses me how when you break into a system, 80% of the files you find 
are directly related to the specific task you're trying to do. A "real" 
system would have thousands of files, and only a tiny number of them 
would be related to the one-off task you're trying to pull off. Then 
again, I guess if the systems had thousands of files, you'd never find 
what you were looking for, which would make a very boring game.

In a similar vein, when you hack into somebody's email, they will always 
have about 6 messages, one of which contains the next clue you need. A 
*real* human being would have hundreds if not thousands of emails. Then 
again, you can't easily auto-generate flavour text for all of that; a 
human being has to write it. And paying somebody to write tens of 
thousands of emails which will never be read sounds... yeah, not very 
cost-effective.

The final mission was definitely the best. Most missions involve hacking 
one server, modifying a file or two, and then you're done. Occasionally 
you need to get clues from one server and use them on a second server. 
But the final mission, oh man... That was you scanning networks, trying 
to find gaps in the security, following clues here, there and 
everywhere... It's like the rest of the game, but on a way grander 
scale! It's cool stuff.

The first time I typed "SSHCrack 22" and saw a box of multi-coloured 
ciphertext pop up and a little animation of the digits being 
progressively matched up, I thought "oh man, this is cool!" After the 
400th time of watching that same identical animation? Yeah, maybe not 
quite so much. Still, overall I think this is a really nicely done game, 
and I'm glad I played it. Even if it *is* short as hell!


last time you got multiple hours of gameplay out of 100MB? ;-)

Not sure it has much replay value though... Really the gameplay needs to 
get more complicated / varied before it's worth making a bigger version 
of the game. But it would be really exciting if they do...

Post a reply to this message

>
> I enjoy how you can operate the whole game using just the GUI, or using
> just the CLI. That's a nice touch. Not wishing to spoil *too* much, but
> there's a point in the game where *you* get hacked. All the hacker
> actually does is delete your X configuration file and crash your system.
> So it reboots and then... no GUI. You have to somehow restore the X
> configuration file to get the GUI back.
>

Ahh... Memories of installing Slackware from floopies 20 years ago. 
READMEs warning that bad xfree86 settings could burn your monitor... 
Those were the days.

> The CLI tries to be a Unix environment. If you've never used a computer
> before, this is a passable emulation. If you actually get paid money to
> use Unix systems all day... not so much. I keep wanting to use commands
> that don't exist! Who the hell uses "cat" to view files?

Depending on the length of the file, cat can be easier as you don't have 
to hit spacebar to get out of it.  Also, on some systems, Gnutils may 
not be installed for various reasons.

Yes, knowing what's the best tool for the job helps, but sometimes you 
need to be resourcefull.


> last time you got multiple hours of gameplay out of 100MB? ;-)

POVRay3.7
;)

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

On 02/11/2015 02:07 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Ahh... Memories of installing Slackware from floopies 20 years ago.
> READMEs warning that bad xfree86 settings could burn your monitor...
> Those were the days.

Heh, yeah. I think the whole "burn your monitor" thing is just people 
wanting to cover their butt; I've never heard of anybody actually 
breaking a monitor this way. Sometimes you get some rather weird video. 
Sometimes the CRT makes that weird sound. (Pro-tip: You shouldn't be 
able to *hear* what your CRT is doing!) But mostly you just get a black 
screen.

> Depending on the length of the file, cat can be easier as you don't have
> to hit spacebar to get out of it. Also, on some systems, Gnutils may not
> be installed for various reasons.

Also, less is an EXTREMELY ANNOYING "feature": When you exit it, the 
screen reverts to what was there before, so you can't copy out any 
information that was in the file. As if not being able to copy and paste 
text just because it's a terminal wasn't bad enough...

> Yes, knowing what's the best tool for the job helps, but sometimes you
> need to be resourcefull.

My fingers keep wanting to type "less". Whenever I try to type "cat", I 
end up typing "cd" instead.

It's fine. I'll just define an alias to... oh, wait.


>> last time you got multiple hours of gameplay out of 100MB? ;-)
>
> POVRay3.7
> ;)

Oh, well played sir.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/2/2015 2:46 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Heh, yeah. I think the whole "burn your monitor" thing is just people
> wanting to cover their butt; I've never heard of anybody actually
> breaking a monitor this way. Sometimes you get some rather weird video.
> Sometimes the CRT makes that weird sound. (Pro-tip: You shouldn't be
> able to *hear* what your CRT is doing!) But mostly you just get a black
> screen.


Please sir, please sir. I've seen it.

When I worked on the rigs. The control room operators would keep the 
same screens on their monitors 24 hours a day. After a few years you 
could see the ghost images burnt into the screens.
As for the high pitch whine. That generally is the fly back transformer. 
I agree you should not be able to hear it but I never had a monitor fail 
because of it. It is not like an incandescent light bulb where that is a 
sign it will fail soon. (For variable values of soon. ;-) )

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 02/11/2015 03:48 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 11/2/2015 2:46 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> Heh, yeah. I think the whole "burn your monitor" thing is just people
>> wanting to cover their butt; I've never heard of anybody actually
>> breaking a monitor this way. Sometimes you get some rather weird video.
>> Sometimes the CRT makes that weird sound. (Pro-tip: You shouldn't be
>> able to *hear* what your CRT is doing!) But mostly you just get a black
>> screen.
>
>
> Please sir, please sir. I've seen it.

You've seen it?

You've seen a ship with black sails, that's crewed by the damned, and 
captained by a map SO EVIL that Hell itself spat him back out?

No, wait, wrong file...

You've seen a monitor break because somebody drove it with the wrong 
scanrate?

> When I worked on the rigs. The control room operators would keep the
> same screens on their monitors 24 hours a day. After a few years you
> could see the ghost images burnt into the screens.

I've seen a ghost image burned into the screen on an iMac. Which is 
weird, because I didn't think LCDs even *do* that! o_O

Now here's a question: Why does printing white text shift the 
corresponding scanlines left slightly?

> As for the high pitch whine. That generally is the fly back transformer.
> I agree you should not be able to hear it but I never had a monitor fail
> because of it. It is not like an incandescent light bulb where that is a
> sign it will fail soon. (For variable values of soon. ;-) )

I remember the day I walked into one of the classrooms, and three people 
were transfixed by a lightbulb. And I'm guys "guys, WTF? Haven't you 
seen a light before?" And they were like "no, LISTEN..."

And it was making a bizarre sound like some kind of synthesizer. And we 
stood and watched it for maybe a minute, and then it just turned itself 
off...

Post a reply to this message

On 11/2/2015 4:07 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 02/11/2015 03:48 PM, Stephen wrote:

>>
>>
>> Please sir, please sir. I've seen it.
>
> You've seen it?
>

No, I've just proved that I don't read properly. <Blush>

> You've seen a ship with black sails, that's crewed by the damned, and
> captained by a map SO EVIL that Hell itself spat him back out?
>

Seen it! I crewed it. And the stories are wrong. We were slandered by 
those damn Geeks. ;-)

> No, wait, wrong file...
>
> You've seen a monitor break because somebody drove it with the wrong
> scanrate?
>

In a way. The frequency should have been 60 Hz instead of 50 Hz. The 220 
Vac instead of 110 Vac might have been a factor as well. ;-)


>> When I worked on the rigs. The control room operators would keep the
>> same screens on their monitors 24 hours a day. After a few years you
>> could see the ghost images burnt into the screens.
>
> I've seen a ghost image burned into the screen on an iMac. Which is
> weird, because I didn't think LCDs even *do* that! o_O
>

I've not seen that myself but I've heard others say it.

> Now here's a question: Why does printing white text shift the
> corresponding scanlines left slightly?
>

I don't know. Why does printing white text shift the corresponding 
scanlines left slightly?

Boom! Boom! ;-)

>> As for the high pitch whine. That generally is the fly back transformer.
>> I agree you should not be able to hear it but I never had a monitor fail
>> because of it. It is not like an incandescent light bulb where that is a
>> sign it will fail soon. (For variable values of soon. ;-) )
>
> I remember the day I walked into one of the classrooms, and three people
> were transfixed by a lightbulb. And I'm guys "guys, WTF? Haven't you
> seen a light before?" And they were like "no, LISTEN..."
>
> And it was making a bizarre sound like some kind of synthesizer. And we
> stood and watched it for maybe a minute, and then it just turned itself
> off...

Turned off or blew?
I just tried googling it and did not find an answer. Most of the 
articles were about lamps on dimmer circuits. When I have heard a light 
bulb singing. It was before dimmers were common.
Invariably the bulb would blow within a week or so.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 14:46:55 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> Also, less is an EXTREMELY ANNOYING "feature": When you exit it, the
> screen reverts to what was there before, so you can't copy out any
> information that was in the file. As if not being able to copy and paste
> text just because it's a terminal wasn't bad enough...

less -X avoids that.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 02/11/2015 05:00 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 14:46:55 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> Also, less is an EXTREMELY ANNOYING "feature": When you exit it, the
>> screen reverts to what was there before, so you can't copy out any
>> information that was in the file. As if not being able to copy and paste
>> text just because it's a terminal wasn't bad enough...
>
> less -X avoids that.

OK, I gotta try that tomorrow...

Post a reply to this message

>> When I worked on the rigs. The control room operators would keep the
>> same screens on their monitors 24 hours a day. After a few years you
>> could see the ghost images burnt into the screens.

Someone had installed plasma screens above every gate in Munich airport 
when I used to go there a lot. When a flight was not departing it just 
showed a default static "Lufthansa" logo. As you can imagine all the 
screens ended up with a horrible ghost image on them. Plasma screens are 
possibly the worst for burn-in.

> I've seen a ghost image burned into the screen on an iMac. Which is
> weird, because I didn't think LCDs even *do* that! o_O

They will easily burn if the time-average voltage across the pixel is 
not zero volts (they switch between + and - every frame). Obviously 
exactly zero volts is impossible, but the further away from zero you are 
the faster you will burn in that pixel. So it depends on the quality of 
your driver electronics.

If you're destructively-minded you may have realised that if you were to 
display black one frame and white the next frame, then repeat, this will 
create a massive non-zero average voltage on the pixel. And yes this 
will cause damage eventually. Note that screens don't normally do all 
pixels with the same polarity, it might do one column +, one column - 
(or row by row, or in a checkerboard pattern), then flip for the next 
frame. That's what this page is meant to figure out, assuming your 
monitor electronics are non-ideal then the pattern that matches will 
flicker slightly:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/inversion.php

> Now here's a question: Why does printing white text shift the
> corresponding scanlines left slightly?

On a CRT? I remember that if you drew a white rectangle around the edge 
of the screen, then flipped the inside between black and white and shape 
of the screen would change massively. I believe it's because the extra 
current needed to draw all the "white" slightly reduces the voltage from 
the PSU which is also used to control the timing/geometry, so the shape 
of the picture will change based on the average brightness of the image.

Post a reply to this message

On 03/11/2015 08:06 AM, scott wrote:
> Plasma screens are possibly the worst for burn-in.

Yeah, so I heard. ;-)

>> I've seen a ghost image burned into the screen on an iMac. Which is
>> weird, because I didn't think LCDs even *do* that! o_O
>
> They will easily burn if the time-average voltage across the pixel is
> not zero volts (they switch between + and - every frame). Obviously
> exactly zero volts is impossible, but the further away from zero you are
> the faster you will burn in that pixel. So it depends on the quality of
> your driver electronics.

Huh. And here I was assuming that Apple would have used only the most 
over-priced hardware components they could source...

...apparently it's only the *best looking* hardware. :-P

>> Now here's a question: Why does printing white text shift the
>> corresponding scanlines left slightly?
>
> On a CRT? I remember that if you drew a white rectangle around the edge
> of the screen, then flipped the inside between black and white and shape
> of the screen would change massively. I believe it's because the extra
> current needed to draw all the "white" slightly reduces the voltage from
> the PSU which is also used to control the timing/geometry, so the shape
> of the picture will change based on the average brightness of the image.

I just remember spending many days (and nights!) in front of a giant 
Grundig CRT driven by my dad's Commodore 64. If you changed the text 
from the default light blue on a dark blue background to being pure 
white, the display got seriously bent.

While we're on the subject, what causes the weird diagonal lines that 
all RF-modulated signals have?

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