You have been commisioned by [insert alias], to hack into the nsa's supercluster, codenamed SPYHUNTER. While in spyhunter, you are to complete missions. At the end of each mission, you will recieve a reward. As you progress through the game, new missions will be unlocked, allowing you to progress further, and eventually finish the game. Missions, would be: for eg. Insert Trojen into A:\data\Secutity\Autorun Or delete file A:\data\records\Criminal\Federal\JoeSmith In order to do these things, you need to hack the system, using tools you have unlocked (by hacking), or have been given by [insert alias]. The win condition is to complete all the missions, and find the root password. You must opperate without nsa security noticing, this is one of the hard parts, trying to break into a system, when it is looking for people breaking in (using obvious means, non-obvious means would probably not be looked for). Some missions are timed (ie. security backup in 30 minutes, you must patch virus1 into A:\data\security\Manager), and logs are kept (and sometimes must be erased within a time limit) You start off with a guest account. With that account, you can view, write to, read from, and execute from, \usr\guest In there, you get your first mission. You also get your tools. These are: A dissassembler (to look at programs, what they do, decompiles to a heigh level language) A patcher (to patch in viruses, and hacks) A Memory editor (to look at programs that you are running, it cannot see other programs that are being run by other people). A compiler (compiles code, for hacks) A file viewer (to look at files, used to read logs, text documents, ect.) And other things, which would be unlocked by [insert alias]. These would probably get unlocked one at a time, as you complete your first few missions. (with maybe the file viewer coming at the beginning.) Good game idea? Comments? Sugestions? Anything else? Am i running out of question marks? From, Nice coder [Edited by - Nice Coder on November 20, 2004 4:00:04 AM]

Sounds pretty good. I played a hacking game a couple of years ago called "uplink". You might wanna check that out. When you were logged on to servers, the admins might start tracing you etc, and it'd take more and more time depending on how many other servers you were routing through. Then you had to delete logs and stuff so that they didn't find you. You could also buy bombs to place at the server you logged on through (you're never near your actual computer, you just log on to it with a terminal), so that you could blow it up if the feds got too close :D

One thing i didn't like too much in that one was the GUI. I would have preferred to work a little at the commandline instead of clicking all the time. Of course, that would have limited the audience quite a bit, but it'd be awsome to me ;)

And of course, reveal the story through hidden documents, email etc. Make it the players job to figure out what's going on.

I'm looking at uplink, (Looks like a good game, hopefully i might get a copy).

What i was thinking, is having the entire thing, on the command line (think something less then vim for command line editing).

I've got a little bit of a gui knocked up, (with text scrolling, and a nice little button which turns blue for a couple of ms after you click on it). The core program would just be the gui, and the scripting system (scripts, yey!).

What i was thinking of, tho, is having to figure out passwords, steal and decrypt secret files, and other little nifty computer-related things.

Also, the npc (there would only be one, unless we make some ai programs made by the nsa...), would be a constant watch system.

You would have to hack it, or parts of it, in order to complete the objectives soon after starting. Perhaps a tree structure, so that each parent checks that its children are valid, and moniter the data from them, and so on. the leaves would then look at the system, and use that to feed to its parents.
If you trip it, it might do a few different countermeasures; user-account restriction (which would have to be bypassed, which should be very hard)
Lockdown (all users logged off, requires a delay in between logoff and logon.)
forced removal (closes programs, and changes directoy to root),
And some other things (like increasing its sensitivity next time).

That could make a few interesting missions eg.
Mission 12:
Patch Syswatch123 in D:\System\Watch\Bins with Syspatch
Gain acess to Data node 1234, and acess location N:\Datafiles.
Copy N:\Datafiles\Secretagents and send them to me.
remove the patch on syswatch123, before its parent notices. (the chance of the parent notecing goes up as the patch gets bigger)

This is after you've found some way to acess D:\system\watch\bins (on previous mission, maybe?).

Also, the Drives (A-Z drives), are mapped using map, which is in A:\Tools\Map
The drives, are on a node, or a group of nodes.
Once you unlock the self-destruct program (or make one, your choise), you could set up programs on log servers, to self-destruct the server, when the logs are being read (patch for the log reader program).

You also use the map, to map to specified nodes to retrieve files, plant viruses, or trojens, or do "bug-keeping".

When you bug-keep, you plant a trojen, give it a safe spot to store data in, keep it from being spotted, and eventually (in a later mission), get the data back.

You can also analise trojen reports, to get usernames, passwords and targets. (which you can then take. these targets could be parts of the story, new tools, or novelties)

These could also be used as plot devices (i think thats what its called).

From,
Nice coder

You know, I had an idea sort of like this, except it was a multiplayer game. Two people, head to head. they log into this fantasy hacking game and start with controll ovr eachothers computers, and the fictional ways of destroying a computer are turned into real ways.

You can play so the first person logged out of the game loses, or set it up so that unless player can fix their PC and log back in with in 5 minutes, they lose

That would be a not very nice game.

All you'd need is to go C:\Windows\regedit.exe, and wipe the registry. Or just format C:\ , its much easier to simply destroy the opposition then immobalising them.

from,
Nice coder

You cant format a hard drive while Windows programs are running off of it. Also, since you only have a connection while the other player is logged in to the game, you cant format a drive.

Also, the whole interface will be a GAME. you wont exactly have direct access to the other players computer. Its all fantasy style, so you have to think like the movie "Hackers" and come up with crazy ways to immobilize your opponent.

And yeah, its not a nice game, but theres tons of 1337 fags out there who have their mommies and daddies buy them rice burner computers with glowing lights and 12 fans. this game is for those people. This game seperates the men from the boys. This game will be the iron gauntlet.

Too easy. Either run SELinux with su disabled. No-one is going to get into root to fuck up your system. Or run everything in a virtual machine with an ISO backup of the whole install including the game. Oooh windows was fucked up, let me reboot my virtual machine. Check.

NiceCoder:

I'd like to see some sort of social engineering element in a hacking game - ie., convincing people to give you enough access.

Hacker: 'It's Steve from IT, I'm just ringing people to let them know that we've had a hard disk failure, we're restoring from backups, unfortunately, user account details were lot and we're having to enter by hand. You're not going to be able to access your files for a few days.'

User: 'I can't be without access to my files, can't you give me access sooner.'

Hacker: 'I'm sorry but I think everyone wants to be first.'

User: 'I've got a presentation in two days, I need access'

Hacker: 'Why didn't you say so before? Just give me your username and password...'

(And now I know why I don't write dialogue.)

Garmichael:

I'm not sure whether you mean destroying a virtual computer within the game or the phyiscal thing on someone's desk. Even if you can't reformat when Windows is running, you *can* do:

a) Repartition
b) Voltage 'adjustments'
c) BIOS reflashing
d) Delete files

about the C:\ and so on....
i think having a server (esp. NSA) on windows is unlikely.
serious and important servers are on UNIXes most of the time..

It was origionally \usr, but i changed it after a while (no responces, so i changed something).

With social engineering, how would that work? would you have a chatbot, which you would have to respond to, and convince to give their user/pass?.

From,
Nice coder