okay, i currently have a good idea for a game. You are a hacker that uses a new underground operating system called Calibur. Im currently writing this ''fake'' os. Its all text based, but it has a graphically inclined interface. (like flashing arrows, and cool like boxes that like fade in and out) and you recive e-mail from a hacker friend that is under attack, and throught the game you have to hack some people and stuff like that. Being a ''hacker'' i applied real hacking techniqes, I.e, DoS attacks (Denial of service) and using Telnet, Ip addresses, Ports.. and using BBS and getting actual exploits for the ''calibur'' system. Currently i started programming the game in Liberty Basic, wich was really stupid of me, but hopefully i will be able to translate the code to DB, real soon. anyway. please tell me what you think of my idea.

Well, since you are taking such a realistic approach... Build in a cheat that let''s you connect to the internet, so your hack attempts are done in real-life :p

Seeing as how ''complicated'' you are going to make, I guess that a veteran in your game won''t have any trouble with making the career move towards Windows systems...

lol, actually connecting to the internet would be illegal.. lol id rather not get in trouble for programming a cool game :D lol.. but also i use realistic Tactics.. i dont actually use like DOS attack tactics, or actual ftp ''syntax'' but i use the same methods with my fake system.

Seems like a neat idea (makes me think of Swordfish) but don''t you think you might be limiting your market substantially by only targeting the very computer savvy hacker types?

Maybe market penetration isn''t a concern of yours. I was just thinking from a purely business point of view...

R.

Sounds like an idea I had back in the day... Seeing as I''m not going to make the game now I''ll give you some ideas I was going to implement...

1) Create your own style of hacking for the game so you can explain it in the manual or somethings... Ex: Hack site www.example.com

2) Give your character a reason to hack (like in Swordfish)... Maybe have him part of some large government conspiracy or hes trying to keep tabs on the FBI so he can always be one step ahead of them.

4) Introduce other ways of hacking... Maybe you could walk around the game world and see a phone, you could use your PDA with the a mini-os of calibur on it and jack into the networks from there.

5) ALWAYS have a time limit on the hacks! Give the player 5 minutes to get the information before the system security software is alerted

Hope that helps,
Mitch Rockidge
Owner/Founder of Ethereal Chaos

There are two games that were created in the 80''s about hacking, entitle Hacker, I do believe.

The games were good, but due to their ancientness I found them a bit infuriating ... I love old games, but these two really irritated me ...

You may want to check them out and you can find them at www.theunderdogs.org