About this game
A short, tightly scripted hacking adventure revolving around the dangers of power and the vulnerable technology of our modern society. Recruit a team of hackers to save your brother from a vindictive prosecutor, and discover a secret agenda with a global reach. The game has 20+ beautifully rendered characters, each with their own flaws and motivations. Chat in chatrooms and over instant messenger, snoop on private emails and calendar appointments, scrutinize web browsing habits and purchase histories; NPCs are complete characters, each with explorable computers and visible activities. A shy analyst struggling not to be labeled by her gender meets a stoic Russian developer trying to make an honest living surrounded by the black market... a manipulative enforcer that cares less about ideology and more about bending others to her will... A vicious federal prosecutor is railroading your brother with spurious charges. What is he really after? Who is funding the hacker collective that has taken up your brothers case? There is a core scripted story that spans your brothers desktop to the corridoors of power. Subtle influence and hidden agendas give way to direct action and difficult choices. . Reveal new layers of the story with subsequent NewGame+ playthroughs. As the main story is exposed, threads are left behind for the player to pull and explore at their own pace. There are many ways to spend time in the game. Explore a hacked system, puzzle and plan over how to locate and infiltrate target, or hang out out and listen to hacker NPCs chatting. But specifically when it comes to hacking a target, there is a sequence that will always occur in some form: Exploration Exploration and deduction are large parts of the game. Besides the pure fun of snooping around someone elses digital life, key clues can be discovered that reveal new servers or attack avenues. For example, discovering an email address of "sales@hyperion.net" means not only is there a server at to be investigated, but its probably running a mail server which can potentially be bruteforced, with the username "sales". This kind of passive exposition is a goal of the game, rather than feeding information to the player line by line. A second aspect of exploration is the reconaissance of a server prior to attacking. Once a target is located, its ports must be scanned to enumerate its running services. A more aggressive scan will also list the versions of the different software running. Cross-reference running services with known exploits to find a way in, or if there are no known exploits, you might have to open up your fuzzer analyzer to try and discover a new zero-day exploit. But always ask around the darknet markets first to see if you can buy your way in, either through stolen credentails, or an upgraded version of a hacking program. Attacking The actual attacks are not the focus of the game, but when executing a hack, different attacks take the form of puzzles and minigames. Once inside, depending on different factors like your method of intrusion, your skill in the minigame, target defenses, etc, an active trace may have been triggered, in which case you'll need to work quickly to do what you need to do before time runs out. Only the most skilled hackers can infiltrate the top systems undetected. Spending resources A great designer once described gameplay as "a series of interesting decisions". How you spend your resources should be part of the fun. Resources can be: • Hardware power (CPU cycles, network bandwidth) • Money • Time • Exploit visibility Is it more valuable to enlist a compromised server into your botnet, or nuke it to preseve the secrecy of the exploit you used to capture it? Should you devote your processor to mining cryptocurrency, or put it to work cracking passwords? Are you skilled enough at a certain minigame, or should you buy an upgraded version of the software that has auto-solve features? Which targets should you attack first? Is it worth it to leave a calling card at the site of an attack to build your hacker reputation and attract top talent? Or do you prefer to cloak yourself in secrecy and anonymity? Personal computers Average user PCs won't have many powerful services running, however they almost always contain valuable things like bank account details and juicy personal secrets. To get in you'll need to leverage your malware and phishing skills. Corporate systems Companies protect their secrets well, due to their valuable nature. Firewalls, antivirus, and active intrusion detection systems are all formidable obstacles to even highly skilled hackers, and their system administrators rarely fall for social engineering. For these advanced environments, you'll need a combination of pure technical skills and raw firepower. Other services Some servers offer useful things such as email, web hosting, or other support services. While they may not hold monetary value, the user accounts they contain can often be cracked to unmask a targets password, which can be used on more important or secure systems. Not to mention getting file access to all the emails the server holds! Additionally, these machines often have high-spec hardware, a valuable addition to any botnet. Vulnerability scanning Portscan a target to enumerate its running services, or aggressively interrogate it to determine their versions.. then browse your collection of exploits for a match, or use what you find to research a new exploit. Fuzzer Analyze programs for previously undiscovered zero-day vulnerabilities. Trade time and CPU capacity for powerful new attack vectors. Bruteforce An improperly configured target will allow rapid, semi-random login attempts.. given enough time (and bandwidth) the correct credentials can eventually be guessed! Log deletion Don't get backtraced! Remember to clear out any logs that might reveal your connection information. Easily automated via a script, or even better, use root access to disable logging outright. Malw…
