The Operator by little-burrito
Neo. The one. Amazing. Incredible. But what about the operator? Now this isn't just about The Matrix, but just to make a point - what about when Morpheus tells him over the phone where he can hide from the agents? What about when Tank loads the training programs for the sparring simulator? This game is about the hero hacker. The Operator.
I had a much grander vision (surprise!) of this being a multiplayer game, where you're two people playing on the same computer - one person is the agent and the other one is the operator. I didn't get very far, but that's the idea. For now the one agent in the one mission will be remotely controlled by my incredibly incredible AI (Artifical Intelligence). The scripting system came along quite well though, it was my first attempt at a proper console. If I remade one I'd know what to change from this one :)
If you have the energy to download the game and run it in fullscreen, native mode, the console will look much better. Just saying. You don't have to though. Man, I've got to go to bed. I'm doing this from the wrong timezone.
************ POST COMPO ************
I haven't been able to work as much as I've wanted to, but there's been a little bit of post compo stuff done. Most of all, I've reworked the commands system and made some improvements to the missions system, so now it's pretty easy to make new missions. :) I'll keep uploading the latest version in web format here:
http://antonlejon.com/ld31/latest/latest.html
There WILL be more coming.
I had a much grander vision (surprise!) of this being a multiplayer game, where you're two people playing on the same computer - one person is the agent and the other one is the operator. I didn't get very far, but that's the idea. For now the one agent in the one mission will be remotely controlled by my incredibly incredible AI (Artifical Intelligence). The scripting system came along quite well though, it was my first attempt at a proper console. If I remade one I'd know what to change from this one :)
If you have the energy to download the game and run it in fullscreen, native mode, the console will look much better. Just saying. You don't have to though. Man, I've got to go to bed. I'm doing this from the wrong timezone.
************ POST COMPO ************
I haven't been able to work as much as I've wanted to, but there's been a little bit of post compo stuff done. Most of all, I've reworked the commands system and made some improvements to the missions system, so now it's pretty easy to make new missions. :) I'll keep uploading the latest version in web format here:
http://antonlejon.com/ld31/latest/latest.html
There WILL be more coming.
Ratings
| Coolness | 66% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.83 | 67 |
| Audio | 2.51 | 668 |
| Fun | 3.55 | 181 |
| Graphics | 2.94 | 655 |
| Humor | 2.80 | 354 |
| Innovation | 4.26 | 25 |
| Mood | 3.72 | 63 |
| Theme | 4.23 | 67 |
I agree that this could make a really fun two-player game. Somehow you have to make sure that every player has something to contribute, something a little bit challenging. For example if there is time pressure then the operator is all about quickly figuring out what to do, what to type, all that.
This reminds me a little bit of
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/971379677/black-hat-oculus (and that's a good thing!)
I'm totally thinking along those lines - in fact this type of concept first came to me when a friend of mine tried my Oculus Rift, and as he started getting overwhelmed by enemies, I tried to give him god mode through the console. We both saw exactly the same thing (both the enemies and the console output on top), and that's when it occurred to me something like this would be awesome. I envision something like the players needing to defeat a giant 8-armed killing machine, and the agent has to get close enough for the operator to read the ids on its arms. The agent has to survive for long enough for the Operator to disable the shields or something, and then the agent can start taking the machine down. Then the operator needs to lock on to a specific piece of the machine so that the agent can fire its target seeking missiles. Or how about a scenario where the agent would get overwhelmed by small enemies as the operator would try to open and escape hatch. I think it would be so cool, and I think the Rift would be perfect (but not necessary) for this idea. The agent should use some other form of controller as as well, like a ps3 controller, and I want them both to look at the same monitor, seeing exactly the same image. When you get to see what the Terminator is seeing in the movie, that's a huge inspiration :)
really fun game, once i figured it out, the original idea you had in mind sounds like a REALLY fun game, so if you ever get around to prototyping it, ill totally try it <3
This is exactly the kind of brilliant idea I wish I had this week end !
Good take on the theme, nice mechanics and cool realisation. Would love to play a more complete version, when you will have time to work on one !
You should definitely put some more time into fleshing this out. For the confusing console problems: Probably simply update your map as soon as you have scanned the target so people can recall those IDs even if they don`t see it any more in the console.
I would like to see a follow-up version of this! Great stuff!
I'm getting the feeling I should try to add a more advanced mission. Maybe tomorrow, as a little update, who knows!
Thanks for all the feedback and tips!
Raisedmedia, that's weird... it's not really loading anything, it's just doing a WaitForSeconds command, so it's probably Unity + OS related. It works on my MacBook Air. Are you able to input anything?
It's hard to find the link.
Before having read your comment above, I thought "the agent would need to use some second controller - great to see that this is exactly the plan.
I liked the console - but in a future version, colors and tab complete (latter being the more important) would be nice.
@LabOne Oh that's cool! I do vaguely remember a really cool looking screen on a James Bond promo site, it must have been the most recent one. Thanks :)
@Germanunkol Thanks! I'm telling you, I had to stop myself from making a tab complete command so many times, but I spent pretty much the whole first day on things like making the input work, adding commands like clear/cls, making the up/down arrows load previous commands, making ctrl + arrow keys jump whole words, making control + backspace and control + delete work too, and then I just couldn't keep going! What I ended up doing was making shorthands for pretty much all the commands, so rather than typing l<tab> for list, you can type ls and it will understand. Unfortunately I never got the point where I could properly communicate that. I'll definitely look into adding it later though, but for it'll have to wait until I've tested some more missions and possibly some multiplayer, as a more in-depth proof of concept. In the new version of the input system I've also added some visual hierarchy to the output, and I think that makes most things easier.
@UrbanLogicGames Thanks! Yeah, that's definitely a huge challenge. The way I've rewritten the input system now is so that if you for example try to do something that requires a target, then it will say how to perform that target command. If you try to target something without a connection, it will tell you how to perform that connection command. If you enter the target command in the wrong way, it will tell you how to enter the target command. The idea is that it should automatically try to figure out what you're trying to do and give you valuable feedback. If you're completely lost you can enter the help command, and if you're still lost it basically says "if you don't know what to do, list the missions" and then you can do so. Then the missions list should guide you from there. That's idea anyway, we'll see how it goes. Hey, now that I think of it, maybe I should make a note taking system, that'd be cool :) But yeah, there's also a balance between me wanting loads of text and commands (so that it'll become almost action gameplay later on) and at the same time allowing new users to enjoy the game and never start by reading through a giant, boring readme file. I mean, this is a GAME after all :) I think for now I'll keep it as a single player game, but although the audience for same-computer-multiplayer-games seems to have been pretty small since something like 20-30 years ago, I think it'd be so cool for this, because it's also a matter of communication and balance of the operator wanting many tools the screen, but too many tools will be a problem for the agent. That kind of stuff. But yeah, giving both players rewarding and fun roles is another huge challenge for this concept. I never want it to feel like you're just waiting for the other one (except when it's a cool feature, like if the agent needs defend itself while the operator tries to hack something - that would put a time limit on both of them, but BOTH players would be benefited by the other player doing a good job).
I like the idea of different types of people being able to enjoy it, like the agent has to be more of an action game person while the operator is the puzzle-enthusiast. Somewhat reminds me of hacking stuff in Alien Swarm while my friends tried to keep the area clear of the endless swarm of aliens.
Bookmarking the page with the current version for later!
So cool of you to do that, thanks for the feedback! I'm excited to keep gong! :-)
So good that I didn't even think about its relevance to the theme until I came here to write about your game. Now that I do think about it, it's a really creative take on it!
This could easily be some sort of online deathmatch sort of thing - which would save you the need to create a whole campaign and all that.
If I'm going to be picky, the 3D graphics could have used some work. But the terminal itself was beautiful.
Please add tab completion to the new version!
@pinpickle interesting - how do you envision death match gameplay?
Oh, and there IS tab completion in the new one! http://antonlejon.com/ld31/latest/latest.html
Soon there will be another level or two as well. :-)
It's a shame that there's not enough content there, but what little there was I was absolutely blown away. I didn't look at anything before starting the game, and thought "oh look command prompt"
When the 3D view came up OMFG I SHANT MYSELF :D
Awesome :D
VERY inspirational. Always wanted a hacking game that was worth a shit :)
Kudos kudos kudos! :D
Ok, I have just one thing to say on the subject : don't fret to much about the lack of tab-completion in your game. I spent way too much time implementing it in my own entry, and the result was more confusing than anything else I think. I actually reworked it a lot in my post-compo version.
I am against a time limit though. It would be very hard for you to balance it properly (since not everyone has the same typing speed) and would be very frustrating for some players if you fail to do to so.
merry christmas to you too!
Some ambient sounds would be a good addition, but other then that, great job!
I'm really happy with how the tab complete ended up in the post compo version, I think it feels like typing on clouds :)
I think balancing a time limit would be one of the most challenging parts of creating this game, but it's something I want to try, and I think making it dynamic could be a good solution. The agent could either hide a lot and go very slow (essentially giving you no time limit except that you have certain time windows to catch certain pieces of information, but if you miss them, you can try again in a little while), or the agent could just shoot it's way through the level if the hacker is fast enough to more or less get everything on the first try.