Hacker Boy by Connor0Wolf

[raw]
made by Connor0Wolf for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Title Screen.png   Begin.png   In Game.png 

xx__H4CK3R-B01__xx (Hacker Boy), was born from the code. His legendary hacking prowess is known far and wide.   Chronicled here is one of his many legendary exploits...

Play as xx__H4CK3R-B01__xx himself, and experience the thrill of keeping the LIVE HACK FEED alive. * Sift through messages sent from fellow hackers, as well as malicious narcs. * Complete the hacker minigames as they appear, and keep your router lines online! * Try your hardest to raise your hacker score and claim the highest score possible.

Credits Sydney Foe http://sydneyfoe.com/ Jake Hyland https://greyhillsproductions.com/ William Nomikos http://wnomikos.com/ Luke Piazza https://lukepiazza.org/ Connor Wolf http://connorwolf.info

Ratings

Overall 225th 3.99⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Fun 243th 3.885⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 202th 3.908⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1217th 3.667⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 752th 3.939⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Audio 268th 3.885⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Humor 317th 3.719⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Mood 373th 3.88⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 67🗨️

Feedback

Draschel
21. Apr 2020 · 01:47 UTC
I dig a lot of what's going on here. This game oozes style and charm in all of the details. The presentation is slick, the sound design all immediately evokes the feeling of early 2000's computing, and every single bit of legible text is fun to read. It takes a minute to fully understand the loop of checking the router while managing stuff, but it's a satisfying system.

If I was gonna change one thing, I'd make the windows dragable around the screen. It's intentional to the game's difficulty that some things can't both be open/used at once, but it just feels a bit artificial.

The wide array of minigames in place here is very solid. I thought it was just the email stuff at first, and then started noticing more and more. I'm not sure how many exist total, but it was a fun discovery each time. Also, the SFX for some of the failures states were incredible.

High Score: 1450
Pagetb
21. Apr 2020 · 08:33 UTC
nice game!
Simply
21. Apr 2020 · 08:52 UTC
Well done, nice game!
Yoshify
21. Apr 2020 · 08:58 UTC
I'll second what Draschel says - I instinctively went to drag the windows around, as it's supposed to be a computer screen, but was slightly disappointed when they didn't move :(

This game is charming. It's a nice blend between satirical cheesy early 2000's/late 90's hacker and fun. I'd probably make the intro animation a little faster though.

Thanks for the game!
William Nomikos
21. Apr 2020 · 09:21 UTC
@Yoshify Thanks for the feedback, it's appreciated. The dragging Windows was a feature we actually wanted to implement, though we ran out of time to truly flesh it out. I'm glad you enjoyed the game though! :)
William Nomikos
21. Apr 2020 · 09:26 UTC
@draschel Thank you for playing! I agree with you with the Window dragging, it is something we started to create but ran out of time to perfectly implement in a fun way. I'm also happy that you enjoy the the style we went with :). Thanks for playing!
koro.games
21. Apr 2020 · 09:40 UTC
Had same issue as @yoshify
This game contains a lot of stuff! Great job, congrats!
Sir Magic
21. Apr 2020 · 13:54 UTC
Really interesting implementation of a hacker game. There were many little features I enjoyed with this game:
* The nostalgic "click" sound that plays.
* The contacts.txt so that you can check which emails are genuine.
* The animations at the start of the game.
* Closing windows when you got the viruses.

I also liked the many puzzles that I had to complete in order to get the live feed back online. I've played a few "hacking" games before but I feel like this is definitely the best I've seen! To improve further, I think perhaps an explanation of what the colours on the router mean would be good. I tried turning it on and off but that didn't seem to work. But overall, I loved it!
JAzambuja
21. Apr 2020 · 15:11 UTC
nice game art and sounds
Robin49
21. Apr 2020 · 15:50 UTC
Nice game
DaimiloDev
21. Apr 2020 · 19:06 UTC
I really felt like a hackerboy hahaha great job, the art was cool, and the idea original, i like it!
sadsmile
21. Apr 2020 · 19:14 UTC
Felt very "hacky" :P
Thijmen
21. Apr 2020 · 19:17 UTC
This is amazing dude, good job!
MadeByChaz
21. Apr 2020 · 21:03 UTC
Very nice! I loved the vibe on this. The graphics were appropriate and it was nicely put together. I *tried* to understand what was going on after reading the tutorial through a couple of times but dont think I still fully understood it. The minigames were a good touch and the sound was fantastic. I loved the mouse clicking sound when I clicked mine. It did definitely feel very "hacker-ish". Voices and music were spot on...I think the only thing that could've benefited it further was perhaps an interactive tutorial with a demonstration of each mechanic and what it does. Overall however I thought the mood level on this one was high. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your entry (and for your lovely feedback on my own entry)!
🎤 Connor0Wolf
21. Apr 2020 · 21:19 UTC
Thanks so much for the feedback, @madebychaz! Something we wanted was for the player to feel a bit out of control with all the different things popping up on screen. We wanted to give you just enough information that you could fail forward. In the future, I think we just might take your advice though, it seems like lots of people are having trouble! :sweat_smile:
Yarl
22. Apr 2020 · 04:24 UTC
Nice graphics and desktop setting. Nostalgia and familiarity at play here, with the router as a wonderful villain foiling my exploits. Ultimately a bit overwhelming for me, but not exactly my game style. Great job overall!
Big_Chalupa
22. Apr 2020 · 04:51 UTC
The level of polish is amazing. your concept is really cool and could easily be expanded on. Great job!
Yolziii
22. Apr 2020 · 06:59 UTC
Guys! This is a very-every-very charming hacking game! Too dynamic as for me, but so many details! I really like your soundtrack! Great job :)
PonyPen
22. Apr 2020 · 09:40 UTC
Really cool idea for a game and I've got to love the death screen!
Nice graphics and audio <3 x
edj99
22. Apr 2020 · 11:15 UTC
Wow, what an amazing entry! Unique take on the theme, very nice graphics and sounds and a good sense of humour to boot.
a piece of egg
22. Apr 2020 · 21:30 UTC
looks amazing and is really fun to play but i was an idiot and dint know how to turn on the router
GreenDinoGames
22. Apr 2020 · 23:41 UTC
This is so cool. One of my favorite games so far. The random spam email are hilarious :D Good job!
Ryulan
23. Apr 2020 · 03:11 UTC
The fast pacing was fun, as you were rushing around doing things, and I enjoyed the little mini games. The clicking sound made everything way better, felt like you were really clicking away on a computer - the one thing I would have preferred was if the windows weren't overlayed on top of each other, since sometimes as I was deleting, for instance, the Hack.exe file to get at some puzzle underneath it, time would run out. Overall, though, I thought the game was pretty innovative and I enjoyed it! :P
Zerion
23. Apr 2020 · 10:55 UTC
Damn one of my favorite game for this jam ! Love the art, audio, really got a special feeling during my games. Congrats :)
TeiNRee
23. Apr 2020 · 10:58 UTC
Well, wow :D
toxicon
23. Apr 2020 · 11:03 UTC
nice and funny idea. i did not hack anything but i liked it :)
Tygrak
23. Apr 2020 · 11:09 UTC
Nice art and sound. The aesthetic of the game is great. Wish I was able to drag the windows around, as others already said. It's a bit hard to understand what's going on at first.
RelicTooth
24. Apr 2020 · 22:50 UTC
This was very cool, although maybe a bit too fast paced from the beginning. Really like the aesthetic and feel. Excellent work!
matsuya
25. Apr 2020 · 11:49 UTC
As someone who made a game with a similar theme it would be interesting to see how this was and I really enjoyed this, the gameplay reminds me of Welcome to the Game, I enjoyed the bit crushed audio and the graphical style too. I'd love to see this get expanded in the future
DeadBoyGames
26. Apr 2020 · 16:01 UTC
Very funny idea! Keeping the hack alive. Good job!
blay09
26. Apr 2020 · 16:47 UTC
Just like in the movies!! This was pretty fun and I liked the "special effects" helping with the mood. I stupidly plugged out my router twice before I realized I just have to press the "on-button" and I had a bit of a hard time with the mails, as sometimes the date would be formatted like "18:4526/4/2020" but still count as a legit mail. Either way a great application of the theme and nice execution!
monkeyDvrus
26. Apr 2020 · 20:02 UTC
Nice game, cool idea, i like the music
Sinci1
26. Apr 2020 · 21:54 UTC
Wow, when I opened this game my jaw dropped from the polish! even though it was made by a team of people the polish and the attention to details is amazing! and the gameplay after you get the hang of it is fun as well! My only two main critisism's would be that the text is a bit too small to read, and in a game where time is crucial it's a bit annoying. The second complaint would be that some puzzles are a bit hard to understand, for example the ABC123 puzzle I couldn't really grasp on time.

My suggestions would be to just make the text more readable, and also maybe make like a training level [I get that this is game jam and the game is super polished so you probably didn't have time for this, but] basicaly it would be like a level where you would learn all the different hacks and you would learn how to combat them! But apart from those two complaints the game is really well done!
MrChippy
27. Apr 2020 · 19:18 UTC
Great Job. Way too hard for me so I guess I need to get gud but everything seems very polished and throughful.

This is the one game where I feel that the Inconsistantly sized pixel art fits with the overall feel of the game.

All the audio was really good, especially the clicks.
TeamJS
10. May 2020 · 06:13 UTC
Interesting concept, the atmosphere on this one is fantastic! Loved the attention to detail of the curved monitor, major early 2000s vibes! The game play was one to figure out, but once I understood it, it got a bit interesting. Great work! Quite different and innovative! Hope to see more! - J

Really well done. Has a lot of polish, especially visually. One small issue, I found it hard to read occasionally, so maybe an easier to read font or slightly better text might have made the experience better. Overall, well done! - S
TeamJS
10. May 2020 · 06:13 UTC
Interesting concept, the atmosphere on this one is fantastic! Loved the attention to detail of the curved monitor, major early 2000s vibes! The game play was one to figure out, but once I understood it, it got a bit interesting. Great work! Quite different and innovative! Hope to see more! - J

Really well done. Has a lot of polish, especially visually. One small issue, I found it hard to read occasionally, so maybe an easier to read font or slightly better text might have made the experience better. Overall, well done! - S