Hack It

Community Showcases
1

Overview

Hack It is an RTS-style hacking themed game that involves the player, an intern working for a massive cyber-security company, testing their latest sotfware. The gameplay features a maze-like environment where the player must navigate objects called hacker nodes to their target, whatever they are trying to hack into, with a bunch of stuff in-between. Defender nodes defend the target system and will do anything in their power to stop you, if they find your hacking source then you’re busted. Security nodes can be used by either side, hacker or defender, and they act as stationary sentries, they will eliminate any nearby enemy units. There’s plenty of techno club music and helpful and occasionally humorous dialog to go around to keep you even further immersed into the cyber world. You’ll be put up against some of the most sophisticated cyber-defense systems in the world, question is, can you Hack It?

Updates

November 21, 2012 - Alpha Build 0.0.7 was released today, more about this can be read below.

January 12, 2013 - Work on the project has resumed, more about this can be read below.

March 2, 2013 - Alpha Build 0.0.7.4 was released today, more about this can be read below.

April 21, 2013 - Alpha Build 0.0.8 was released today, more about this can be read below.

Updates

1-12-13
Happy New Years! With the recent release of Unity 4 the team had gotten a bit distracted and wanted to play with it’s new toys (namely Mecanim), subsequently our programmer went on vacation and only returned recently, therefore not much has been done except fixing small bugs and making small improvements. We will have another alpha build up soon with more music, more levels, and much more to do. Stay tuned!

8-14-13
We know it’s been a while since we’ve said anything but this entire time we were indeed working on the project, and it has come quite far along. We’re now preparing for some beta releases as only a few more main features have to be added. We’re really proud of how the game has come along and we can’t wait to show you what we have been working on. Stay tuned.

The Alpha

We are releasing alpha builds for testing up until we reach the fourth level so we can get some feedback and fix any bugs that just happened to crawl past us. The first build acts as a tease for the rest of them, the subsequent ones will feature more levels and the overall game will improve during the alpha release cycle. The second build features the second level and defender nodes. The third build features the third level and also a new unit, the security nodes. They are all free to play and are downloadable on our website at http://darkstarinteractive.net/. The website isn’t finished so right now the only place to post feedback is here, as the website sections get finished such as the community section, we will start taking feedback there. All feedback is acceptable, however. Mac, Windows, and Linux are all supported.

The alpha is downloadable here: http://darkstarinteractive.net/hackit.html

The Team

We are just a small team of independent developers working on this game. You might only know us as Dark Star, we have actual names but here we will just use our aliases, let me introduce you to the team.

Skaven - Programmer, Artist, Web Designer
Elesser - Writer, Social (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Dazkix - Composer, Sound Effects

That’s right three people… very short credits.

Screenshots
Updated ones are coming soon! The ones below are from the first publicly playable build of the game and are very outdated.

Level 2 is extremely hard in the alphas, we have toned the defender nodes down a bit. You shall be commended (pat yourself on the back maybe?) if you get past it and get to enjoy the somewhat easier Level 3
For the most part any bugs in the alphas have been addressed by now so they’re just to get a taste of what the game will be like. However if you find something very strange or out of place happening then let us know.

2

This sounds awesome, can you post some screenshots for the lazy people?

EDIT: On the page you linked to the CSS is all screwed up (on Firefox), might want to check that out.

EDIT 2: I downloaded the Windows version and it can’t run, the Hack It_Data folder isn’t in there.

3

Yeah, we just recently found out about that, unfortunately Skaven was on a mac and couldn’t test the PC version which is why it has some problems, he says he’s on it though… the website too.

EDIT: Well that turned into a bit more trouble than necessary, but it’s all working now. Thanks for your patience.

4

Tried it, seems pretty cool.

I must ask you one question though. How did you get the arrow to rotate that pointed to the hard drive, to my knowledge you can’t rotate GUITextures. How did you overcome that?

5

This: Unity - Scripting API: GUIUtility.RotateAroundPivot

6

I think you should get some video or screenshots because I didnt even know there was a demo to play.

7

I can’t see any screenshot.

8

Okay I made the text bold, the screenshots only show up whenever we’re logged into our account. They were uploaded as attachments and I hit the “insert inline” button to put them in the post. Kinda new to these forums, anyone know what might be wrong?

9

Upload to screencast, imageshack, photobucket, etc…

Find on the page where it says: “BBCode” or “Forum HTML” or “Forum BBCode” etc… But NOT “HTML” or any variant like “Website” etc…

Copy that

Paste it in the post.

10

Oops, meant to click Edit

Go to… http://www.tinypic.com

Click Choose File. Upload a picture.

Do the captcha thing.

Copy the url within the highlighted section (it will not be highlighted on the website, but it will be in the same spot.

Edit your post and paste it in, then click Save.

Whala!

11

Fixed it, thanks!

12

Downloaded alpha. Not too bad, I like the concept of it. It would be really cool if you got some online competition going. You could have a single and a multiplayer, actually.

Single player: you are timed to see how fast you get to the end. Have serverside highscores so people can compete for the best time.

Multiplayer: there is a long maze and at the end there is your opponent’s computer. The maze is the same for the both of you, but he starts at his computer and makes his way towards yours, so he is essentially doing the maze backwards. So the goal is to hack the opponent’s computer first.

Also, this is an alpha, so I expect that it is bare bones, but having obstacles such as firewalls and encryption (maybe make the screen get pixely and blurry with encryption) would add a fun part to the game.

Looks like a solid idea. Keep it up.

13

Firewalls and Encryptions are already in the game, just not that level, and require some interesting ways of getting past them. We have experimented with a multiplayer, it’s doable if we get some servers up, but right now we’re just trying to get the single player and probably a quick game mode down, then we can focus on that. Another thing we’ll add later is a level creator, what we’ve created to create the levels is pretty much a level creator in and of itself, it just runs in the editor though. Thanks for the feedback, glad that you liked it! Anybody found any bugs yet?

14

It sounds like it could work man. I haven’t found any bugs, worked pretty smooth too!

15

A second alpha build containing the first and second levels will be released soon and we are terribly sorry for the delay. Levels 1-5 will be the only ones to be featured in alpha builds, more will be featured in beta builds, and all of them in the final game. To clarify any speculation, this will be a completely free game. We hope to reduce the length of the hiatuses between releases, especially as the game becomes more popular. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve done; as previously stated the only available version of the game now is seriously just a tease. We’ll keep you posted.

16

The second alpha build has been released, you can find it here at http://darkstarinteractive.net/hackit.html. It features a new level and a new unit, the defender nodes. Any bugs or feedback, please let us know about them here. To reiterate, this is only an alpha build, what you will see isn’t final. Hope you have fun!

17

The third and final alpha release is now out. As always, it can be downloaded from our site (see the link in the original post). The third build contains many bug fixes, a new unit, a new level, and more. The new build also is available for Linux. Please if you find bugs or have any other type of feedback then let us know. Check out the new alpha build out and stay tuned!

18

It has been a while since we’ve revealed anything we’ve been working on about the project. We’ve been hard at work for the past months and are very pleased with how the game is shaping up. The game has changed drastically gameplay-wise and will be a lot different and more playable than the alphas (Level 2 was deemed nearly impossible to beat by many). Anyhow today I have a list of new features that will be featured in a beta build that will be released soon for some final testing before a full release.

Enhanced AI: the AI in the game is more of an artificial intelligence than just a pathfinder and actually strategizes using various resources now that the base units have been added.

Multiple Nodes: the game now features the ability to “command” multiple hacker nodes RTS style to take of things which can also be switched to and controlled normally.

Object Placement: players can now also make use of encryptions by strategically placing them in the game world to block of areas from the side defending the system (and the defenders can too), players also can place a limited amount of friendly hacker nodes, and “outposts” (which act as checkpoints in the alphas but are a bit more now).

New Dialog System: the dialog no longer holds the game back and the tutorial system has been completely redesigned so that you don’t have to sit and wait for two people (or a person and an AI) to have a discussion before being able to play, also the dialog box doesn’t take up the entire screen and the UI looks more elegant than before.

New Tutorial System: the new tutorial system is more of a tutorial than someone or thing just talking to you and makes the game easier to understand and makes everything make more sense gameplay-wise.

More Levels: this one is pretty self-explanatory but the new levels are more sophisticated and allow for more interesting gameplay (also the levels 1-3 are getting a bit of a facelift).

All of this and more will be featured in the beta release and subsequently the final game, we still have more to reveal but for now that’s all. Stay tuned!