Anton
In the year 2399, automation is rife, every sector across all areas of industry have been automated with just a handful of jobs available to man.
There was no robot uprising or sudden change of power that was expected in the late 20th century, but a gradual erosion of jobs and the crawling growth of vast automated industrial complexes working tirelessly and efficiently, more than man could ever have hoped for.
This should have been a future of hope and prosperity, instead man is relegated to the side lines, a bored consumer, barely able to make ends meet and clamouring for just one of the few remote jobs still available to them.
You’re one of the lucky ones, you’ve been selected from 10s of 1000’s to start as a remote CCTV operator, man’s value now is so low that it is more efficient to have man controlling remote CCTV cameras than to automate them.
Your role is simple, to mark any Automaton units for the recycling program that have malfunctioned or that have hit SAT (Self Awareness Threshold), today is your first day, you connect remotely to the AMI Industrial Complex…
Features
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Control a remote CCTV drone camera allowing you a unique view into an automated industrial complex
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Hack devices in the world through a series of ever more complex interfaces
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Interact with and reprogram devices and automatons
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Converse with automatons through the branching narrative system
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Delve into the Cybersphere, the central data matrix that shows all the accessible data nodes with a complex through the BotOS 2395 operating system
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Unravel the truth behind this vast automated empire.
Look for the Anton 2 Level Demo on STEAM
FInd a Level 1 Spoiler Playthrough at the end of the screen shots if you’re stuck
Read More: Best Programming Robots Games.
CyberRebeat -The Fifth Domain of Warfare-
I’m a huge enthusiast for the cyperpunk genre, and a premise this unique at $5 was hard to pass up. I definitely enjoyed my time with CyberRebeat and would recommend it to anyone who find its premise or subject matter interesting, especially if you find it on sale like I did. However, it’s also important to note that, as a VN itself, its production quality is considerably underwhelming (though it thankfully did not deter my enjoyment as much as it may others).
Let’s start with the good though: The story is lengthy and very engaging. I found myself hooked from beginning to end and wanting more after the credits rolled. The characters and their designs are also a plus: I felt the characters were very well-rounded, not pulling too much (or too little) from their personality traits or backstories to leave a lasting impression on the reader. Background art doesn’t wow much but gets the job done and, similarly, the BGM is also enjoyable despite a relatively short track list (an OST release would be a nice bonus).
– Real player with 24.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Programming Investigation Games.
Video review (including score):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIrfJlKSQ
The rundown:
Pros:
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Good character designs
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Language-switching feature
Cons:
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Barebones settings menu
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Lack of keyboard controls
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Text issues
This visual novel is a rather odd release. On one hand, it is a VN about hackers and the world they live in, a concept rarely touched on in VNs. On the other, it is a freeware title that is still available to download on the developer’s website, although without the English translation. The game may have some good art, but it definitely shows signs of being a freeware title, and not in a good way.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Quadrilateral Cowboy is a story about having those youthful, exciting, and often dangerous experiences with a really tight-knit group of friends as you journey through life together, and then growing old to reflect fondly on those memories.
It is all very beautiful to experience.
Half the game is a story that unfolds, and the other half is puzzle solving. The tale is quite moving, and the puzzles are very reasonably difficult, and quite rewarding. If you know Chung’s work, you know what to expect as far as the ‘experience’ or flavor. Otherwise, here is a test to gauge if you will like this game. If two of the three apply to you, then I highly recommend you buy it:
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Programming Adventure Games.
The game has some great ideas and nice attention to detail, but I felt like it never came together.
A lot of mechanics get introduced and then forgotten. New mechanics replace the old ones instead of building on them. There’s hardly any increase in complexity as you go along.
All the levels are simple and focused on 1 to 2 of the avialable mechanics. The rest is either not used at all or simply taken away from the player, sometimes for 1 mission and other times forever.
Because of all this, the game became way too easy later on. Instead of having puzzles to solve, you just go through the motions. Click this, click that, go here, go there. Some timer here and there. No challenge whatsoever. Not to mention you can ‘cheat’ your way though a lot of the levels.
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
hackmud
There is a certain charm to Hackmud where, despite some of the flaws that I have been very much accustomed to over my 12,000 logged Steam hours in this game, I still continue to play this game, or at the very least have an interaction with it, daily. If I were to make a shortlist of my favourite video games of all time, would Hackmud be in this list? Compared to actual video gaming masterpieces? After a lot of deliberation, my answer is: “No at its core, but considering everything I’ve been through with it, yes”. Hackmud stands as a testament to the sheer entertainment potential of even the smallest and roughest of games with the right kind of mechanics to allow for infinite user-generated content.
– Real player with 21032.0 hrs in game
This is one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. It’s hard to explain exactly what the draw is in a concise way, so be prepared for a little reading.
It’s easy to say that I love it for the scripting, which is my primary focus, but the reason I love it is so much more than that. The atmosphere really clicks for me, where the lore is presented “Dark Souls style”, which takes some digging to reveal - and what it shows you makes you want to know more. The npcs in this game talk from time to time, and as you see what they have to say you may start to realize they are not just making jokes, spamming weather reports, and adding to the lore, but they also hint at secrets that players can find.
– Real player with 3061.8 hrs in game
Neon Noodles - Cyberpunk Kitchen Automation
So much that I like about this game. I liked the idea of Overcooked, but it was always too frantic for me and in Neon Noodles I like taking time to plan and be an efficient chef. Designing the layout and instructions is intuitive and works well even with a controller. The UI is clean and clearly communicates, while still looking really good. Building something that works first, and then optimizing it based on the 3 categories (roughly space, time, and complexity) adds additional challenges. It makes me want to cook all of these delicious recipes.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
Selecting to play a new game from the main menu screen will take you to the level screen. Choosing to continue a previous game from the main menu will take you to the game level you’re currently on. On the first level Sliced Avocado, you’ll be welcomed to Neon Noodles! From here you’ll continue an existing program and be instructed on what to do. You will also get more information as you progress through the levels.
– Real player with 10.9 hrs in game
EXAPUNKS
The best “Zach-like” game yet. Even if it is by Zach.
Another excellent puzzle game from Zachtronics. If you’ve never played a game like this before, this is an open-ended puzzle game. By “open-ended” I mean there is a problem you are trying to solve, and you are given tools (in this case a programming language for what appears to be tiny robots) to solve it as you choose. You build a solution to the presented problem. You win if the solution works but how you get to a working solution is up to you. There are limits to your freedom both by the language and what the “little robots” can accomplish at one time. The puzzle here revolves around writing little program fragments that unfold through parallelization into pretty impressive results. It is a complete programming language (although a very simple one) and even has a little test-bed where you can make your own creation without a specific goal.
– Real player with 107.5 hrs in game
The first Zachtronic game I found myself being able to complete and with extremely minimal help, more so due to that some puzzles are difficult to understand rather than writing the code itself. Even though the game does get hard, it does an excellent job of preparing you for the difficulty ahead. Even without any programming knowledge, you’ll be able to overcome the challenges this game poses. You can always see the exact end state the game wants you to leave the board in at any time, which serves as an excellent guide in what you’re meant to do.
– Real player with 87.6 hrs in game
Else Heart.Break()
So many bugs, so little help. You have to coax the game into continuing the storyline. God forbid you didn’t spend five to ten minutes walking back to the hotel to sleep at night, otherwise you might fall asleep before you finish a key plot point action that has roughly a minute-long window to do. The premise seemed fun, but I am having the hardest time even getting the first few things done.
The backpack system is a mess, especially given the fact that you’re going to want to collect every floppy disk you find. There are tons, so you’ll be constantly flipping through them, dropping them places you’ll hopefully remember you dropped them, and potentially rediscovering them later.
– Real player with 56.7 hrs in game
This game drove me crazy. I finally finished it, but I wouldn’t have been able to without consulting the online forum repeatedly. There is a lot of great potential here, but most of it is wasted. The first thing to realize is that this is not a “programming game”, in the sense that none of the difficult aspects of the game have anything to do with tricky programming puzzles (unlike, say, Zachtronics games). This game is a role-playing point-and-click adventure that happens to feature programming (hacking) as a key component. The game features an in-game programming language called Sprak, which is a pretty simple imperative language that nobody with any programming experience will have any trouble with. However, very little real programming is necessary to progress in the game; usually you just modify tiny snippets of code and then you’re done. (Basically, the game makes you into a script kiddie.) The one difficult aspect of programming in the game is figuring out just which built-in commands are available. The game helps you a bit with this, but every programmable device has a different set of built-in commands, and some critical ones are only found in a few places. But the biggest problem with this game is the plot. The plot progression is wildly uneven, with long stretches where nothing is happening punctuated by short bursts where critical stuff is happening all at once. Plot triggers are very easy to miss, and if you do, you will wander around forever trying to figure out what you should be doing, while none of the in-game characters will talk to you. Worse, many triggers require you to behave in exactly the opposite way that the game suggests you ought to behave, or thwart your expectations in other ways. Contrarily, many things the game suggests you should be doing turn out to be completely unnecessary and a waste of time. The worst part of it, for me, was that the programming part of the game can’t start until you get a hold of something called a “modifier”, and it is by no means easy to do so. I probably played for 20 hours or so before giving up and consulting the forums to find out how to get this absolutely critical piece of equipment, without which the game cannot progress. The best (non-spoiler) advice I can give you is to talk to every person you meet, and keep talking until all possible conversation paths are exhausted. Also, the game world is large enough that it’s very easy to get lost, and although you have a map, it’s pathetically bad, with many important landmarks left off. And when you finally get a modifier, you still aren’t out of the woods. You have to figure out how to join a kind of “resistance” against an evil system, and again, it’s very easy to completely miss the trigger that will get you into this group. Once you do, the game (finally!) starts to take off. This is fun for a while, but nothing you do matters much until the final confrontation happens, which will be glaringly obvious. However (once again!) what you need to do to fix things will not be obvious, so you are left wandering around again while nobody will talk to you, wondering what you should be doing (this seems like a theme here). When you finally realize what you need to do, doing it is quite easy as long as you can get into a particular room. There are floppy disks scattered all around the world that contain hints and clues, as well as code examples that you can learn from. You will need to spend a lot of time looking at these unless you (like me) run out of patience and just consult the online forum, and then you can literally finish the game in five minutes. There are multiple endings: several “you lose” kind of endings and one “you win” ending which is so unsatisfying it feels like you just lost a bit less. To sum up, I think this game had huge potential, but it was ruined by poor execution. I almost can’t fault the developers for this; to do a game like this right requires more resources than a small team can provide. I think in the hands of someone like Valve, with expert writers and large numbers of playtesters, this game could have been something amazing. As it is, it’s more of a proof of concept. (OK, great, concept proved! Now go make a real game!) If you’re going to play this game, save yourself endless frustration and consult the online forums when you get stuck.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
4th Super Industrial Revolution Wars
4th Super Industrial Revolution Wars is a programming game.
And also turn-based strategy game.
Write your codes, click build button.
And then every turn your codes will become your (team’s) units.
Units will fight automatically with AI.
and your goal is to destroy enemy’s base with sending units.
For Beginners, (both Of this Game Or Programming)
Please progress tutorial in game.
Yes, Year 2020! Happy New Year!!
4SIRW is real programming game for year 2020.
You may need to prepare 4th industrial revolution.
*You Are Not Prepared.
So playing this game, you will learn programming.
And you can enjoy programming.
… May the 4th be with you.
Codeyounglings apologize for delaying launch.
Actually Codeyounglings is 1 indie game developer.
I am trying to do all but there are too many of them.
I hope that you understand me and don’t confuse me as the masters or something.
I planned new scheduled release date as TBD
But I’ll do everything not to launch too late.
Hacknet
shell
! 74.125.23.121
shell
! 216.239.32.181
shell
! 210.81.156.7
shell
! 206.44.131.159
connect
! 226.187.99.3
Scanning for
! 226.187.99.3 ……………………………..
Connection Established ::
Connected to
! EnTech_Offline_Cycle_Backup
! (Actually the credits server lol)
! 226.187.99.3@ probe
Probing
! 226.187.99.3 ………………………………
– Real player with 38.0 hrs in game
While this game is being sold as a “hacking simulator”, a debate will likely rage about what exactly it simulates. In either case, it comes suspiciously close to being a realistic simulation of hacking. So close, in fact, I’m left wondering why the dev didn’t go the extra yards to make it inarguably so (maybe something he can shoot for in the future). Realism nit-picking aside, this game is full of very realistic nods to hacker and IRC culture, and in broad strokes, represents some of what goes on in actual exploits. While the experience of compromising systems is streamlined for the sake of keeping it an actual game (again, is it a puzzle game or a simulator?), in that “push a button, get bacon” sort of way you see in “hacker” movies, there was still much in the game that reminded me of taking the OSCP (for those who know my pain, you will find much in each mission to make you smile in that corpse-like rictus you had while laughing at emails and files during enumeration pratice in the Offsec lab).
– Real player with 28.4 hrs in game
Phantom Proxy
Earth is gone. The only remains of humanity are kept alive in cyberspace afterlife.
Only the wealthiest individuals uploaded their souls into the hedonistic binary abyss.
Their servers maintained by the working class software living in sub-level decaying pixels.
ITS TIME TO END THE AFTERLIFE
INTENSE LOCK-ON ROGUE-LIKE COMBAT
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Experience fast-paced arena-shooter combat with unique lock-on aiming system
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Fight in hand-crafted arenas with procedurally generated permutations
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Engage in combat against the deadly Cyber Security Task Force bots
- Find weapons and modify them with random loot that emphasizes player skill!
BE A PART OF THE COMMUNITY
Communicate directly with the developer and fans of the game on the offical discord!
OPEN DEVELOPMENT
See how the game is made by watching developer live-streams on Twitch that include level design, programming, art, and sound creation!****