Announcing Kernel Panic

[Hextic]

Kernel Panic is going to be a hacking game of entirely real techniques. None of the 3D eye-candy movies like Masterminds try to pass of as hacking, but players are going to be typing say, "nmap -Ss targethose.net |less". The one player version will be a sandbox world, where you are not restricted from doing things, or forced into a set storyline. You can freely interact with the world, and the world will respond to you and that will become the storyline. We plan to make it a PS3 launch title, will post more about it if interest is shown.

[skroo]

Kernel Panic is going to be a hacking game of entirely real techniques. None of the 3D eye-candy movies like Masterminds try to pass of as hacking, but players are going to be typing say, "nmap -Ss targethose.net |less". The one player version will be a sandbox world, where you are not restricted from doing things, or forced into a set storyline. You can freely interact with the world, and the world will respond to you and that will become the storyline. We plan to make it a PS3 launch title, will post more about it if interest is shown.

Some dumb questions:

- How many people are going to be enthralled enough by using commandline utilities to plonk down the $<insert purchase price here> to buy this?

- You've already been licensed for a PS3 devkit by Sony, right?

- How do you plan to have the player input each line of text? AFAIK there's no keyboard planned for the PS3, and entering command after command with a controller would be a real bitch.

One other thing... The commandline syntax for an nmap syn scan is `nmap -sS target.host', not '-Ss' as you specified. -S is used to specify a source host; as it stands, it won't work. And piping out to less seems redundant when there're multiple file format outputs it can do...

[Hextic]

1) You start as a script kiddie with GUI programs, and as an option you can switch to a command-line, stay in a GUI, or both.

2) Yes, just waiting for the thing to arrive. There is a hardware shortage, as some of you may have heard about.

3) I plan to use the two front USB ports so people can just plug in any USB keyboard and mouse they have around the house, or include one in the container.

And thanks for correcting me on that typo, hit shift too fast.

[skroo]

1) You start as a script kiddie with GUI programs, and as an option you can switch to a command-line, stay in a GUI, or both.

Hm. Okay.

2) Yes, just waiting for the thing to arrive. There is a hardware shortage, as some of you may have heard about.

Yeah, I really had no clue about that. Not a console gamer.

3) I plan to use the two front USB ports so people can just plug in any USB keyboard and mouse they have around the house, or include one in the container.

Good point.

It'll be interesting to see it, but I'm just having a hard time getting past spending several sweaty hours in front of a keyboard chainsmoking and swearing as somehow being engaging to most of the rest of the world :)

[converge]

I guess I don't totally get it. ... doesn't the Interweb already exist?

I mean.. are you in a multiplayer game trying to attack central servers and/or other players in the game? Is it like a CTF on PS[2,3] dealymabob? Is it just a tool-based game, or are you encouraging players to learn various languages and write their own exploit code? Are the attack hosts real? Why would I, John Dumass III, LAN Gamer and Pimple Fragger Extraordinairre, find sitting behind a PS3 typing/clicking to hack a host if I were not already driven to do so on less expensive hardware and free software, before buying the game?

Not trying to be a blender around your dick... just curious what the attraction point is.

[bascule]

Announcing vaporware? Isn't that what press releases are for?

[Hextic]

First of all, we have had the basic AI and goal structs for a few months now, from when we were refining the plan for the thing, so not complete vaporware. Also, the term vaporware implies that I said the game was allready done, which I freely admit it is nowhere near. We do not even have the dev kit yet to start really working on it. We are absolutely certain we are going to do it, still.

Ok, now that is clear, why would people play it? Because it is really simple to get started. An 8 year old child could startup, read some emails from the AI bots you start out with as your friends on how to get started DoSing and brute forcing, then learn as things get more complex and hard. How the 1-player works is as follows: You are a new script kiddie, right after the start of the next generation of OS's. New major Linux releases, Longhorn, A MacOS upgrade, and guess what they were all rush jobs and full of holes. Better yet, the programmers behind them are too few and lazy to keep up with all the exploits being written. In general, its so bad that having an internet connection is a major security hazard. Your friends will ask you favors, and these serve as missions that you do in whatever way you want. How you do them will affect your allignment (wether you are leaning more towards the way of the whitehat or blackhat), and your allignment affects who will talk to you how, and ask favors. In return for doing these favors, people will like you more and may teach you a skill. More later.

[dYn4mic]

First of all, we have had the basic AI and goal structs for a few months now, from when we were refining the plan for the thing, so not complete vaporware. Also, the term vaporware implies that I said the game was allready done, which I freely admit it is nowhere near. We do not even have the dev kit yet to start really working on it. We are absolutely certain we are going to do it, still.

Ok, now that is clear, why would people play it? Because it is really simple to get started. An 8 year old child could startup, read some emails from the AI bots you start out with as your friends on how to get started DoSing and brute forcing, then learn as things get more complex and hard. How the 1-player works is as follows: You are a new script kiddie, right after the start of the next generation of OS's. New major Linux releases, Longhorn, A MacOS upgrade, and guess what they were all rush jobs and full of holes. Better yet, the programmers behind them are too few and lazy to keep up with all the exploits being written. In general, its so bad that having an internet connection is a major security hazard. Your friends will ask you favors, and these serve as missions that you do in whatever way you want. How you do them will affect your allignment (wether you are leaning more towards the way of the whitehat or blackhat), and your allignment affects who will talk to you how, and ask favors. In return for doing these favors, people will like you more and may teach you a skill. More later.

Somehow.. This only made me more confused... This is an alright nice dream, but I think its just too far from reality...

Seems to me like you have some ideas... but your going about them in the wrong way.
You could also be drinking too much coffee.

[noid]

This sounds like a game no one would play. Kids want shoot 'em up FPS games and driving simulators. This sounds like a modern version of the Netrunner door game from the old BBS'

[converge]

wasn't there another one really late in the bbs game? ... hacking city.. hacker city

.. as far as the game idea goes, it seems quite sensationalistic. Real sandboxes have existed for so long now..

[Ridirich]

This sounds like MindLink 2005, or Uplink, or BS Hacker, or the plethora of other hacking games out there, except this one is a console game for ps3.

[bascule]

Ok, now that is clear, why would people play it? Because it is really simple to get started.

For some reason I read that as "Why wouldn't people play it? Because it's really retarded."

[montare]

I'm out.. isn't the idea behind a ps3 kick ass sound and graphics? If u want to sit and hack away at something u can do it on your own hardware... ps is supposed to be entertaining...

[zero]

Sounds like core wars or some such.....very 80's. I don't see the market for this. Kids these days don't want to hack/learn, the want extreme graphics and the ability to blow things up. That's why they buy ps3's in the first place. What training to be a skript kiddie?

Reality check: If they were really interested enough in this type of thing to plunk down the money, they'd be more likely to get a system, slap an OS on it and start trying things. A -real- system.

[TheCotMan]

Sounds like core wars

Core Wars and Red Code were pretty cool. It started out on a non-virtual machine, but was later moved to a virtual space. For a long while, there were servers running on the Internet where users could submit RedCode to compete against each other in multiple rounds to see which program was best able to survive and destroy their competition.

This PS3 game does not sound nearly as enjoyable as CoreWars.

CoreWars was like a forge for a few virus coders, but it seems to me that people were often coders before they went to Core Wars, not the other way around.

Unlike the real world, this game would not be able to match the pace of technological advances... a place where, measures, counter-measures, and counter-counter-measures compete to make both sides "better" and learn from their mistakes.

Once a user was able to beat this game, they would likely be able to beat this game over, and over, using similar techniques each time, but in the real world, you enemy gets better with time.

Even if it were a technically realistic game, it would likely be outdated before it hit the shelves.