Botnet – Not just the Bane of Mankind!
So, everyone in this age has heard of the "eeeeeviiiil botnets", yes? They're shown all over the media threatening our livelyhoods, they're written about in the newspapers, and its obvious the world is going to end tomorrow due to these little buggers. Or is it? I for one am quite intriguied by botnets, and the viruses (I was formally corrected this weekend that viruses is the "correct" plural, so there ya go) that form them. In many ways these evil little guys are the best coding we see nowadays when OSes are.... abysmal to say the least. Now, of course I'm not intriguied enough to MAKE a botnet in the wild... that'd be evil and wrong, and obviously I'd be anti-freedom. But I'd still like to play with them, and to that end, I unveil the game Harkins and I were working on this weekend.
Now, that website is nothing more than a placeholder so ya'll don't browse my site... it'll get better I promise, as this game'll be advertised entirely online. Hopefully I can convince the God of CSS (Harkins) to bang out something flashy.
Basically the premise is that you are an upstart botnet mastermind. Your computer might not be the best, and your viruses a tad unstealthy (at first) but you want to make your mark on the world. You move through a "network" of system cards trying to complete missions, or destroy your opponent. Its different from other card games, with some influences showing through. Gameplay is not nailed down yet. So that's all I'll say for now.
One goal we are looking for, however, is to make it somewhat realistic. For instance: the cards all are real-life things, different OSes, ways a cracker might hack something, etc. We don't want to make something that'll just further the fear of teenage punks in dark basements sipping Jolt. Also, we want this to be simple... our first version might have been too simple.
- For this version we did combat as follows: At the end of a turn, whichever side had more viruses on a system won it, and the others were removed. This proved to be a bit... weird... due to modifiers and deciding who was attacking whom. This has been scrapped.
- We did movement by having a limit to how many different viruses one can move, and how far they can move through the network. This slowed things down in the beginning, and is being reworked.
- Income was kept over turn endings, and couldn't be spent quick enough due to a small hand limit. This is definately changing in a few ways, as we'll probably make you clear your income every turn, among other things.
- All in all, it was a tad fun, and should be loads more once the game's sped up a bit, and you actually have to make decisions about spending money or saving it.
Those're my brief and very disorganized (still banging on xorg from my previous post) thoughts on the first system we play tested. Harkins, if you think of anything you'd like to add, feel free.
Current rules will be kept at: Here
Cards can be viewed and printed at: Here
Forums are: Here
