Hack it! : A quick insight

= I. What HackIt! is =
 * HackIt! is a strategic game, where your goal is to control as many websites as you can by hacking them. Imagine a really really huge map (the World Wide Web) where hackers struggle for the control of the internet.
 * In the game (which is in development and would be playable in a first version really soon), you can hack sites, scan them to know who they belongs to, so you can track the home site of your enemy and kick them out of the web or just avoid harming your friends, and slowly build a tree of sites that will reflect your tastes and your personality. You can read an illustration of what a first session could look like in the third section of this page.

= II. What it could become =


 * This game will be improved and we will add new features depending on how the community of players reacts to it and want it to evolve. Even if we don’t have a clear idea of what this game will become, here are two dimensions we would like to explore and which founded our desire to make this game:
 * We would like to create and play games that blur boundaries between reality and virtuality. Having the internet as a playground could provide this feeling : you hack real site, with real information. Later on, maybe it would even be possible to play with the information displayed on a site you have hacked.
 * We would like to create a strong and deep strategical multiplayer gameplay, that would be based for instance on cooperation, coordination of moves and intel manipulation.
 * If you’re curious about the feature that are discussed at the present time, I invite you to read Hack it Improvement Ideas

= III. Illustration of a first session =

An illustration, in eleven steps, of what we can do right now in HackIt ! For a more detailed and visually sustained explanation, you can consult [http://community.hackit.cx/wiki/HackIt!_-_Use_case_%26_mock-ups Hack it ! - Gamedesign]. The only goal here is to provide a quick insight of the game.


 * 1. Wallace browses the web and goes on his favorite blog. Because it is a barely unknown page, it is easy to hack (the difficulty of hacking a page is based on its pagerank). Wallace hacks the blog and succeeds: it has become his home site, the mother of all sites he will hack after this one.


 * 2. After hacking 2 random sites, Wallace remember that he loves cheese, and decides that he wants to own all his favorite cheese sites. So he hacks 4 of them. He now possesses 7 sites. He knows that if he hacks 3 more site, he will have an extra hack points. It was a good idea to hack only cheese sites, because they share the same tag, and creating a chain gives extra hack points.


 * 3. Now, Wallace tries to hack the site of the biggest world cheese company, BigCheese.com. He tries several times, but fails each time. Ceased by a doubt, he scans it and succeeds: OMG! The site belongs to his friend Grommit! Grommit must have guessed that Wallace would go for cheese sites (and he likes cheese too).


 * 4. Wallace realizes that he is in danger. Grommit is on his trail, he’s gonna look for him by scanning cheese sites. It is only a matter of time until he finds Wallace’s sites. So, Wallace decides to do two things: build up defense, and attack.


 * 5. First, the defense. He cannot do a lot of things right now. On “Option”, he chooses “Go to home site”. Once on his home site, he click “Go to child site”, and then, and the second site he has hacked, he clicks “Hack from here”. He cans now create a new branch of his tree. With a little luck, Grommit won’t have enough hack or scan points for the moment to reach his home site, and will only hack a close site from Wallace home site: Wallace will keep a big branch of sites and will still possess something. It is important, because having a lot of website is one of the ways to earn more hack and scan points.


 * 6. Second, the attack. Wallace goes back on the one site he knows to be owned by Grommit, BigCheese.com. Because he’s smart, he will not hack it. He is more vicious than that. He scans it, and learns his father site is SmallCheese.com. He also learn that his 6 site away from Grommit’s home site.  Wallace has only 4 remaining scan points. He knows he won’t be able to track back to Grommit’s home site with his remaining points. He decides he is going to scan sites to be the closest as possible of Grommit’s home site, and then, write down the site where he stopped.  He will come back to finish the work when his scan bar would have replenished a little, in a few hours.


 * 7. So he goes on SmallCheese.com, scans it, and goes to his father site. Wait a second! There is some kind of logic here. The father is VerySmallCheese.com. Just to be sure, Wallace checks the site above in the tree. Bingo, it is VeryVerySmallChesse.com.


 * 8. He stops a while to read this extraordinary blog specialized on cheese things, that, surprisingly, he didn’t know. Wow, thanks Grommit ! Wallace adds this site in his bookmarks.


 * 9. So, after a quick think, Wallace goes on VeryVeryVeryVeryVeryVerySmallCheese.com, which is also a popular cheese site. The scan confirms it is Grommit’s home site. Wallace has only 2 hack point left. The first attempt fails, but the second succeeds. He has successfully kicked out Grommit from the Internet, at least for now.


 * 10. Of course, Grommit will try to take back all this sites later, maybe even tomorrow, but meanwhile, Wallace will be able to build a small empire, which mean he will upgrade his max scan and hack points. And even if he loses his home site, he will keep his maximum stat.


 * 11. Wallace receives a mail telling him that a certain David hacked the first cheese site he has hacked. David has stolen all the branch (6 sites), meaning all the “sons” of this cheese site. Wallace don’t react, because:
 * He doesn’t have any hack point left, and only one scan point.
 * He prefers to wait. He want to learn things about this mysterious David. He will apply the same scanning technique to discover his home site, and he will not get involved in some hack war around a poor cheese site. Wallace is vicious, and when he attacks, it is always his opponent home site.