Yesterday the theme of GitHub’s Game Off 2016 was announced, and the ideas is to build a game over the course of a month related to “hacking, modding and/or augmenting.” The announcement states that your game must be loosely based on one or more of these themes, but I’ve decided to go head first into the hacking theme. Considering how busy this month is for me (I would have loved for this to be a month or two ago) I’m going to have to keep it simple and try to get a playable prototype as quickly as possible before using any spare time to polish and improve the game.

I’ve always been one of those weird people who loves clicker games, such as Cookie Clicker and Egg, Inc.. There’s something about them that I find truly enjoyable as a casual game to play for a minute or two throughout the day. I’ve been playing Egg, Inc. a lot lately in particular, and had been thinking about how fun it could be to make a clicker game of my own.

Going with the hacking theme, and considering my limited time this month, I’ve decided to build a clicker game where you produce bits by clicking or holding a button, which you can use to “hack” increasingly difficult targets. You’ll also be able to use the bits to purchase upgrades such as better data warehouses, servers, networking, algorithms, etc.

As for the technology and tooling, I’ll likely be using C# and Unity3D to develop the game because I’m familiar and comfortable with it and again, limited time. I’d have preferred to learn something new, probably a game engine using Go in particular because I’ve grown extremely fond of the Go language, but it is what it is.

I’ll likely make the game playable on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, and possibly in a web browser, but with a focus on mobile first over desktop or web.

In the spirit of the competition and open source, I’ll be developing with the game in the KyleBanks/ggo16-byter repository which is fully public, so make sure to check it out if you’re interested! Since the theme was announced yesterday I’ve been brainstorming this idea and came up with the following rough outline of the gameplay. Everything in the following concept is highly likely to change, but its purpose is to just get some ideas down rather than to be a rigid contract for me to follow.

Concept

“Clicker” game where you produce bits by clicking/holding a button in order to use those bits for nefarious purposes.

Key Terms

• Outbound bits/sec: How many bits per second can you use for attacking.
• Inbound bits/sec: How many bits per second can you generate for storage.
• Stored bits: The number of bits created and stored in your storage unit.
• Storage Capacity: The total number of bits you can store in your storage unit.

Core Gameplay

• Create and store bits in a storage unit (Stored bits).
• Computers are required to transmit bits (Outbound bits/sec) to a target.
• Must have X Outbound bits/sec and Y Stored bits to attack a target, each increasing as you progress in targets.
• Can spend Stored bits on upgrades or use them for an attack.
• Attacking targets gives you access to better upgrade tiers.
• Must cooldown after generating bits (clicking button) for a brief delay.

Upgrades

Spend stored bits on upgrades to generate, store, and use more bits.

System Upgrades

System upgrades can each be purchased one time, and replace the currently owned lower-tier version of the same system. For example, if you have a “Flip phone” and purcahse a “Desktop”, the “Desktop” replaces the “Flip phone” and only higher level upgrades can then be purchased.

• Better Computers means more Outbound bits/sec.
  • Flip phone: 8 bps
  • Smartphone: 500 bps
  • Tablet: 1200 bps
  • Laptop: 40,000 bps
  • Desktop: 150,000 bps
  • Server: 8,000,000 bps
  • Server Farm: 650,000,000 bps
• Better storage units increase your Storage Capacity. - Floppy drive: 400 bits - CD: 20,000 bits - USB Drive: 1,060,000 bits - Hard drive: 800,000,000 bits - FTP: 120,000,000,000 bits - File Storage Saas: 480,000,000,000,000 bits - Data Warehouse: 1,600,000,000,000,000 bits - The Cloud: Infinite

Repeatable Upgrades

Repeatable upgrades can be purchased a number of times (ex. 10x Keyboard, 5x Scripts, 15x Code Monkeys).

• Automation (increase Inbound bits/sec):
  • Keyboards: 1% increase
  • Scripts: 2% increase
  • Code Monkeys: 5% increase
  • Open Source Project: 10% increase
• Botnet (reduce Outbound bits/sec required to attack):
  • Workplace Botnet: 5% decrease
  • City-wide Botnet: 10% decrease
  • Regional Botnet: 15% decrease
  • Global Botnet: 20% decrease
• Network (increase Outbound bits/sec):
  • Dial-up: 1% increase
  • 2G: 2% increase
  • 3G: 3% increase
  • 4G: 4% increase
  • Hardline: 5% increase
• Compression (increase Storage Capacity):
  • Lossy Compression: 3% increase
  • Lossless Compression: 6% increase
  • ZIP: 9% increase
  • Machine Learning: 12% increase
• Data Replication (automatically generate Stored Bits):
  • Paper Copies: 0.1% Inbound bits/sec
  • Tape Backup: 0.2% Inbound bits/sec
  • Version Control: 0.3% Inbound bits/sec
  • Cloud Backup: 0.4% Inbound bits/sec
  • 9 9s Availability: 0.5% Inbound bits/sec