Focal Shift

Fred Snyder
Played 2024-09-03, IFComp 2024

Have fun hacking very bad security.

I quite enjoyed this! A break-into-the-server thriller with twists and turns, handwavy cyberpunk tech, and light puzzles.

Let's talk about the recurring hacking-themed password puzzle. It gives feedback on your guesses with `+` and `-` symbols, and for me (and probably a lot of people) this immediately summons Wordle or Mastermind. But on my second attempt at the first such puzzle I figured out that they tell you which direction to proceed in the alphabet. “Solving” this gimmick was a genuine moment of pleasure, and I do think it's a clever misdirect.

I think it could have been a bit stronger though, in a few ways.

A later hacking puzzle channels Hunt the Wumpus a bit, which I found charming but not necessarily more interesting or a natural extension of the earlier puzzle.

I also thought the *number* of things to hack in the environment, and the separate `identify` and `hack` verbs, were very effective at creating the fantasy here. It started to create that same sense of depth in the world that Metriod Prime's scanner and visors do. That feeling that a whole other layer of reality is hidden in the world model is *extremely* cyberpunk, and while this isn't an extraordinarily deep or simulationist take on the idea, it was just enough to create the desired effect. Nice work!