Posted on: December 2, 2020
acohl
Possesseur vérifiéJeux: Avis: 6
Good idea but shallow execution
The faux-tiling window manager, the faux-bash-like shell, the programs which are superficially accurate but practically lobotomized. By all means, I don't think it's bad that Hacknet isn't perfectly comparable to reality: besides the technical hurdles, a slightly-fictionalized Universe lends itself better to suspension of disbelief. Take for example the fact that the executable binaries are appended with "exe". Considering the audience of this game, that makes sense, because it's only a cosmetic difference and doesn't disrupt the core mechanics of the game. That's a great idea. However, compare this to something like TIS-100 or Human Resource Machine, the two of which are actually very mechanically similar, and you'll learn to appreciate brevity and simplicity in a puzzle game. What's frustrating is when I hit Ctrl-m for the tenth time expecting the shell to behave like bash, only for it to do nothing. It's awful for flow, and that's not really desirable for a video game. What Hacknet needs is practical omissions in order to make the game fun and better-paced, not the opposite. I discovered quickly that because of how the game interfered with my muscle memory, changing into directories, listing the contents – things that I can do in my sleep, otherwise – became a Goliath task, so much so that I found myself reaching for the mouse as much as possible. Honestly, the narrative elements are kind of cumbersome, too. The focal point of the game is clearly the novelty of its interface. It's a shell simulator for an audience that wants to sit comfortably behind a meter of bullet-proof glass, lest the coreutils jump out and bite you; it's for the kind of people that sneer at you the second you open up a terminal emulator to grep something, rather than unleashing a slurry of mouse clicks, .desktop files, and qt programs begging for five dollar donations, and too often I feel like its core merit for superficial appeal.
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