The Hacker Invasion

About

Hackers invaded the government's computers and hacked all of them except for... the computer of yours. You're the government IT specialist and the last target of the hackers. Hack all of the attackers before they hack you!

This game was made for LOWREZJAM2023 and takes about 10-15 minutes to win.

How to play

Controls

• 1 - main screen
• 2 - hacking
• 3 - unhacking
• mouse - shape dragging in the hacking minigame
• Space or Enter - glitch detection in the unhacking minigame
• Esc - leave the game

General and main screen

In the upper part of the screen, you can see a bar that is getting filled quite quickly. When it gets completely filled, you're hacked and lose the game. On the main screen, under the bar, you can see how many people you've already hacked. You can access the hacking or unhacking minigame either by pressing 2 or 3 (read above) or by clicking a button on the main screen.

In the beginning of the game, you have to choose a password. But that actually isn't important at all. It's only meant to make the game a bit interesting. :-) You don't have to remember the password. Once you confirm your chosen password, you go to the main screen. The bar starts getting filled and you can see it from every place in the game. You must both hack the invaders and unhack your computer. (Use the 2 and 3 keys to switch between these two minigames.)

Hacking

TL;DR: Just merge triangles to create squares and merge squares to create circles. DRAG AND MERGE UNTIL IT IS DONE!

For those who want a detailed description: The hacking minigame uses recursion. You start in cycle 0 and see four triangles. Use the mouse to drag one to another. By merging two triangles, you create a square and fall into another cycle. Continue creating triangles and falling into deeper cycles until you find two squares in a cycle. By merging two squares, you create a circle that takes you back to the last cycle.

Once you manage to return to cycle 0 and create two squares, just merge them to create a circle. By creating a circle in cycle 0, you hack an invader.

When you hack someone, you get one advantage and two disadvantages:

• the advantage: By hacking someone, you destroy their computer and they can't hack you anymore. The fewer people are hacking you, the slower grows the bar in the upper part of the screen.
• the first disadvantage: Fewer hackers cause fewer glitches in your computer. In the unhacking minigame, the frequency of glitches is lower.
• the second disadvantage: When one attacker is hacked, their mates get scared and improve the security level of their computers. The hacking minigame becomes harder - you need to go through more cycles before you find a square.

Unhacking

The hackers cause glitches in the matrix in your computer. In the unhacking minigame, there are shapes running from the right to the left. When there are two same shapes in a row, detect the glitch by pressing Space or Enter. When you successfully detect a glitch, the bar in the upper part of the screen goes down. But be careful! When you press Space/Enter even though there isn't a glitch, the bar goes up!

(Slightly inspired by The Matrix. Remember the scene with the cat?)

Optional themes

I used 3 LOWREZJAM2023 optional themes:

• Invasion: The hackers invaded the government's computers.
• Recursive: The hacking minigame uses recursion.
• Glitch In The Matrix: The unhacking minigame is inspired by the film a bit. You detect glitches in the Matrix.

Credits

• coding: me
• graphics: me
• all music is from opengameart.org
  • music on the main screen: Sneaky Music Pack (Umplix) - https://opengameart.org/content/sneaky-music-pack
  • hacking music: The Cool Factor (Zane Little Music) - https://opengameart.org/content/the-cool-factor
  • unhacking music: Bitshifter (jobromedia) - https://opengameart.org/content/bitshifter

Good luck!