Edward Snowden Simulator

NITE Team 4 scores points on its "hacking game" contemporaries for being, as far as I've seen, the most realistic simulator of practical cyber offense.

It names and refers to real, relevent software packages like Apache, Exchange, and phpBB; its invented hacking utilities are (explicitly) based on real tools like Metasploit; it even refers to real-life data breaches as sources for dictionary attacks. Sure, some aspects of its remote exploitation tools are a little oversimplified, but not in a way that feels like insipid technobabble. The real-world explanations for everything help the game world feel pretty immersive and intriguing.

But... they're not quite enough to save NITE Team 4 from two critical problems of execution.

The first is the game's UI, which is more confusing to browse than it should be - where are the navigation breadcrumbs? where's the indicator of currently-running tasks? - and clutters the virtual desktop with a new terminal window for each "kind" of tool. Like, what? Why isn't "new window" left up to me?

And the second is the game's sometimes-ambiguous objectives. Like the worst kinds of point-and-click adventure games, NITE Team 4 will occasionally have a goal that doesn't feel like a match for the tools you have, until you randomly decide to try using a monkey as a wrench. Which feels less like a puzzle, and more like a trick.

I'm really happy with the realistic world-building in its premise, but at the end of the day, NITE Team 4 can be just as frustrating to play as other hacking simulators tend to.

Progress: Finished the demo.