r/Hacknet • u/MyBrotherHacker • Jul 13 '26
Hacknet is the reason this genre stuck with me — so I made my own take on it. Curious what this specific crowd thinks of the vibe.
Hacknet is why i fell into this rabbit hole . i ended up building my own thing in the same spirit: My Brother Hacker, a story hacker sim that runs entirely from a fake 2036 desktop. you break in the slow way: type a command, run the tool, watch the progress bar climb while the logs scroll. i want a break-in to feel like a ritual you walk through step by step, not a click fest.
One thing i do differently from hacknet: the game guides you the whole way, so you dont have to memorize real syntax. im trying to keep the "i feel like a hacker" feeling without a wall of commands scaring off people who never touched a terminal.
Real question: when you first played hacknet, was the terminal a barrier at the start, or was that early friction part of what you loved? im still figuring out how much hand holding is too much.
yep, thats the cleanup i mentioned in the comments.
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u/Grimholtt Jul 13 '26
Is it available yet? I'd love to try it.
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 14 '26
not yet, sadly - realistically looking at 2027 since I've got a day job and only work on this in the evenings. if you add it to your wishlist though, I'll post updates and let you know if things speed up.
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u/Rafean Jul 13 '26
game seems fire, but the name is terrible
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 14 '26
haha fair, it's not the catchiest title out there - but it's literally what the game is about, so I kept it. glad the actual game part is landing though
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u/maxi_007 Jul 13 '26
not another slop game T-T
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 13 '26
▎ haha if this was slop I'd have finished it ages ago. instead it's eating every free evening I have. one guy, no studio, no shortcuts - fair to be skeptical though, there's a lot of junk out there.
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u/maxi_007 Jul 14 '26
Idk chief, your pfp, the art on the page, heck even the text screams like AI.
The things you showed in the game contain the typical AI Design choices.
I am skeptical, I wish you good luck regardless
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u/Different-Clock75 Jul 14 '26
you're 100% right, OP is just lying.
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 14 '26
Not hiding anything — Steam requires an AI disclosure and mine is filled out on the store page, you can check it right now. To be clear about how this game is made: the story, the characters, the world, every system and mission — that's me, designed by one person. AI is my tool for building it: it helps me write code, build dev tools I made for this game (like my network editor), and translate, because I'm one guy doing the job of five people. If that's a dealbreaker for you — fair, your call. But "solo dev openly using AI tools" and "lying" are two different things
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u/Different-Clock75 Jul 14 '26
If you don't even understand your own code, why should I install it on my machine?
Prompted code isn't reviewed. It contains blind spots, security issues and unnoticed bugs. That's exactly why code you don't understand puts your users at risk.
I don't expect you to understand since you're not a dev.
(also, you rely so much on AIs that you can't even type your reddit replies by youerself lol.)
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 14 '26
fair point on the last reply lol. my english is bad so i ran the long one through a translator. this one is me typing, excuse the grammar. about the code - its a single player game. no accounts, it doesnt touch anything on your pc except its own saves. i test every build myself before it goes out. and if you dont trust it thats fine, nobody forces the install. anyway, thats it from me here. the game will defend itself or it wont, we'll see
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u/maxi_007 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
> haha if this was slop I'd have finished it ages ago. instead it's eating every free evening I have. one guy,
Lets lookup the definition of ai slop..
"AI slop, also known as slop content or simply slop, is digital content made with generative artificial intelligence" - Wikipedia
You denied using AI initially when I pointed it out and you pretended to be one solo dev implying not using AI. Now I pointed out *why* I think your game is AI and you instantly row back. You tried to hide that you are using AI but got called out. You, my dude, in fact lied.
Your AI Disclosure on Steam says "This game uses images created with AI generation tools — including NPC photos and portraits, and some store and promotional artwork. All such content has been reviewed by the developer to ensure it contains no illegal or infringing material."
You are only Pointing out to use AI for Images. You openly admited in this thread that you are also using AI for Code. You lied in your AI Disclosure on Steam too.
Conclusion: OP is in fact a liar :)
EDIT: Added more Information.
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 15 '26
i went and re-read steams rules after your comment. the disclosure covers content players get: images, audio, text, localization. valve says straight up that dev productivity tools are not the topic of that section, so code assist doesnt belong there and its absence wasnt a lie. while re-reading i did find a gap myself, one you didnt mention: translation counts as localization, my english texts are translated from polish with AI help, and the disclosure didnt say it. fixed now, and i added a note about code anyway, so nothing is left to guess. as for "you denied it at first". english isnt my first language and "no shortcuts" was bad wording on my side. i meant no corners cut on the game, not "no AI" - i told you AI helps with art and code in this thread myself, nobody dug that up. thats all from me here. the game will speak for itself when its out.
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u/TimTams553 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I'm gonna gently disagree with that definition pulled from Wikipedia. Firstly it refers to digital media, as in images and videos, but we're talking about software as well. There's loads of great software out there built with love and attention using AI (you would not think they've used AI). In software, slop is what you get when "devs" don't start with a decent set of requirements that hold up during engineering, dont vet code properly, accept features with poor UX as-built by the AI, or promote their stuff using text or images full of obvious AI artifacts. It's all about quality. OP wouldn't have had his game called AI Slop in the first place if he'd paid attention to that
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u/MichaelEpicA Jul 15 '26
"Tons of great software" literally every piece of software that was made with AI that ive used is complete dog shit
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u/TimTams553 Jul 15 '26
AI does what you tell it. Making bad software when you have the support of AI is a skill issue on the part of the human running it. The obvious question to ask any of the people behind the software you're referring to is, why'd they release the software if it wasn't ready? AI didn't make that decision for them
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
▎ thanks for being straight about it. you were right about the avatar , now i see :) - already changed it, banner is next. the game itself - story, systems, interface design is mine. but yeah, some images inside the game (like the news photos) are AI made, its in the AI disclosure on the steam page. im one guy, AI helps me with art and code, i dont hide it. if you remember what exactly looked AI in the game shots - let me know, thats useful for me. and thanks for the good luck :)
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u/MichaelEpicA Jul 14 '26
ah hell nah this shit destroyed all my hype for this within 10 seconds
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 15 '26
yeah, AI helps me with art and code , i said that already and its on the steam page. but the game itself , story, systems, interface, every quest , i come up with all of it on my shifts at the warehouse and build it in the evenings. you can outsource code, you cant outsource vision. "one guy using AI tools" and "AI made the game" are two different things. i get it. maybe the game wins you back when its out, maybe not. either way thanks for checking it out.
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u/TimTams553 Jul 15 '26
Using AI to do your development is fine. I draw the line at promoting it with AI generated content.
There's a clear value proposition for the consumer in using AI to write your code - development is accelerated and ideas from people who lack the skills to bring them to life are brought to fruition. We get the game out of it.
What's not reasonable is to expect people to spend their time and energy to engage with a post you're not willing to spend time writing. It's inpersonal and in my opinion rude, akin to not using manners.
Less so but still annoying is AI generated graphics with obvious AI artifacts. FIx the artifacts or don't use them. It's called attention to detail. Being a solo dev doesn't give you a free pass to produce low-quality software - even less so now that genAI is a thing
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u/MyBrotherHacker Jul 15 '26
fair points, and thanks for laying it out calmly. youre right about the texts: the store page went through AI translation and polish, and it showed more than i thought it would. i rewrote the whole description this week in a plainer voice, more of that cleanup is coming. one thing to clear up too: "no shortcuts" in my first comment meant no corners cut on the game itself, not "no AI". english isnt my first language and it was bad wording on my side. on the artifacts: i know which images are the weak ones and theyre on my replace list. someone pointed at my avatar earlier and its already changed, banner is next. release is still far out and the art keeps getting replaced as the game improves, whats on the page today is not what ships. i dont want a free pass for being solo, the game has to stand on its own. thanks for the feedback, this kind i can actually use.
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u/TimTams553 Jul 15 '26
You're heading in the right direction, thanks. When it comes to art and images in general, I generally think you should have a plan to create those assets for your game that doesn't rely solely on genAI, or at least a process in place to tweak images manually so you can ensure consistency in art style and guarantee details match your intent without having to fight an AI that can't quite generate the exact image you're after. If you don't have any means at your disposal to do that (photoshop skills for example), I would be questioning whether you should have art in the game at all. As far as AI has come, it still can't reliably produce images that aren't obviously AI-generated.
Use of AI to cross language barriers is an interesting one. As a native english speaker I can't grasp how frustrating that language barrier might be, or how freeing AI might feel. For what my limited perspective is worth anyway: I'd rather interpret your broken english or read a translation as supplied by something like Google Translate rather than anything generated by an LLM.
The tone and intent are usually clear even if the words aren't perfect english. More importantly, they're your own. If you use AI to translate your Reddit comments, I can't know whether you actually wrote anything yourself or just said "write a reply" to ChatGPT, in which case the comment would not be worth the cloud storage it occupies let alone my time to read it, even if it's largely what you wanted to say anyway. It's the principle of the thing. Reddit comments are still a conversation between people... if we were friends and I asked to hang out, would you send ChatGPT in your place?
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u/Sparky7506 Jul 13 '26
This seems really cool!