Inspiration

I got many hours of enjoyment watching and playing these films and games. These great works inspired me, not to imitate them but rather to try to replicate some feelings I got when enjoying them.

The classic film. It has a girl, lot’s of computers, AI coming of age, nuclear weapons… What more can you ask for. Or, right, Tic-Tac-Toe. Who knew we got that close to the nuclear war.

I am a little embarrassed to mention this film. I was so young when I saw it, so I guess I did not mind it being so cheeky and childish. But, it left a big impression on a small kid, me, who decided to dedicate his life to computers. While I warmly recommend all other films and games on this list, if you choose to watch Electric Dreams you are doing it at your own peril.

This film is the first time I have heard of pen-testing. Also it is the first time that I saw social engineering to be used hand in hand with other techniques. The most important thing for me however was that I saw that it is possible to make a living doing cool things legally.

This is the game that put Introversion Software on my radar. For a game that has no actual hacking, it is incredibly good at making you think you are doing something naughty. Timer running down, the feds closing in, and only few more commands between you and several million dollars. I think that the secret of this game is in giving you just enough and letting your imagination do the rest.

This is an absolutely brilliant game. I have no idea why I originally decided to buy it. The apparent 3rd person point and click adventure is not my usual cup of tea. It must have been that someone told me there was programming in it. In any case, what makes this game brilliant is the risks the developers took and the freedom they give the player. Just about anything in the world can be manipulated, hacked and programmed. I mean, how about hacking your coffee to make you “not sleepy”, but then connecting virtually to a water tap in your room and automatically refilling itself. They gave you so much freedom that you can easily break the game. So you end up really making your own path, choosing how much of the pre-set story to follow and how much to make the game do what you want it to be.

Like many people out there I got very excited when I heard of 0x10c. I loved it’s premise and putting a computer at the heart of a game made the geek in me sing. But what moved me more then the promise of a space/hacking fun was the community. So many DCPU vm’s, debuggers, sites, even full fledge games running on the DCPU. This made the biggest impression on me, and it was clear that if I make any game it has to allow others to customize it and make it their own.

Do not be surprised if I modify this page from time to time. It’s just meant to provide some background for new visitors. We will have plenty of places to discuss lore and other fine points.