intro.txt

Hello everybody, sorry for long and awful post.
I recently found my old computer and was able to rescue most of a command line game I was developing in Junior High and now I would like to have a bit of a show of hands: would you be interested in playing, and if yes what operating systems are you using?
A bit about the game itself: Here is a poor excuse for entry flavour text along with manual. Basically, you are a Technocracy (Mage the Ascension) agent tasked along with two other agents to infiltrate strange system of vaults of dubious origin. Term did not exist back then, so instead of SCP I created TR&R (Technocratic Rescue and Reconnaissance) division specialised in such tasks. Most of the things you will do is hacking accounts and internal network of vault system, along with discovering history of compound. As far as interface works, you can train a bit in Telehack.
The knowledge of system and general World of Darkness is not needed, since it was basically my creation loosely based on available materials about Technocracy. There are no mechanical elements, most of the 'magic' done is with your own wits and a bit of programs that act in a bit of guided hacking. You don't need to be UNIX guru to play, some knowledge of command line is a plus but not required.
How does story progress? From time to time, after particular actions, player will get a code to type in another program, it will provide flavour text associated with it and likely change some of the progression further down the line. Game is linear, but provides (iirc) 5 different paths to 5*n endings. I don't remember for certain what was the value of n and if it was a constant or variable ;). Now I know how to make multi-threaded programs, so flavour text program will likely be integrated into game itself as a separate command.
Where is the problem? First of all, I did not rescue all of the data, some of it will be lost forever and I will have to recreate it from semi-coherent notes I left in my draft book. Other parts are actually encrypted and... I'll have to crack my own work to get all the data. Plus 14 years ago I was only a beginner and code quality is atrocious with dire need of attention. Good thing I did it in C and not something else or I would likely have to redo all of it from ground up. Work purely done under Linux, so parts will need some serious crunching to port correctly. Fortunately, I know internals of Windows and Linux enough to do it. Mac users are on their own, sorry.
Another problem: I am not a native English speaker, so I have no doubt some of the stuff I wrote may seem OK to me, but be an eyesore for anyone else.
Question and request: I want to do it for myself, and of course will provide it free of charge if there is any interest. I will likely need some alpha and beta testers and proofreading help. Volunteers are welcome, and I hope to get working alpha around February. Any suggestions are welcome, if you are interested then please PM me or post here. I will respond after I'll have a working prototype after pre-alpha crunching I'll do myself.
To answer some possible questions beforehand:
No, I will not do any graphical interface. I don't even know how to do it in a sensible way. What, make a button for each command?
Yes, there are things you have to figure out on your own, but you don't have to do more maths then basic arithmetic and logic. However, it is helpful to make some notes here and there on your own.
I created the game for my friends back then as addition to my setting book. Mostly because the further I went with WoD metaplot, the more I hated the game. What in particular? It's at least 10000 words essay filled with hate so vile and intense that would force Nephandi master to reconsider his life choices.
What are my qualifications? I did not stop programming since then and worked as a programmer while doing my maths major. I also worked with a lot of R&D institutions as a programmer. Mostly in C and C++.
Am I serious about finishing it? Yes. Absolutely. The game was finished even back then and the only projects I ever fully drop unfinished are the ones motivated by 'I wonder if X is possible in Y language?'. If I had all the files and data this post would include a working game.
How large/long is the game? Executable files were around 20MB total (lots of embedded and hidden data). Gameplay wise, it took my friends about 90 hours to get one ending. Taking into account we were 13-15 years old, judge yourself.



If anyone from reddit visits it back, please send me a PM to /u/takumf or email [email protected]
Post was removed by mod, but I am not discouraged by it.

	Original text, I'm guessing March or April of 2000.
  Some additional notes:

       TR&R - Technocratic Rescue and Reconescainse corps.
       VE - Void Engineers, one of the Technocratic fractions in
       Mage the Ascension.
       PE - Prime Element, Technocratic name for quintessence.
       Hypertech - the inspired manifestation of magic in a form of
       higher technology, unexplainable by available to normal people
       laws of physics.
       Auspex - highly accurate sensor. Basically a tricoder from Star Trek.

Who is our hero?

  Well, you. He or she is unnamed. I wrote the game from a slightly
cynical viewpoint of MIT drop-out, interested in hacking. Not movie
hacking, this kind of hacking: https://www.stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

  Other members of a team are usually not present during game, but
at one point or another you will get some flavour text that will provide
a bit more about them. You have about 10 years of experience doing this
stuff, and usually they respect seniority. Game did not include much
interaction, but they are not 'red shirts'. You hack, they investigate
other stuff in the compound.

Now starts the original text, only some formatting was corrected:

What is this game?

	The player is presented with guest login to terminal of unknown origin
and purpose. It was found in a vault that is to be meticulously searched.

The localhost is a terminal, found in the depths of recently discovered
shelter. It is very old structure, with no governmental or fiscal record
of its existence or involvement. However, judging by signs on walls and
technology used to create locks and blast doors seems to be at best
40 years old. This peculiar case was handed to player, who gets a role
of TR&R agent. MIT dropout, urban explorer who ought to know better then
going into sealed places. To this day he does not know why he wasn't
killed on sight or memory wiped like many others. Was it all just a test
for his abilities and overwhelming curiosity? Or simply they did
a background check and someone higher in the chain of command felt he
would be a good addition to the organisation?

What is TR&R:

  A specialist unit, consisting of interdisciplinary agents capable of
infiltration, work behind enemy lines and are provided with quite a bit
of autonomy. Typical agent is jack of all trades, usually gets basic
training in tactics, computer and hypertech use. Most of the agents know
or get embedded with knowledge of at least three foreign languages.

  Cryptography is a plus, same goes with social abilities. Depending on
their rank they are issued suited to their abilities missions and gadgets.
Some work in a matter of more realistic James Bond, others are focused on
corporate or diplomatic espionage. They are usually rotated, so that they
won't stagnate and will be forced to learn new things. Not everyone in the
ranks of technocracy knows about them, because the unit itself is not under
any one and only convention of Technocratic Order.

  Reason for their creation? Simple. You can't send Men in Black anywhere,
cyborgs lack their adaptability and intuition. Additionally, because of
their constant rotation in duties they are unlikely to get invested into
one discipline.

  It works both ways. They don't know all the truth about Technocracy.
Some of them are not only unaware of magic or mages. Some of them don't
know they are mages, in essence. Others are not even mages in any way.
Just a very valuable assets.

Flavour text:

  The vault doors were covered in rocks and layer of organic
detritus that for no real reason sediment for past who knows how many
years. We know that just because general population got this tech
40-something years ago, does not mean there were no other sources. TR&R
is usually about 20-50 years ahead when it comes to toys and gadgets.

  For quite some time it seemed like a pointless exploratory job, go
through service tunnels, find anything that could provide reasons that
could explain the purpose of this place. Entry level seemed dead for much
more then 40 years, with no organic compounds present. Basically a micro-
climate that remained constant up to this point. Or to be more precise:
until blast doors cracked and someone from VE got [REDACTED] first signs
of peculiar activity in this general area. It took about six months to
uncover this underground structure, even with our best scanners and staff
on the job.

  Even more peculiar, special squad remained at bay and we were tasked
to perform checks and basic mapping. Before going down, I was a witness
to agent [REDACTED] migraine and reported metallic bad taste in his mouth.
I'm no MD, but it sounds like kidney shutting down. We all are pretty
high-strung at the moment. Is it unrelated, or reason to send less
experienced and more expandable crew?

  Most of our equipment can't penetrate dense and auspex-proof walls
and floors. We need to find a way to breach toward lower (and possible
higher) levels. We are picking up slight temporal disturbances of unknown
origin that seem unable to cause us any problems. Yesterday we got all
resources we might need for about 100 person-days, so we will stay here
about 30 days. There was also high-priority message ordering total radio
silence. Not that we are able to send any messages anyway.

  We am I so certain that there are more levels to this place?
There is no power source, for starters. It seems to be a decontamination
and dispatch level, judging by amount of (now empty) lockers and auspex
stations with measurement equipment. There is also one more reason.
A terminal that I was able to activate via external power source. I was
not a fool to request additional packs of power stations and PE some
additional PE capacitors.

  Terminal itself has only a typical UNIX prompt with bunch of default
settings. There are also external networks that I am working on cracking
the passwords. Right now, not much to show. Like all unixes I got only
login `guest` with password `guest` that grants me limited access. Other
users, aside of `root` are md.collins, md.riner and one that seems to have
extra privileges to config files names ister_al.

  Security is pretty damn good for something so old. I'm actually
a bit anxious about the purpose of this place and who did build it all.
Most signs point, well, at us. But if we did it, surely someone would
know how to enter this place and we would not need to waste time. On the
other hand, even our specialist divisions get orders with enough entries
of `[REDACTED]` to be able to 'mostly accurate' locate place where they
must arrive. Or maybe only I get such orders? This whole secrecy starts
to get old by this point. Then again, I'm pretty damn interested about
this place and after a decade of this work I hope to get promoted to, yes
yes, [REDACTED], I can do it myself.


Descriptions of software and short tutorial:

	25.12.2014:
	/* this is going to be redone after I'll reverse-engineer
	most of my old code.*/

	man <command> - lists information about usage of command.
			not all of them are documanted, deliberately.

	info <command> - similar to man, only more focused on showing
			examples.

	ls		- list contents of current directory
	ll		- list detailed information about all files
			in current directory.
	cat		- print contents of non-executable files.
	nano		- REALLY basic editor
	cd		- change direcotry. cd .. goes one level above
			current directory.
	netmap		- show available (not necessarily accessible)
			networks adjacent to current host
	whoami		- come on.
	users		- list all users, depending on situation, listed
			as inactive (and for how long), active (and last
			executed command) or offline which is self expla-
			natory.
	w		- same as users
	rlogin		- remote login to network displayed with netmap


	top		- list active processes. Details depend on
			access level of user. guest-barely any, root-all
	mail		- read messages for current account.
	cracker		- bit of a fantasy, allows guided password gues-
                        -sing, kinda like cracking credit cards in the
                        Terminator 2.
	hexdump		- displays hexadecimal code. Usefull for puzzles.
	objdump		- to be implemented. Normally allows to see asse-
	          	-mbly code of executable file.
	su		- execute command as root. User must be a higher
  			 privilage user to do it.
	gdb		- allows messing around with active process. To
  			break it or gain informations. Sometimes requires
   	                su access.

	And about 34 more!