LogFAQs > #932316685

#99




Years of release: 2013 (iOS), 2015 (PC), 2017 (expansion)
Beaten?: Yes

Ah, shit, people are going to get the wrong idea about me here after the first two games on this list. Look, I'm not only into roguelike-games that look like weird minimalist garbage, it's not what it looks like!

868-HACK is a roguelikeish little puzzle game where you're a big smiley face and you zap viruses with lasers, while hacking the grid to obtain points and powers. It's a challenging and slightly unforgiving game - this game is one of those that really demands that you figure out the optimal ways to use what you have, and it punishes you for not being precise and error-free. It's remarkably well balanced and open ended how you want to tackle the problem though - you get a lot of different powers to deal with the waves of viruses coming you way and you have to balance figuring out which ones you want to 'purchase' with your limited data siphons, while your data siphons are also what you use to collect resources needed to use those powers. Most of the powers are not flashy - one of them is literally the ability to not move on your turn, which is actually a pretty big deal - but figuring out how to use them right is key.

At the same time, you have to balance all this with also using your hacks to gain points, since this is a score attack game, and you want to get the highest score possible. It's a really tricky balancing act, because the more points you go for, the more likely you are to die. This does kind of make the game hard to find satisfaction with - beating the game is hard enough, but it isn't enough when you want to go for points, and it's hard to say how many points you should really be satisfied with. All in all though it's a really fun little puzzler with a really cool design space that I still come back on occasion, although last time I played it I completely forgot how it even worked.