Indie Dev Turns Your Infected Hard Drive into a Videogame

Fanghawk

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Feb 17, 2011
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Indie Dev Turns Your Infected Hard Drive into a Videogame

The Lunduke Experimental Artificial Intelligence Terminal is a game of cat-and-mouse set among your personal files.

One of the interesting things about games are how, as a form of entertainment, they subject us to things we'd rarely experience willingly. We drop ourselves into zombie apocalypses and alien invasions from the comfort of our homes, immensely enjoying things that would be rather inconvenient in real-life. This quirk goes well past fantastic environments, and even applies to everyday, mundane experiences. A new indie game called The Lunduke Experimental Artificial Intelligence Terminal makes this clear by challenging you to prevent a virus from infecting a hard drive. To raise the stakes, L.E.A.I.T. is set on your hard drive, and you're taking part in the struggle to protect personal documents from invading software.

L.E.A.I.T. is a text-based game that follows standard Windows command prompts, like CD, LS, and DIR. The game introduces you to friendly AI named Ruby before subjecting your hard drive to a virus that drives her insane. Thankfully, the virus follows a very specific pattern; it moves from directory to directory, infecting one file at a time, but it cannot move to an empty directory. That means you can quaratine the virus, and save Ruby, if you can track and delete files fast enough to trap it before its too late.

Of course, L.E.A.I.T. doesn't actually put your hard drive at risk, as it uses a representation of your hard drive's file system. Still, borrowing personal files to construct gameplay levels is a rather unique idea, forcing you to delete family photos, work files, or a potentially massive pornography collection to win the game. Creator Bryan Lunduke adds that despite the game's simplicity, players can find several extras buried within, presumably generated by Ruby's descent into madness. A demo of L.E.A.I.T. is available for free from its creator's website, while a full version can be purchased for $3.

Source: Joystiq

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L3D

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Jul 15, 2008
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Hardly an unique idea, it has been done before already (with really deleting your files and for free) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94917-Lose-Lose-The-Game-That-Deletes-Your-Files
 

Lazy Kitty

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May 1, 2009
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I once played an fps game that built a gameworld according to your harddrive...

It was called FP-FS... Got it from the digipen game gallery.

This one sounds a lot more strategic.
I wonder if it allows you to write scripts to help...
 

evilneko

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Jun 16, 2011
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I'll add to the list of non-uniqueness by mentioning Inner Space, a top-down shooter game that generated enemies based on the files in the directory you placed the exe in. Not the only game I've played that draws elements from the file system, but the most memorable.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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evilneko said:
I'll add to the list of non-uniqueness by mentioning Inner Space, a top-down shooter game that generated enemies based on the files in the directory you placed the exe in. Not the only game I've played that draws elements from the file system, but the most memorable.
That actually sounds really cool. Mind linking those of us who haven't played it yet?
 

SadisticFire

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Seems pretty interesting. Despite some people saying it's been done before. It'll be like saying Tomb Raider was no longer unique because of Uncharted. (Or vice versa, take your personal pick). I would probably toss 3 dollars at it if it was an easy transaction (e.g steam.)
 
Mar 30, 2010
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Kinda reminds me of <a href=http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm>Inner Space, an Asteroids style game in which you pilot your ship around the various folders on your hard drive shooting 'infected' files, reclaiming un'infected' files and battling rival teams (comprised of AI ships). The game is nearly 20 years old now, but it was one of the more arcadey titles I had on my PC back then and it was bloody great fun.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've made myself feel old and wish to sob quietly in a corner.

evilneko said:
I'll add to the list of non-uniqueness by mentioning Inner Space, a top-down shooter game that generated enemies based on the files in the directory you placed the exe in. Not the only game I've played that draws elements from the file system, but the most memorable.
See, what I should have done there was read the comments - not just the article. Still, glad to see another Inner Space fan knocking about!
 

WarpZone

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At least it's not actually deleting files on your hard drive without telling you like that one 2D shmup a while back. AHHHHHRRRRT GAAAYYYMMMMZZZZJJJglarghlagrhl. It's better when Jim Sterling does it.
 

ellers07

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I think anti-virus software could learn something from this. Why not turn protecting your computer into a game? Let me hunt down and kill the real viruses that dared try and infect my computer.
 
Sep 9, 2007
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Grouchy Imp said:
Kinda reminds me of <a href=http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm>Inner Space, an Asteroids style game in which you pilot your ship around the various folders on your hard drive shooting 'infected' files, reclaiming un'infected' files and battling rival teams (comprised of AI ships). The game is nearly 20 years old now, but it was one of the more arcadey titles I had on my PC back then and it was bloody great fun.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've made myself feel old and wish to sob quietly in a corner.

evilneko said:
I'll add to the list of non-uniqueness by mentioning Inner Space, a top-down shooter game that generated enemies based on the files in the directory you placed the exe in. Not the only game I've played that draws elements from the file system, but the most memorable.
See, what I should have done there was read the comments - not just the article. Still, glad to see another Inner Space fan knocking about!
Inner Space, now there's a game I haven't heard of in a long while. I wonder if it is compatible with Windows 7 64 bit...
 

FalloutJack

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Nov 20, 2008
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Interesting, but not worth it. Give me a virus-deletion game which will allow me to hunt down any real viruses in my computer for sport, THEN we're talk. The Most Dangerous Game...on your computer!
 

VoidWanderer

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Sep 17, 2011
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Using command prompts to play a game, just like the reason why I loved using computers in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

...

Anyone else got the urge to replay that excellent game?
 

Kahani

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Fanghawk said:
borrowing personal files to construct gameplay levels is a rather unique idea
Others have already pointed out how incredibly not unique this idea actually is, but I'm surprised no-one has yet mentioned Virus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus:_The_Game]. The premise is essentially identical, with the only obvious difference being that the 16 year old game has significantly better graphics. Which is really not the way around I would normally be writing that sentence.
 

Monsterfurby

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Grouchy Imp said:
Kinda reminds me of <a href=http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm>Inner Space, an Asteroids style game in which you pilot your ship around the various folders on your hard drive shooting 'infected' files, reclaiming un'infected' files and battling rival teams (comprised of AI ships). The game is nearly 20 years old now, but it was one of the more arcadey titles I had on my PC back then and it was bloody great fun.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've made myself feel old and wish to sob quietly in a corner.
Yes, YESS!! That was the game I came here to post about. You're not alone in feeling old :)

Edit: Also, looking at that website... Ship-sets for 5$... Could that have been a proto-version of what we today call DLC?
 
Mar 30, 2010
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The Eupho Guy said:
Grouchy Imp said:
Kinda reminds me of <a href=http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm>Inner Space, an Asteroids style game in which you pilot your ship around the various folders on your hard drive shooting 'infected' files, reclaiming un'infected' files and battling rival teams (comprised of AI ships). The game is nearly 20 years old now, but it was one of the more arcadey titles I had on my PC back then and it was bloody great fun.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've made myself feel old and wish to sob quietly in a corner.

evilneko said:
I'll add to the list of non-uniqueness by mentioning Inner Space, a top-down shooter game that generated enemies based on the files in the directory you placed the exe in. Not the only game I've played that draws elements from the file system, but the most memorable.
See, what I should have done there was read the comments - not just the article. Still, glad to see another Inner Space fan knocking about!
Inner Space, now there's a game I haven't heard of in a long while. I wonder if it is compatible with Windows 7 64 bit...
Well, I can tell you that it's definitely compatible with the Vista system at my office. Not going to be getting much work done today!

Monsterfurby said:
Yes, YESS!! That was the game I came here to post about. You're not alone in feeling old :)

Edit: Also, looking at that website... Ship-sets for 5$... Could that have been a proto-version of what we today call DLC?
I believe the ship sets are fan-made submissions. The game is still being updated so it still works on modern systems, and I'd guess the ship-sets fund that support.
 

CorvusFerreum

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That sound interesting. It also would be fun to try out wether I'm still somewhat fluent in DOS commands. It's been a while a while and I was never good at it, as I was a kid when our only computer ran on DOS. This might be fun.


Added bonus: gnome-exe-thumbnailer.cfg is one of the infected files? I'm not shure, but it sounds like it's a file from a somewhat obscure Mechgame [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qxed6EscRQ&fmt=18] I played as a kid. And for reminding me of this game and its awesome soundtrack I give them cudos for that screenshot. I wonder if I still have the game somewhere on my harddrive. I know I had it secured from the damaged CD aeons ago.........
 

Baneat

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You could implement a similar thing in a dummy terminal to teach people how to use bash