You are sitting in a super-secret, deep underground military bunker. Far from battle fronts, and obvious military target.
You have just been ordered to activate Dead Hand - super secret doomsday device, that will ensure full nuclear retaliation in case of nuclear attack.
There is only one catch - you are responsible for deciding, whether strike should commence, or be delayed for another 10 minutes.
Of course, you will have date to help you in the process. Can you trust the data?
The worst enemy, might be in fact, the system itself. The old computer just loves to lag.
Read emails!
Well... I made a sort-of spiritual successor to one of my previous games https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/the-story I've been planning more scenarios... But, I've barely finished one of them. (The scenario takes about 30 minutes)
I had fun going through the scenario. I do wish the sound effects had been a little less jarring personally but I have pretty sensitive hearing so take that with a grain of salt
Dude, this is horror! hahaha, fantastic piece of storytelling, got me way back to the early 90s... First off, screw you for finding out what my name and family name are, and putting that in the sentence with: ... is responsible for operation of the computer controlling the Dead Hand system. That scared me! (also nice reference to Dune2) waiting for a defrag was both nostalgic and frustrating hahaha, thanks for that! The next evil thing you did was issuing a error after I entered the delay code! (sorry for all the spoilers) You definitely nailed the theme. Now I am going to punish the world by letting the bomb explode muahahaha
Even though it was just a text adventure, this was a really intense experience. I really panicked when the computer was slowing down, I received several mails AND dead hand was running, though I somehow managed to survive. Congrats, a really good game!
@squidzilla haha, thank you! Finding out your name was really simple, I just used your Windows username. "Dead Hand" is actually a reference to actual of automatic retaliation systems, that were deployed by USSR, USA and UK... But also the game was heavily inspired by Dr. Strangelove =)
Very immersive game with cool command-line interface! If you ignore the typos, the announcement messages felt very real. And the slowdowns were really scary at times. I think you need to add the possibility to view previous emails, because there is no way to get the delay code later unless you copy it somewhere.
P.S. Entering the shutdown code doesn't actually cancel the strike and you can continue playing... It looks like a bug, but it's kind of convenient, given the theme. :grin:
@theogen haha, well I finished uploading this game like 10 minutes before deadline, so bugs are indeed expected. Thanks for feedback, I'm happy you've liked it ;)
Very cool, I got the happy ending. The terminal is really immersive and it felt like I was actually in charge of retaliatory strike software running on a PC from the 20th century. The game should have been way shorter though. A terminal with colored words would add beauty and readability to the game as well. Great job!
Anxiety-inducing text-based game with a cool Command Prompt aesthetic; the minimalist style definitely added to the theme. I jumped at the first warning beep haha Really great but scary atmosphere and the computer lag adds a whole other layer of tension! Great job on it!
Interesting short text adventure style concept! Sometimes I felt like I was just waiting to receive an email with nothing to do, but it definitely gets more interesting.
Interesting work. Something very retro and creative. I liked using command lines to interact with your game hahaha. It's a very interesting type of immersion. Congratulations.
Got me thinking, whoever was in charge of acquiring this OS and computer system must have pocketed a ton of money.
First run I didn't quite understand that I'm supposed to activate the deadHand right away, so I kind of did nothing until the end, peace negotiations worked out, smooth ride. I was the hero while munching on chips and sipping beer.
Second time I wanted to cause mayhem so I activated without using delay code, turns out there seem to have been an attack, it all worked out. Or did it? What a twist.
Due to slow peace I didn't had patience to play out the third scenario. But very inventive approach, gj.
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P.S. Entering the shutdown code doesn't actually cancel the strike and you can continue playing... It looks like a bug, but it's kind of convenient, given the theme. :grin:
Immensely immersive text adventure! Had a lot of fun with it!
(had this ending: False warning)
First run I didn't quite understand that I'm supposed to activate the deadHand right away, so I kind of did nothing until the end, peace negotiations worked out, smooth ride. I was the hero while munching on chips and sipping beer.
Second time I wanted to cause mayhem so I activated without using delay code, turns out there seem to have been an attack, it all worked out. Or did it? What a twist.
Due to slow peace I didn't had patience to play out the third scenario. But very inventive approach, gj.