AlienHack

game over, man · reach the FTL transmitter of a colony gone silent

Date of birth2018 v0.9.1 beta

CreatorSock Puppet

LanguageC++ ~26,000 lines

PlatformWindows console

Lineage

AlienHack is its own C++ code, “loosely based on AliensRL by Kornel Kisielewicz”, a 2007 seven-day roguelike after the film Aliens. Like that game it casts you as a lone soldier in a labyrinth of predatory aliens. It has no descendants. See the family tree.

Played here: AlienHack 0.9.1 beta (SockPuppet8/Alienhack @ b843d42), compiled to WebAssembly.

Credits

Sock Puppet	Author (SockPuppet8 on GitHub), game and RL-Shared library
Kornel Kisielewicz	AliensRL (2007), the inspiration

Screenshots

Map, Status, Inventory, Visible and Messages windows — Auto-explore on the ground floor: doors opened, items reported, “You hear something moving in the ceiling.”

Commands menu — Enter opens a menu of every command with its key.

Inventory with actions — I lists the gear with an action for each item.

Trivia

First announced on the Rogue Temple forum in 2018. (Rogue Temple)
The author released it into the public domain (CC0). (GitHub)
The upstream README says the game has no sound; the sounds in this port are synthesized. (README)
Vision is a 90° cone in the direction you face; you can strafe and turn separately. (Zone vision code, README keys)
AlienHack is “loosely based on AliensRL by Kornel Kisielewicz”. (README)
AliensRL was a 7DRL, released on 18 March 2007, inspired by the film Aliens and the game Alien Breed: Tower Assault; it is written in FreePascal. (RogueBasin)
Kornel Kisielewicz (alias Epyon) is a Polish developer and owner of ChaosForge; his games include DoomRL, DiabloRL, Berserk!, AliensRL and Jupiter Hell. (RogueBasin)
RogueBasin names Jupiter Hell, the spiritual successor to DoomRL, as based on AliensRL. (RogueBasin, RogueBasin)

What's unique

Facing matters: you see and shoot in a cone; strafe (z) and turn (x) are separate moves.
Ammunition and armour are the resources, not food or spells; armour gets destroyed by acid.
Motion tracker pings aliens you cannot see; aliens crawl through vents.
A Quick game or a Long game across the colony blocks.

Code dive

C++ with Boost (Serialization, Filesystem), about 26,000 lines in 154 files, plus the author's RL-Shared library for the Win32 console.
Model and view kept apart: src/Model (actions, objects) and src/Console (interface).
This port: the Win32 console replaced by an 80x40 grid routed to map, status, inventory and message windows; WebAssembly; auto-explore on H. Source: memmaker/Alienhack.

Stats

Thing	Count	Notable ones
Aliens	15	Juvenile, Warrior, Gladiator, Elite, Harrier, Hunter, Slayer, Reaper, Facehugger, Fasthugger, Spitter, Death Spitter, Hulk, Queen, Worker.
Weapons	11	Pistol, SMG, pulse rifle, sawn-off and combat shotgun, Colt, flamer, smart gun, laser, canister rifle, machine pistol.
Armours	8	Flak jacket to power armour; chemhazard suits resist acid.
Pickups	18	Medkits, neutraliser, 8 ammo kinds, stun, frag, incendiary and krak grenades, demolition charge, credit chips.

Manual

Sock Puppet's README (public domain): read it here (text). The in-game help page has the key table.

Getting started

Open the game, choose Quick Game.
Move with the arrows or numpad; you face the way you move.
f fires, o reloads; keep aliens at range.
H explores; > walks to the stairs.
Enter opens all commands; ? is help. More in Help.

Help

No walkthrough exists. Rules of thumb:

Reload before rounding a corner; aliens are fast.
Watch the motion tracker and back into corridors to fight.
Keep a grenade for crowds and a sidearm for when the primary is empty.

Cheats

No wizard or debug mode in the code. Export save / Import save keeps backups.