I made this game to teach my daughter how buffer overflows work. I want her to look at programs as things she can change, and make them do whatever she wants.Building your exploit in memory and jumping to it feels so cool. I hope this game teaches kids and programmers (who seem to have forgotten what computers actually are) that its quite fun to mess with programs. We used to have that excitement few years ago, just break into softice and change a branch into a nop and ignore the serial number check, or go to a different game level because this one is too annoying.While working on the game I kept thinking what we have lost from 6502 to Apple Silicon, and the transition from 'personal computers' to 'you are completely not responsible for most the code running on your device', it made me a bit sad and happy in the same time, RISCV seems like a breath of fresh air, and many hackers will build many new things, new protocols, new networks, new programs. As PI4 cost increases, the esp32 cost is decreasing, we have transparent displays for 20$, good computers for 5$, cheap lora, and etc. Everything is more accessible than ever.I played with a friend who saw completely different exploits than me, and I learned a lot just from few games, and because of the complexity of the game its often you enter into a position that you get surprised by your own actions :) So if you manage to find at least one friend who is not completely stunned by the assembler, I think you will have some good time.A huge inspiration comes from phrack 49's 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' which has demystified the stack for me: http://phrack.org/issues/49/14.html#articleTLDR: computers are fun, and you can make them do things.PS: In order to play with my friends I also built esp32 helper[1] that keeps track of the game state, and when I built it and wrote the code and everything I realized I could've just media queried the web version of the game.. but anyway, its way cooler to have a board game contraption.[1]: https://punkx.org/overflow/esp32.html
Users are generally impressed with the game, noting its difficulty and the need to exploit every aspect, with some discussing the benefits of CHERI for heap temporal safety. There's interest in assembly language learning for young minds, with references to Raspberry Pi resources and historical programming games like Core War. The game's educational potential is highlighted, with some users considering introducing it at work or for their children. Debates arise about gender interests in tech and the influence of parents on children's hobbies. Questions about appropriate ages for the game and its inspiration from WarGames are also present.
Users find the game too difficult and not sufficiently different from existing offerings, with crude 3D graphics and limited options reminiscent of 8-bit days. It's perceived as too experimental and not ready for default use. Criticisms also touch on broader issues such as the high cost of software practice resources, the relevance of teaching certain skills, and the representation in system design. There's a sentiment that the game may not engage all demographics, particularly girls, and concerns about teaching irrelevant skills. Additionally, there are comments on the nature of competition in similar games and the impact of technology on employment.