Net.Attack() is a survivors-like with a unique roguelike twist, challenging players to think like a coder to get the most out of their powerups and pickups. Though the game boasts a huge range of possibilities in how players play, your enjoyment of the game is going to depend on either your knowledge of code or how much you enjoy the challenge of learning it. The game ventures further into the territory of a brain-teasing puzzle than it does a high-octane action challenge, and depending on what you’re looking for, that’s either going to put you off from Net.Attack() or sell you on it.
Net.Attack() is a game in the genre of roguelikes—more specifically, it mimics the subgenre-defining Vampire Survivors. If you’ve never played, these games challenge you to survive increasingly difficult waves of enemies, with each enemy defeated dropping a bit of experience points that help you unlock a series of weapons and powerups. These abilities are often straight buffs or attacks that fire automatically with their own unique attack patterns, allowing players to focus on dodging projectiles in the bullet-heaven mechanics these games are known for.
Many of these mechanics are present in Net.Attack(), enough so that fans of the genre will instantly find the game familiar. However, this early access title does a few things very differently, in ways that I can honestly say make the game stand out among the crowd.
These changes are primarily tied to the game’s theme: hacking. As a hacker in Net.Attack(), your job is to go from node to node on circuit boards collecting valuable data (translated into cash money) before escaping a level. Defeating enemies along the way causes them to drop experience orbs. Once a level is cleared, you can exploit all the circuits for cash. However, a local firewall is then triggered, giving you a timeframe in which you must escape.
In that paragraph alone, I’ve described two ways in which Net.Attack() switches things up in its genre. First of all, the typical level design of survivorslikes is traded in for a more traditional roguelike system, where instead of surviving for as long as possible on one map, players instead move from level to level and collect powerful, procedurally selected upgrades along the way. The game also presents a new form of progression when compared to other survivors-like, with your typical XP being present alongside cash. Experience points grant passive buffs when you level up, but cash is used to purchase a whole new kind of beast.
See, in Net.Attack(), you do not pick up weapons or collect special offensive powers. Instead, you use cash to purchase nodes, physical representations of lines of code, like one might see when attempting to program a game of their own. Individually, these nodes do nothing, but when combined, create weapons that vary from the mediocre to the devastating, depending on how many nodes are used and how well you know how to make use of them.
Essentially, Net.Attack() wants you to code your own weapons into existence. To give you a rough example based on my own minimal coding knowledge and my time with the game: a “ping” node, which does 24 damage to a nearby enemy, does nothing. When connected to a trigger node that prompts every 356 ms, that ping node now fires that 24-damage laser every 356 milliseconds. Not so bad, but once you start adding optimize arguments for better speed or the line “do (2)” to double the number of projectiles shot, things start to get interesting.
That’s really where the game starts to shine through with its own identity. With a bit of applied coding knowledge and a lot of nodes, you essentially create endless possibilities for combined attacks, healing, etc. One ability formed early on can be made unrecognizable with enough modifications.
Unfortunately, no matter how well Net.Attack() simplifies the experience, there is still a bit of a learning curve involved in getting a hang of the game’s coding system. The game’s descriptions of each node only help so much, and at the end of the day, you will essentially need to learn a bit of programming yourself to get the most out of the game. While I’m inclined to believe that the game wants to teach you to code, I still can’t say for certain if that is the intention or if it wants to draw in a crowd more familiar with the act itself. That is to say, I’m not sure if Net.Attack() wants to teach you to code, or wants you to know how to code before you start playing.
I, for one, cannot code despite many attempts to learn, so I had a bit of trouble navigating the game’s code-centric systems. I wasn’t familiar enough with my own node designs to see if they were doing what I wanted them to do, and had plenty of occasions where I was certain something should be happening, only to notice that it was, in fact, not. This is either going to be your main appeal to the game or it may put you off and send you toward something far simpler in design.
As far as early access games go, Net.Attack() is in phenomenal shape. I didn’t experience any bugs, and the game is set up to show you exactly what it wants to be, as well as give you plenty of chances to play various levels and difficulty options as it continues to receive updates and support. That being said, at the moment, you’re going to see a lack of level and playable character variety, as much of the content is clearly labeled as a work in progress.
Net.Attack() Pros:
- Unique and innovative weapon system built on coding logic
- Smart blend of roguelike level design and survivorslike combat
- Lots of room for player creativity and experimentation
Net.Attack() Cons:
- Steep learning curve, especially for non-coders
- Limited variety in levels and characters at this stage
- Game mechanics may feel too cerebral for fans of fast-paced action
Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC Early Access review of Net.Attack(). Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
Comments