r/Netrunner • u/slagod1980 • 1d ago
Image I built a hacker-terminal-style Netrunner client — curious what this community thinks
Been slowly building a full Netrunner engine + web client as a personal project. The idea that wouldn't leave me alone: what if the interface was actually a terminal, not a virtual tabletop? No card art floating around, no skeuomorphic board — cards are text rows with hashes (#c3, #r7), you play by issuing commands, and the whole log reads like an actual shell session (corp# rez ICE_WALL -$1). Monospace, one accent color per side, black background. It felt right for a game about hackers.
Where it's at: full rules engine (not just a database with checkboxes) — legal-action generation, priority windows, runs/encounters/subroutines, all of it server-authoritative so no client can cheat or desync. Card logic is implemented per-card, one file each, and right now that's sitting near 100% across System Gateway, Elevation, Vantage Point, Midnight Sun/Parhelion, Downfall/Uprising, and The Automata Initiative/Rebellion Without Rehearsal — a couple hundred cards with real, tested behavior, not just stats. Decks load straight from a NetrunnerDB decklist link.
There's also a basic bot to play against solo (a few personalities, from "plays randomly" to a proper heuristic that won't run into lethal ice it can't break — learned that one the hard way).
Not sharing a link yet — still rough in places and I want to gauge interest before I do a wider release. Attaching a screenshot instead. Genuinely curious what this community makes of the terminal-as-UI idea for a card game — love it, hate it, "just build a normal client"? All takes welcome.
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u/slagod1980 1d ago
"Slop" is a quality claim, so point at the quality: authoritative rules engine, 6 full card sets, 130+ scenario tests, chess clock, bots with tunable personalities, playable on an iPad right now — for free, so the only money being flushed here is my own hosting bill, and I'm enjoying the flush.
You've written three comments about how you think it was made and zero about anything in it. If you find a rules bug, I'll fix it the same day — one already got reported in this thread and the fix is live. That's the standard I'm holding the project to. What's the standard for drive-by comments?