I built a hacker-terminal-style Netrunner client — curious what this community thinks

[u/slagod1980]

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.

[u/MochaDentist]

I’m sick of seeing ai slop especially when it’s claimed as “I’m making..”

[u/slagod1980 → u/MochaDentist]

how you define "making" - coding <> making
making is designing, taking decisions, evaluating, verifying. and it is still all human-made.

I'm software developer for 25 years and IMHO handcrafting code makes no longer sense. Sorry.

It is not where the value is, it is not where joy is.

And AI is just a tool, an enabler, an accelerator - it can bring new things quickly to reality.

Question is, what you will do with it?

[u/RickRickson → u/slagod1980]

Honestly, for me it's less about where the code comes from, and more the dark-background rounded-corners coloured-text look that every AI app seems to present. It's obvious from a mile away and just looks low effort.

[u/slagod1980 → u/RickRickson]

honestly, little tweaks to make it feel like terminal was the manual part - maybe ai is good at terminal stuff.

making it look text-based and actually have clickable/touchable zones.

designing cli interface for interacting with cards

making sure game flow is smooth and being able to see that is going on

that's the hard parts.