Panopticon: The Hacker [WIP] Latest Update 28/4/26 13:40 BST (~54k+ words)

[Somethinkorignl]

You receive a file labeled ORACLE_INTERNAL.zip.

If it’s real, a corporation is predicting people’s lives using stolen data.
If it’s fake, someone wants you to walk into a trap.
If you ignore it, the system goes live in 48 hours.

The Hacker is a cyber-thriller interactive fiction demo about surveillance, trust, and choosing what kind of criminal you want to be.

Break into Helix Dynamics, uncover the truth behind the ORACLE program, and choose whether to expose it, destroy it, or take control of it yourself.
Your choices shape your reputation, your relationships, and your ending.

Demo features:

Play as a hacker, whistleblower, or blackmailer
Build relationships with a journalist, a hacker, and a corporate insider
Multiple routes and multiple endings
Stats that track your reputation, empathy, and how close you are to being caught
Choice-driven narrative with different approaches to the same problem

Disclaimer: This is my first experiment with ChoiceScript and the demo I have isn’t very long at all. Posting this to gauge interest and gather feedback on absolutely anything you wanna see, the part I’m looking forward to the most is finding ways to implement what players want and expand on this tiny demo until it’s a full, fleshed out project.

Demo link here: https://cogdemos.ink/play/lewis-connor/the-hacker/mygame

The demo is now over 50,000 words.

Around 20,000 of those are in the new PLAYTEST: skip to new district content option, so if you want to jump straight into the newer material, you can.

Lot’s of new content!

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What’s New

→ Meridian House — New Chapter Content

Added a full 3-part sequence:

• Approach — reading the system

• Entry — how you operate

• Internal — what you take, and what notices you

Core Changes

Entry into Meridian now reflects your style:

• Stealth

• Social

• Aggressive

• Manipulative

This isn’t cosmetic. It feeds into suspicion, heat, future access options, and how the system starts treating you.

Companion Reactivity — Lena / Malik / Ivy

Companions now react inside missions, not just around them.

Their tone should stay consistent with their worldview:

• Lena → human cost

• Malik → system weakness

• Ivy → controlled risk / long-term survival

Ivy especially… lands differently now given where things go.

Real Consequences

Staying longer inside Meridian means more data, but more visibility.

Early behaviour is now quietly shaping late-game pressure.

The system doesn’t “alert.”

It recognises.

Payload System

What you pull from Meridian now matters long-term:

• Map → understanding the network

• Ledger → names + accountability

• Chain → infrastructure + weak points

• Watchlist → human cost

These feed directly into later routes.

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Tone / Prose Pass

I’ve been cutting things back.

Earlier versions started drifting: too wordy, trying to be clever, unnecessary.

I’m pulling it back towards what I always wanted: controlled, slightly detached, precise prose that keeps the momentum/action-game pace.

If a line doesn’t feel right after I’ve read over it three times, it’s gone.

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Smaller Changes / Fixes

• Cleaned up some scene flow and transitions

• Tightened hub feedback slightly

• Minor stat consistency tweaks

• Fixed a couple of dead-feeling lines in earlier scenes

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Feedback I’m Looking For

Generally:

• Did you play the game?

• Did you enjoy it?

• What works?

• What doesn’t?

• Are the characters, setting, writing, and plot engaging?

That’s the stuff that helps most right now.

[Somethinkorignl]

Thanks for checking the demo out!

This is a very early version and mostly focuses on the opening scenario and the different approaches to Helix. I’m currently working on expanding the game into longer routes where your stats and relationships start to matter more (especially Suspicion, Notoriety, and who you trust).

If you play the demo, I’d really like to know:
– Which route you took (Ivy, Breach, or Media)
– Which ending you got
– Whether you played more stealthy, empathetic, or aggressive
– Whether the stats felt like they mattered
– Which character you’re most interested in (Lena, Malik, or Ivy)

Any feedback at all is useful at this stage.

[CodedQuill]

Hi, nice start. Quick, punchy writing drew me in nicely.

Did notice a few bugs though.

When I click the ‘show stats’ button it seems to sit there thinking for ages instead of going to the stats page.

When picking what I should do with the file at first, all the options point to calling Lena, then Malik then Ivy, but they seem like they should be pointing to calling them in a different order. Not sure if this was deliberate.

Play through stats

Notoriety: 20 Suspicion: 40 Intel gathered: 7 Blackmail material: 1

Relationships: Lena: 60 Malik: 60 Ivy: 65

Romance: Lena: 1 Malik: 6 Ivy: 1

Playstyle: Stealth: 2 Social: 0 Aggressive: 0 Manipulative: 2

[Somethinkorignl]

Hey, thanks for playing the demo! Got so many ideas and excited to keep working on it. Good catch on the infinitely loading stat bar and I’ll look into making the paths to contact each character more distinct with less obvious overlap and narrative structure from me, I want every choice the player makes from stupidly simple ones to feel like it has a purpose if that makes sense. Will likely have another update by the end of today

[Myrtle]

I enjoyed this — short and to the point, you tell a compelling story with few words. Reminds me of the style of the very first COGs published.

Here’s my ending:

I followed Malik’s path until I got to be inside Oracle and see what it was, then I was offered the option to publish everything through Lena and I took it, but in the end Oracle was burned to the ground and not exposed — not sure if that was intentional.

I’ve also got to say, hearing Oracle in this context makes it hard from me to separate the concept from the real software company by that name.

[Somethinkorignl]

Heck yeah can’t wait to add proper romance paths tbh and seeing what people think of the characters is super exciting! At my mum’s house today (I’m British) without my computer but been making a ton of notes. With regards to the multiple endings I need to flesh these out properly and plan to make that a priority as soon as I have my PC. Also lmao at the Oracle comment, tbf ORACLE (Operational Risk & Classification Engine) is still somewhat of a placeholder. That’s not to say it definitely won’t be in the finished product but I’m super open to hearing cool dystopian/cyberpunk/somewhat plausibly realistic names for a system used by an evil corporation. If you liked what you’ve played so far keep an eye out over next few days!!!

[gost]

My thoughts exactly​. I thought MC got a leaked data from Oracle™

[Jonathan_Bagelman]

Maybe “Panopticon” would be a good name?

[Somethinkorignl]

Holy crap! (Was going to use another word but unsure on the forum rules about swearing and really not trying to get banned lol) but I had to look that word up and it’s amazingly appropriate. I gotta say I really like this idea! It fits with the themes of the game way too well

[LeannaMandragoran]

Hello @Somethinkorignl Looks good. Your concept and story telling is good. I feel like Mr robot is a influence on the story. How ever I should say that character creation is lacking but I guess you have plans on it. I suggest that make character creation part of the story.

[Somethinkorignl]

Hi, thanks so much for checking it out! Huge fan of Mr Robot, also taking inspiration from Cyberpunk as a setting and unfortunately, less hyperbolically, real life. Character customisation is definitely on the to-do list, planning to gradually add more depth with one idea being a few clothing options that have a slight impact on stats. Thank you so much again for the feedback, this is my first ChoiceScript game and it means a lot!

[LeannaMandragoran]

Happy to give feedback. I’am little busy but hopefuly I will give proper feedback. @Somethinkorignl

[Somethinkorignl]

Stats screen should be working correctly for everyone now

[ChanceOfFire]

The page where you think over your three contacts and decide who to call is a bit long. Maybe condense it into a few pages? Or have a choice menu where you can choose which person to review before making a final decision on who to contact?

Otherwise, looks ok so far. I don’t have any other feedback for now.

[Somethinkorignl]

Thank you so much for playing and sharing feedback! Tbh I was thinking of breaking that section up into separate pages for clarity and to make it less one long page. Who’s your favourite character so far / who do you like the idea of the most?

[ChanceOfFire]

I picked Lena to start with, although I guess it was more of me role playing and thinking that a journalist could serve my goals better in this context, if I already knew how to hack things and just needed someone who could raise a different kind of havoc.

[Somethinkorignl]

UPDATE 2/4/2026 - 17:30

Added character customisation (name, alias, identity, appearance, motive). This will be expanded further next update with more background and personality options.
Added a Hub/Safehouse system that you return to between major story points and objectives. Right now it lets you review stats, message contacts, and prepare — this will be expanded next update with more actions that affect gameplay.
Took on feedback and broke up long text sections so conversations and character backstories are now interactive instead of big text walls.
General bug fixing and stat system cleanup.

Next update will focus on expanding the hub, adding more consequences for player choices, and continuing the main story past the ORACLE discovery.

As always, feedback is massively appreciated — especially on pacing, characters, and how the choice structure feels.

[Jonathan_Bagelman]

I finally had some time to get around to playing the demo, and I enjoyed it. It was very short, and I would like to see more when it gets expanded. Here’s my final screen:

[Somethinkorignl]

UPDATE: 3/4/2026 23:00

Added a vendor infiltration path as a new way into Helix.
Added a background flashback during the vendor section that determines part of your character build (skills and backstory).
Added route-specific variations in the Helix infiltration depending on whether you’re working with Lena, Malik, Ivy, or going solo.
Added the watchlist reveal at the end of the Helix chapter.

Plans for next update:

New scene dependant on who you choose as an ally and which route you choose to take

Possible name change(s)

Expanded hub

As always happy to take suggestions, very tired when I wrote this and possibly included things I changed last update but there is a lot there!

Also does anyone know how to edit my post or have I reached the limit? Wanted to change title to something like Panopticon: The Hacker (~7k words WIP)

[Myrtle]

I replayed to see the new content and went with Lena this time. Enjoyed the chance to define our MC a little more, particularly our motive and style. Would be cool to see other characters reference the customization options (e.g. call MC by their alias) but that might be kinda tricky with how it’s setup as the player doesn’t necessarily have to pick that option, so the variables could remain empty. Maybe with an *if statement to check for that scenario…

I also think it’d be neat to disable choices you’ve already picked (for instance, once you send a message the option becomes greyed out so you can’t have the same conversation more than once). There’s also a way to display stats bars which you could use for the review option. Hollywood Visionary does this when showing you how your movie is doing and I personally thought it was quite cool, but it’s just a matter of preference as the plain percent values are fine too.