I've finished version 2 of the input system and converted the current commands to new format - I've totally rewritten it from scratch to make it much more extensible, and I've fixed a bug that was killing me in the missions system, so now I'm ready to build a new level or two, and perhaps make this first one into something that's close to what I wanted it to be.
@LabOne Oh that's cool! I do vaguely remember a really cool looking screen on a James Bond promo site, it must have been the most recent one. Thanks :)
@Germanunkol Thanks! I'm telling you, I had to stop myself from making a tab complete command so many times, but I spent pretty much the whole first day on things like making the input work, adding commands like clear/cls, making the up/down arrows load previous commands, making ctrl + arrow keys jump whole words, making control + backspace and control + delete work too, and then I just couldn't keep going! What I ended up doing was making shorthands for pretty much all the commands, so rather than typing l<tab> for list, you can type ls and it will understand. Unfortunately I never got the point where I could properly communicate that. I'll definitely look into adding it later though, but for it'll have to wait until I've tested some more missions and possibly some multiplayer, as a more in-depth proof of concept. In the new version of the input system I've also added some visual hierarchy to the output, and I think that makes most things easier.
@UrbanLogicGames Thanks! Yeah, that's definitely a huge challenge. The way I've rewritten the input system now is so that if you for example try to do something that requires a target, then it will say how to perform that target command. If you try to target something without a connection, it will tell you how to perform that connection command. If you enter the target command in the wrong way, it will tell you how to enter the target command. The idea is that it should automatically try to figure out what you're trying to do and give you valuable feedback. If you're completely lost you can enter the help command, and if you're still lost it basically says "if you don't know what to do, list the missions" and then you can do so. Then the missions list should guide you from there. That's idea anyway, we'll see how it goes. Hey, now that I think of it, maybe I should make a note taking system, that'd be cool :) But yeah, there's also a balance between me wanting loads of text and commands (so that it'll become almost action gameplay later on) and at the same time allowing new users to enjoy the game and never start by reading through a giant, boring readme file. I mean, this is a GAME after all :) I think for now I'll keep it as a single player game, but although the audience for same-computer-multiplayer-games seems to have been pretty small since something like 20-30 years ago, I think it'd be so cool for this, because it's also a matter of communication and balance of the operator wanting many tools the screen, but too many tools will be a problem for the agent. That kind of stuff. But yeah, giving both players rewarding and fun roles is another huge challenge for this concept. I never want it to feel like you're just waiting for the other one (except when it's a cool feature, like if the agent needs defend itself while the operator tries to hack something - that would put a time limit on both of them, but BOTH players would be benefited by the other player doing a good job).