Server Heist - The game
Server Heist is a web-based “escape server” game, aiming at the developer community out there who have the technical knowledge to conquer a series of tricky puzzles. During the game, users would interact with the server via a classic terminal interface, with the “mission” to regain access to the server.
The idea
Looking at this squiggle drawing, you have no idea what it is about - it was exactly me the first time getting introduced to the concept of Server Heist.
It was the time of the year that Parcel Perform kicked off an internship project. I along with many colleagues gathered around in a meeting room to hear our CTO proposing his ambitious plan for the project. The whole idea is to build a web-based game that simulates a real terminal system. The concept might sound somewhat familiar to the engineers, more or less, who used to sharpen their algorithm-solving strategies via a library of programming challenges (Hackerrank, OverTheWire, etc.). Ironically, my understanding and experiences with terminal operating systems were zero back then, not knowing even how a basic command line works. That being said, not until he disclosed the spices of the game, did I reckon that the idea was one of a kind and I could possibly be a part of the project regardless of my lack of domain knowledge.
Server Heist is not as straightforward as an algorithm challenge where the problem presents itself clearly and coding is the primal focus. Server Heist, on the other hand, tends to exploit your logical thinking, patience and thinking-out-of-a-box mindset.
The first spice of the game is to conceptualize it with Escape Room game design. Players in a real-life Escape Room game are locked in a no-exit room and have to overcome all of the obstacles (which are usually aligned with the room’s theme) within an allotted time to escape themselves out of the room. Puzzles in Escape Room are usually sophisticated, vague and camouflaged. Therefore, players are encouraged to leverage literal thinking and acuteness - the caliber of an engineer that the company is looking for - to progress further in the game. Server Heist brings in the context of a server being hacked by a blackhat, which results in the fact that the server is infected and locks user access. The player, as a firefighter, infiltrates to get to the highest access level with the ultimate goal is to reboot the server. Challenges in the game are twisted by mixing different types of cryptographic puzzles to create an atmospheric experience of the heist. There are hidden keys and underlying hints along the way, without which, the player might get disorientated.
The name Server Heist was actually inspired by the popular series ‘Money Heist’, the story of which is about a criminal mastermind carrying out an ambitious plan to pull off the biggest heist in history. If you have ever watched the series, you’ll notice that the game details were based on the storyline of the movie. When you enter the game, you will be kept as a hostage. The hacker, of course, has set up many traps to prevent the escape of the hostages. Unless you are able to confront all of them, you won’t explore his hideout. When the time is right, a coup d’état against the hacker will make his weakness revealed. In the last stage, your wisdom will determine the success of the escape.
Experience as a Product Owner
The project calls for:
- A Project Manager: to facilitate sprint’s progress.
- A Technical Lead: to guide developers through the project’s architecture, technical design, and development.
- Game designers: to build the game flow.
- 4 Developer Interns: to code the game.
Yes. That was the recruitment message from our CTO. I was particularly amazed by the way he used the title ‘Game Designer’. And as curious as I was about the scope of work of this title, I volunteered to become one. With my immersive experiences playing Escape Room before, I was confident enough to think that I could trick people with my creativity and make the game truly unforgettable. Little did I know that the responsibility of a Game Designer was more than just feeding the game’s flow to the developers. In this project, a Game Designer was actually a so-called Product Owner (PO), who typically designs information architecture and UX. The PO is in the intersection of the product network. The PO is a communicating hub in which the objective of the business, engineering costs and user’s experiences are thoroughly connected and well-explained. The absence of one can downgrade the success of a product management.
At the beginning, my confidence was built up with the comprehension of the project’s expected outcome, which I believed was what made a product. However, that was not enough. How could one build a feature without understanding the foundation of a product? I attempted to understand the product more comprehensively before actually thinking of the game design by researching and playing around with terminal and command lines, basic ones of course. It turned out to be more complicated than I thought. There were a bunch of use cases that could possibly happen. Regardless, I relied on my intuition to start forming the flow of the game while trying to cover as many use cases as possible. In every high level discussion meeting, sometimes the engineering team would raise their concerns about the feasibility of the requirements. After back and forth communication, I was able to make judgement, even if it conflicted with my initial vision. My choice of prioritization impacts everything. Therefore, understanding the engineer costs helped me make good tradeoffs.
The first few sprints went through smoothly, but the further the project went on, the more difficult the challenges were, hence, the more complicated the requirements got. There were times that I could not conceptualize the complex technical information required to form the requirements. Although I was frustrated and about to give up, a glimpse of thought about how successful Server Heist can become made me stay. With the support and detailed explanation from the Technical Lead, I finally put my things together and finished the product’s requirements for the last challenges. The last sprints were tough but satisfying as I observed the enjoyable and exciting mode of work of the engineer team.
Achievements
This was the very first project that I played a role as a PO. Luckily, I was with a team of talented engineers and supportive leads (PM, Techlead). The bittersweet journey we went through together has finally harvested fruitful achievements. After 3 months of marketing campaign, Server Heist has challenged more than 600 users with 1100 sessions recorded, among whom only 28 players make it to the end of the game. Our target was the Vietnam’s developer community (where Parcel Perform’s techhub is based), but the spread of Server Heist was beyond the expectations. This shows how challenging, yet exciting, Server Heist is. After the campaign, I hope Server Heist continues to reach out to the developer community and is suggested as a game that is worth a try.
References: Schmidt D 2014, “The Product Management Triangle”, Product Logic, 22 June, https://productlogic.org/2014/06/22/the-product-management-triangle/.
