r/Netrunner • u/slagod1980 • 20h 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/Protikon 20h ago
Am I seeing this right? Runner says run hq but the program executes run r&d?
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u/slagod1980 20h ago
good spot, will check immediately. Actually, adding feature to save logs and analyse.
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u/slagod1980 20h ago
Ok, found it. bot used Maintenance Access that redirects the run.
There is a bug about missing log entry about playing this card - adding it.17
u/Oreosian 19h ago
That... isn't what Maintenance Access does?
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
😂😂😂
When this dude actually has to read and think vs just use ai….-9
u/slagod1980 19h ago
update since you liked this one so much: Oreosian was right, my Maintenance Access impl was wrong (redirected to HQ or R&D, real card is HQ only). fixed, test added, deployed. took about an hour from your 😂😂😂 to fix being live.
so yeah, ai does the typing. reading the bug report, checking the card text and shipping the fix was me. that part doesn't go away
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
So basically Oreosian made your app now. You’re just the tool that used ai
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
if one good bug report makes the app then every app you've ever used was made by its reddit thread. thanks Oreosian though, genuinely
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u/Oreosian 19h ago
What do you mean by "took about an hour"? The time between these two comments is 20 minutes? And, assuming that's the only thing you fixed, that still isn't what Maintenance Access does
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u/david_duplex 19h ago
His LLM misjudged the time it took to implement the fix when it wrote his reply.
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
Actually added bug reporting tool with collecting context about state of the game so we can quickly resolve the bugs + stats screen for the server + card browser + user profiles are baking right now.
And what did you deliver in that time?
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
I’m sick of seeing ai slop especially when it’s claimed as “I’m making..”
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
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?
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
Ok buddy. Keep chatgpt-ing your answers and code. I believe you /s
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
So, are we done? no counter-arguments?
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
I disagree that you make anything. I’m not impressed when you or anyone else goes into your favorite ai, excuse me, I mean “tool” and have it make a slop app that you the turn and say it’s just a tool, I made it.
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
You’ve been done since you posted ai slop. Like someone else said, we don’t want that here so you may as well flush your money down the drain
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
"we" is doing a lot of work in that sentence - the top comment in this thread is the Chiriboga dev asking about my bot architecture. and it's a free hobby project, the only money involved is my hosting bill, which I'd flush on this anyway :)
anyway, back to fixing cards. thanks for the engagement, reddit's algorithm appreciates you even if I don't
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u/RickRickson 17h ago
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.
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
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.
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u/Hyperbolic_Mess 18h ago
Would you define requesting and paying someone through a service like mechanical turk to produce this as making this yourself? Would you describe managing a team that produced this as making this?
Your experience in the field could help you to get better results from the people actually doing the doing in these scenarios but I think most people would feel mislead if you said you had made those things. This is why prompting an ai to do something isn't considered making by these same people.
Paying someone or something to do something on your behalf doesn't mean you did the thing but you could say you oversaw or outlined an idea that others did
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u/slagod1980 18h ago
Yesterday I cut some wooden planks with electrical saw.
Can I tell "I cut them" or "saw's engine cut them" ?If I write code in java and compile it to byte code and then it is translated into binary code and then into cpu microcode; can I tell I build it?
AI is not someone, it is a tool.
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u/MochaDentist 18h ago
If I took your electric saw away and gave you a gas powered saw could you do the same job? You apply your knowledge.
What about if I take your ai away? Your ai can write in Java but once I take it away you’re no longer able to write in Java.
If I use Google Translate to change Chinese to English, am I a translator now? No, same as you’re not a developer because you used ai to write code.
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
Yes sir, I could do this project on my own - I'm professional software engineer with 25 years of experience.
I just wouldn't have time to do it as pet project.
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u/MochaDentist 17h ago
“I could do it but I don’t have the time so I outsourced it.” FTFY
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
Outsourced it to a tool, this is what you want to say?
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u/MochaDentist 17h ago edited 17h ago
Nope. Read my previous post for what I want to say
Also for repeatedly commenting how you have no time, you sure have a lot of time to waste in here on the most unproductive part of what I’m sure is a busy schedule for you fixing bugs in an ai’s app
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u/Hyperbolic_Mess 18h ago edited 17h ago
Ok so I think we're in agreement that paying someone to do something is not making but using a simple tool is making but you've not articulated why ai is more similar to the tool than the person.
With your code example I'd be happy to say you built the code as you did make the underlying thing but I don't think you could say that you personally translated between the different formats as it's clearly the tools you use doing that work for you on your behalf. Just like how we attribute the Odyssey to homer even if we read an English translation and understand that another person translated it.
I think CNC machines are a good high tech pre ai touchstone (happy for you to offer an alternative) I'd say that operating a CNC machine requires some skill and knowledge but isn't making unless you actually programmed it's movements or built the cad model it's movements are based on yourself. Just hitting go on something programmed by someone else isn't making. As ai is machine learning built on the work of other people I think it's more similar to selecting an existing appropriate CNC program than to wielding a saw.
Power tools and motorised vehicles kind of fit into this too, achieving something with a powered assist isn't as impressive as doing it manually. Someone is going to be impressed if you cut a tree down with an axe but not as impressed if you used a chainsaw and hardly impressed at all if it was with one of those massive logging machines. You've done all of those with a tool in the broad strokes but qualitatively people think about your role in those differently. The more automated a process the less ownership you have over doing of it
Interested in your thoughts
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
Looking at amount of time put into game engine design, tweaking ux, describing behaviour, testing and polishing I would say AI is just a smart translator.
You can quickly generate greenfield project with AI - "create me netrunner game client, here are the rules; make no mistakes!" and you will get something, but it is just an illusion.
Then, to actually do something useful with AI requires craft - vision, experience, engineering, human judgment.
That's why I'm calling AI a tool. Advanced one, but still a tool.
Regarding your CNC example - I wouldn't compare using pre-existing design and pressing "go" to using AI. Pressing "go" is if you would take someone else code repo, changed the colours and call it a day.
AI models really operates similar to human brain - it takes bazzilion inputs and mix them so hard that you cannot distinguish sources anymore.
And if you think about human artists - they are "inspired" by someone else work and remix them into their own. If they don't mix hard enough they got blamed by the community 😄
Don't want to create wall of text, I hope you see my point.
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u/Hyperbolic_Mess 17h ago edited 17h ago
If you can't distinguish the sources of ai then why do images, text and code generated by them look so similar. I've found several code snippets in stuff produced by ai that's just ripped straight from the top Reddit post on the topic (complete with the same errors or poor formatting).
That aside, I feel like here you're actually trying to argue that ai outputs are similar to what a human would produce which I think just strengthens my argument that you're effectively using your skills and knowledge to manage a tool that's amalgamating the work of other people rather than doing the actual work yourself.
When you're talking about human artists being inspired by other people's work you're not the artist in that example, that's the ai and you're just telling it what to remix.
I understand that using ai effectively isn't as easy as some make it out to be but I think you need to accept that you've not got as strong a claim to having made something as if you'd done it without ai and just like how people want handmade goods lots of people want to avoid ai made things
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
I cannot argue about snippets you've found without seeing them.
Maybe somebody used ai to traverse the web and combine snippets?
To be clear, I'm not treating code as form of art, I'm too old for that.
I just wanted to play netrunner with firends in a terminal-like client and wanted to hear your opinion about the concept 😄
And you guys pick your forks and torches crying "AI slop!!! kill the witch!!!"
It's really amusing.
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u/Hyperbolic_Mess 17h ago edited 17h ago
The makers of ai are the ones that scraped the web specifically Reddit, see solidgoldmagikarp
Idk I think pushing back against AI which is owned and operated by big tech and is being used to control access to knowledge is pretty on brand for netrunner. Unless you're a filthy corp 😉
As with previous push backs against tech like the luddites (look them up as they were actually much more reasonable than you've probably been led to believe) it isn't so much about the tech as who controls it and at the moment the worst companies are pushing AI to make us all unemployed pretty hard. Also the same idiots who shouted about web3.0 have now fully pivoted into AI after they failed to ruin everything with crypto so that doesn't help.
I get that you've no qualms with using ai to produce cool things but you just need to understand that a lot of people have more negative views of the tech because of the future it could lead to (not to mention the catch22 of either it succeedes and everyone loses their job or it fails and the economy collapses and everyone loses their job)
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u/slagod1980 17h ago
Yeah, I know luddites were more about who is in control of the tech than the tech itself. Unfortunately tech owners wrote the "history books" :)
About employment, for sure it will change. My friends, for example are trying to earn as much as they can before the world falls apart.
And when I look at my 5-yo son, I think he will be even more f**d.
But screaming "AI is bad" won't change it. It is here and will stay for a while. Bubble will burst, then some adjustments will be made. Maybe models will be too expensive for pet projects like mine. Maybe edge models will be common so no big tech will control the tech. We will see.
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u/JMusketeer 17h ago
Yeah bruh, code in assembly, otherwise it doesnt count as your work…
Get over yourself.
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u/Hyperbolic_Mess 14h ago
If you'll look at the rest of the conversation you'll see it's not that binary...
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u/JMusketeer 17h ago
Its just another layer of abstraction.
You clearly have no idea what swe is about.
By your logic you should code directly in machine code, otherwise you cant claim its yours.
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u/Larrea000 20h ago
It's AI slop. You might aswell flush your money down the drain, because we don't want it here.
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u/Larrea000 20h ago
In fact even your post is AI written. The cadence is straight out of chatgpt. respectfully, GTFO.
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u/slagod1980 20h ago
of course it is co-developed by AI, I don't hide it; wouldn't have time in my life for hand-crafted pet projects. we are living in 2026
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u/Larrea000 19h ago
You didn't have time to even 'hand-craft' your own post, seeing as it is chatgpt written.
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
You see chatgpt everywhere, don't you?
There was no chatgpt in there, I can assure you.And sorry, but no time to continue this thread - new stuff to add.
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u/Oreosian 19h ago
Exactly! When I (as a human) am writing — I genuinely always make sure to include all possible markers of my genuine humanity (such as adding parenthetical to every statement) — I also genuinely enjoy putting em dashes every other sentence, listing things (especially in groups of three), and adding details that normal humans would definitely make sure to mention! ("
Monospace, one accent color per side, black background.", "all of it server-authoritative so no client can cheat or desync.", "Decks load straight from a NetrunnerDB decklist link.", "Card logic is implemented per-card, one file each") — One of my favourite writing decisions is genuinely the "Not just X, but Y" formatting! — For example, "full rules engine (not just a database with checkboxes)", or "a couple hundred cards with real, tested behavior, not just stats." — As a genuinely real human writer, it genuinely makes me genuinely upset that somebody would genuinely accuse you of genuinely using AI to genuinely write this post. Genuinely.14
u/david_duplex 19h ago
"I can assure you". Always a sign of honesty.
But the post was clearly LLM written.
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u/slagod1980 19h 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?
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u/david_duplex 19h ago
Bold of you to use AI to respond to being called out for AI slop.
Still slop.
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
link's coming when it's ready. then you can tell me it's slop with examples, which I'll take over adjectives any day
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u/KneeCrowMancer 4h ago
I think that people would generally have been less hostile if you had presented this from the get go as created with AI. More and more often AI generated material is being presented as human created, as if the audience can’t tell. It can honestly be pretty insulting. If you were more open about it you’d still people that would be morally opposed, for a host of valid reasons, but that element of deception wouldn’t be there and you’d have started the conversation in a more honest place. Some people will always hate any AI usage, a lot more people will hate you for being dishonest about it.
Lately on this sub there have been a lot of kind of weird attempts to monetize the Netrunner community in different ways. I’m not exactly sure what it is, I’m not even sure it’s being done with any kind of malicious intent. But I do think that the Netrunner community is generally quite defensive about those kinds of things.
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u/cupnoodledoodle 20h ago
In theory, this is fucking amazing. In practice, the UX aspect of it becomes a friction point.
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
wrapping this up: it's in polish phase, closed beta soon. if anyone wants in - DM me, bug reporters especially welcome (Oreosian, Protikon, that's you). MochaDentist you're welcome too, first "it's slop" with a repro case gets you into the credits
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago edited 19h ago
I’ll only be in the beta testing if I can pay a subscription fee
I like that “not sharing a link yet.. it’s still rough in places” was an hour ago and now it’s “in its polish phase, closed beta soon”
You’re a cutie still trying to deceive this community
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
You can buy me a coffee. :)
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u/MochaDentist 19h ago
How does your ai take its coffee? Black, with cream?
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
I'll ask, but it is cooking 24x7 so it will need one, for sure.
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u/MochaDentist 18h ago
“Did we just become best friends”
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u/slagod1980 18h ago
i don't know, you tell me
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u/MochaDentist 18h ago
Cmon that’s not the quote. We were about to step brothers it and maybe eventually use ai together to create Prestige Worldwide
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u/slagod1980 18h ago
it started as weekend ux project + experiment in managing / evaluating complex ai tasks - implementation of card logic is not a trivial part and design of intents / hooks / primitives is not something ai can do reliably on its own.
then it became exercise in managing backlog with agents - and I actually learned a lot about minimising paperwork
and then excitement kicked and and new features are popping up every hour, so I thought I'll share with you guys.
actually this post is already helped me a lot - this bug about maintenance access showed bigger problem and now separate agent is reverse engineering and evaluating card logic - something that would be impossible to do by human in the background (this would require a team or very dedicated person without any other commitments)
and all of that while I'm doing normal 9-5 job.
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u/bobtheuberfish Chiriboga 20h ago
Fun! Aesthetically a terminal feels like a great fit for Netrunner. Coincidentally, Chiriboga actually began its life as a terminal game but I eventually found it tedious typing the commands. Maybe I just needed to develop a more concise syntax. How are you handling passing paid ability windows? There has been much discussion amongst the various implementations of the Netrunner rules about the balance between rules-strictness and natural-feeling play. I do not play against other humans on the internet but I'm very curious about your bot! Currently writing Netrunner bots is a bit of a lonely field of expertise so I would love to hear about your approach.
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u/slagod1980 19h ago
paid windows: engine is strict internally (real window at every timing point) but UI only shows one when there's an actual decision - nothing rezzable/usable = silent auto-pass. and if you pass during a run, it remembers that exact context (same options, same credits) and won't re-ask at the next timing point unless something changed. so no clicking "pass" six times through a 3-ice server. downside is auto-pass leaks a bit of info (no prompt = corp has nothing to rez), acceptable for solo imo, would add an always-ask mode for pvp.
bot: no LLM, no per-card scripts. one deterministic scoring function over all legal actions, and a "personality" is just weight knobs on it (aggression / caution / economy / tempo / endgame). the named bots are presets, there's also a panel where you set the knobs yourself. plus a few hard vetoes like: never run if unavoidable damage >= grip size, learned that one the hard way. runs server-side on full state, not the client projection, because evaluating a run target needs to see ice before the run exists.
and re bot-wars: protocol is already just join/action/state over a socket, so an external bot is literally another client.
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u/slagod1980 20h ago
did I mention that I'm planning bot-wars mode, where external bots can compete? :)
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u/Scar3cr0w_ 13h ago
I mean people… honestly. The irony is hilarious.
We get it, it’s been built by AI. But the game you all love so much is about using AI to hack and defend things. It’s sci fi. It’s sci fi that has predicted the future once again.
You might not like it, but if you aren’t using AI as part of your workflow then you are just being left behind.
I’m a penetration tester in real life and I use AI to help me triage scan results. It does it much faster than me, it’s very good at it and it means the humans can focus on the stuff humans need to focus on for longer.
If you don’t see the value in AI yet… you aren’t using AI properly. Most people just think it’s ChatGPT on your phone…
I’d encourage you to go and take a long hard look at a well engineered agentic harness and then come back and tell me it’s slop…
If banks are using it to help understand financial data… you might have to accept that they know what they are doing and you don’t.
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u/JMusketeer 16h ago
Looks great!
I love it! Keep it up!
Nice project of yours, dont mind all of those nutjobs that criticise you for using AI, I also work in IT and literally nobody codes by themselves anymore, and its not where the core of what you get paid for anyway, anybody can be a code monkey.
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u/slagod1980 16h ago
I really appreciate your support.
Actually I really love some of the critiques here. They pointed me a nasty bug from first round of the project - and now I re-run full reverse-validation of cards and added trust badge to every one + there will be tool to submit bug with full context.
I use AI a lot but I really love good quality and polished software.
Will keep you updated.
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u/JMusketeer 16h ago
Well minded and constructive criticism is always useful. Being mean cuz you used AI to do the gruntwork is plain stupid
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u/Cavorkian 16h ago
I really like this format, but it's a bit too close to common VSCode themes like "Dracula Theme" (https://vscodethemes.com/e/dracula-theme.theme-dracula/dracula-theme).
Maybe something less IDE-like, though that's kind of what this format is going for, so if that's the case you've hit the mark.
Maybe something a bit more custom and cyberpunk'ish? Or you could allow different themes for the whole GUI.
Also, if you're having fun and truly creating something as a passion for the game, then don't worry about the hate people have. Keep going. Most of the people that complain about ai slop aren't affected by it in their job. The ones that are affected probably aren't working hard enough at their job or they wouldn't be replaced. I'm in the profession myself and have just found it to be a useful tool to speed up my work.
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u/slagod1980 16h ago
that was the whole idea - terminal / vscode / etc. I even took Mono as a font face :)
And game log has line-number bar that resembles code editor.
I have in the backlog item to create more "flashy" theme. In fact, before I did this one I experimented with glass and holograms, with in-browser 3d. But it was totally different vibe.
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u/shurkdag 5h ago edited 5h ago
Fun idea. I love the interface so far. Seems thematic and fun.
And FWIW, I can't believe how toxic, self-righteous and hateful this community has become, looking at these reactions. It's downright embarrassing.
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