Voidnet

Voidnet is a terminal-native roguelike creature-collection RPG built in Go.

You play as an Operator infiltrating a corrupted network, capturing rogue AI daemons, fighting through branching nodes, and assembling weird little build synergies out of traits, modifiers, and merges.

Install

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://voidnet.jimmymcbride.dev/install.sh | sh

Windows PowerShell

irm https://voidnet.jimmymcbride.dev/install.ps1 | iex

After install:

voidnet -version
voidnet

Notes:

• Linux builds currently need libasound.so.2 available at runtime.
• The hosted installer pulls the latest tagged release from GitHub Releases.
• You can pin a Unix install to a specific version:

curl -fsSL https://voidnet.jimmymcbride.dev/install.sh | VERSION=v0.1.0 sh

What Kind Of Game Is This?

Voidnet is a single-binary CLI game with a Go TUI. The current version is built around short, readable runs:

• Move through a small branching node map.
• Enter one encounter per node.
• Fight one enemy daemon at a time in turn-based combat.
• Capture enemies with Isolate instead of only defeating them.
• Spend a maintenance charge between fights to repair or fortify your roster.
• Rotate your lead daemon or merge two daemons from the node map.
• Reach the boss, win the run, or lose your last daemon and reset.

The core fantasy is not “type commands into a fake shell.” It is a menu-driven tactics game that happens to live inside a terminal.

How A Run Works

The current run loop looks like this:

Scan -> Choose Node -> Enter -> Encounter -> Battle -> Capture / Reward -> Maintenance / Node Map -> Boss

In practice:

• You start with a small daemon roster and one unlocked starter.
• Each node gives you a fight and a chance to improve your roster state.
• Winning a battle banks one maintenance charge, capped at one.
• The node map is where you manage your squad between encounters.
• Boss fights are tougher, and boss encounters cannot be isolated.

Current Game Basics

Archetypes

The current playable archetypes are:

• Firewall: defensive, high integrity
• NullPointer: offense, faster and more fragile
• MemoryLeaker: damage-over-time and status pressure
• Scheduler: speed and turn disruption

Abilities

Abilities are built from:

• an Effect
• a Modifier

Current effects:

• Corrupt
• Leak
• Spike
• Patch
• Delay

Current modifiers:

• Single
• Intensify
• Unstable

Traits

Current traits include:

• Volatile
• Persistent
• Overclocked
• Encrypted
• Glitched

Traits shape stat lines, resistance, or combat swings, and they are part of what makes captured daemons worth keeping around.

Isolate

Isolate is the capture action.

• It does not work on bosses.
• It becomes available once the enemy is at 50% Health or lower.
• It gets much stronger at 25% Health or lower.
• Status effects can improve your odds.
• Target Stability pushes back against capture chance.

Maintenance

The maintenance console lives between fights.

• Repair Daemon spends 1 charge to restore Health and clear one negative status.
• Fortify Daemon spends 1 charge to restore a smaller amount of Health and grant Stabilized.
• Rotate Lead is free and lets you pivot to another daemon before the next node.

Merge

The current merge rule is +1.

• Pick a base daemon and a fork daemon.
• The fork is consumed.
• The base keeps its core identity and becomes Name +1.
• It gains the fork's archetype move as a third ability.
• It heals on merge and gains a small stat bonus based on the fork archetype.
• Same-archetype merges are not allowed, and +1 daemons cannot merge again in the current version.

Controls

Voidnet is menu-driven. You do not need to type free-form commands.

• up/down or j/k: move selection
• enter: confirm the current action
• space or enter: accelerate active combat/merge sequences
• x: open maintenance from the node map
• r: rotate lead from the node map
• i: open command detail where available
• c: open the command sheet
• m: toggle audio
• f: toggle playback fast-forward during combat

Built For The Terminal

Some real things that are fun about how Voidnet is built:

• It is a Go TUI, not a wrapper around shell commands.
• The shipped game is a single binary.
• Core content is data-driven from internal/content/data/game.json.
• Daemon generation and combat feedback lean on deterministic seeded behavior, which makes runs debuggable and repeatable.
• The game has procedural SFX and looping music instead of shipped audio files.
• Audio is semantic inside the game code: gameplay emits events like Scan, Crash, or DaemonCaptured, and the runtime decides how to play them.
• Music has reactive battle themes and tempo intensity, but it stays deterministic and cacheable.
• Progression is saved in the user config directory under voidnet/meta.json.

Local Development

Run the game locally:

go run ./cmd/voidnet

Run tests:

go test ./...

Check the current build version string:

go run ./cmd/voidnet -version

Related internal docs:

• docs/internal/release-install.md for release and installer hosting
• docs/internal/sfx-runtime.md for the runtime audio system
• docs/planning/vision.md and docs/planning/prd.md for product direction