Terminal.exe

The Setup

You're an anonymous operator inside a dying cyber-grid. Every byte you steal is a flag the system can trace. The deeper you cut into corporate vaults, the harder the manhunt closes. There is no save state. There is no escape route. There's the Trace meter, the Burn Drives button, and how nervous you can stand to be.

The Climb

Five target tiers. The pressure scales with your output.

1. Local ISP networks. Bootstrap. Run phishing scripts. Build your first node economy.
2. OMNICORP FINANCIAL. Money is just data. Crack high-value pipes and triple your throughput. Trace starts noticing.
3. GLOBAL DEFENSE GRID. Military-grade countermeasures. The manhunt becomes a real timer.
4. THE GODHEAD A.I. A self-aware security core that learns your pattern. The final target. Bring receipts.
5. ENDLESS MODE. What happens after you beat the unbeatable. Limitless targets, escalating retaliation, and a Notoriety score that keeps climbing.

Story beats stream into your terminal log as you play. No cutscenes. No dialogue boxes. Just the feed.

The Loop

1. Deploy nodes. Watch DPS climb. Click for a manual data burst when you want it faster.
2. Spend data on upgrades, more nodes, and ghost skills.
3. Watch the Trace meter. Run Active Scrub when it spikes. Pop a Zero-Day Exploit when you're feeling brave.
4. Push it too far, the raid hits, drives burn, you wake up with Ghost Tokens.
5. Restart compounded. The system can't forget what you taught it.

Sessions run 5–30 minutes. Full first run: a couple of hours. Endless mode runs as long as you do.

What's In It

• Ten generator nodes across four tiers, from back-alley phishing scripts to a self-replicating AGI called the Singularity Protocol.
• A Trace system that punishes greed. Every bit of DPS pressure raises the meter. Every win makes you more visible.
• Burn Drives prestige. Ghost Tokens compound across every reset, and six Ghost Ranks track how many times you have burned - Unranked through Singularity.
• An 18-node Ghost Network across three branches - stealth, wealth and automation, six nodes each. Phantom Protocol, Sleeper Cell and Botnet Singularity sit at the ends of them.
• Ten one-time upgrades gated by progression - Spear Phishing, DDoS Mastery, Godhead Bypass, AI Heuristics, and more.
• System Daemon AI advisor - picks the optimal next purchase, levels up as you feed it data.
• Haptics tuned per event on Android - the vibration climbs with your tap combo, a crit hits differently to a tap, and the FBI raid is the heaviest thing in the game. Set to full, light or off.
• Six CRT themes - Classic phosphor green, Miami Vice synthwave, Matrix Gold acid lime, Cyber electric blue, Phantom ultraviolet, Bloodline crimson. Cosmetic only.

The Price

Version 1 is free, and it is the whole game. Five tiers, Endless Mode, every node and upgrade, the Ghost Network, the System Daemon advisor, offline income and all six themes. Not free-to-start. Not free-with-a-catch.

In v1 there is no storefront in the build at all - no in-app purchases, no subscriptions, no ads, no premium currency. Nothing is held back for a paying tier, because there is no paying tier.

To be straight about what comes next: a later version will add paid content. Everything you can play in v1 stays free in v1, and we will say plainly what is paid before it ships, on this page.

Where You Can Play

• Android - v1 is built and heading to Google Play, free. No ads, no in-app purchases, no analytics, no accounts, no data collection of any kind, and it plays entirely offline - see the privacy policy. Join the waitlist to hear the day it lands.
• Web - live now, free, beta. cathoderaygames.com/games/terminal-exe
• Steam / Steam Deck - wishlist open. Build in active development.
• iOS - waitlist open. Build in active development.

All builds run from the same codebase. Same game, every screen.

Visuals

Key Art

In-World Capture

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