An Italian developer team has created Hacker Field, a game aimed at raising cyber security awareness. 

The game, which debuted on global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter this week, takes the form of a multi-player strategy tower defence in a futuristic scenario. 

Players can challenge each other, taking on both the role of hacker and IT manager. At the beginning, the IT manager will have only a few bots and viruses to defend against, while in the following levels the number of difficulties they will face will increase.

Players can assume the role of an IT admin who has control of the infrastructure and will have to defend using tools including a server through which they can boost power by increasing the number of information packets that the backup can contain, antivirus to prevent the tower from being damaged, and firewalls.

The other role, that of the bad actor whose job is to steal data, employs two tools: bots to steal information from the server, and viruses to cause damage to the system.

Cyber attacks have been included among the ten worst global threats in the World Economic Forum’s annual risks report, explains Antonio Gison, founder and app developer at gison.it.

His team wanted to build a game that simulates a what really happens on a computer when a file with a virus is downloaded and a firewall intervenes to block the connection.

The idea was inspired by Plague Inc, a famous simulation game that explains how pandemics work. “We then thought of using that model to create a simulation game to entertain and teach the fundamentals of cyber security,” Gison adds.

The game is available on PC and will be available via an app soon, he says. “It is a free-to -play game with the option of making purchases to unlock graphic skins and other offline content.

Hacker Field was self-financed by the team, who is now looking for alternative financing to accelerate the development of the project. For this reason, a crowdfunding campaign has been created on Kickstarter.