Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Game
Game2017
Mainlining
Developer Rebelephant
Mainlining is a point and click adventure that simulates hacking. Mainlining was released on January 26, 2017 for Microsoft Windows. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
201 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Sep 25, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
69
Fresh
134 positive · 60 negative
95% range 62–75%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 134 | 60 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
7 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
282 of 368 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 201 · most liked firstbacked this on kickstarter among with numerous other people only for the developer to release it, ignore everyone and not give out any of it the stuff to the people who helped make it possible, hope it was all worth it man really hope it was https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mainlining/mainlining/description
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →dearest, gentlest housekeeping team: please mind the gas stove knobs when you wipe down the stovetop. Mainlining natural gas fumes five minutes before a Teams meeting is not the pre-game ritual I was going for. okthanksbye, NotAZ
unlabelledView post →I liked Mainlining at first, because I like the visual style and it also has a backstory (unlike most other "hacking" games). I would forgive the bad UX of the command prompt and the incompleteness of the universe (e.g. websites only exist for the time of the missions in which they appear) and some other minor issues. But the dealbreaker for me is how stupid the missions are. You have to identify perpetrators, collect evidence against them and find their whereabouts. Okay - that COULD be fun.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Neutral Recommendation: Only Pick Up At A Discount - Gameplay: Interfacing with the game is fairly straightforward. You're using a simulation of a computer desktop. The main complaint is that you can only backspace to make changes to text in the Notepad program. You cannot edit the text freely, so if you want to make a change to something at the top of the file, you'd have to erase everything and start over. Luckily, you'll find that program is mostly useless. The lame thing is that, for…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really want to like it but there are just some huge problems with the game. It didn't seem to register all of my keystrokes so I would constantly be typing in bad commands. You can press up just like in a shell but you can't arrow over to fix mistakes meaning if the mistake was in the beginning, you might as well just rewrite everything. Adding on to this, copying down ip addresses is such a huge part of the game you'd think there would be some sort of copy paste or click to run action but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty boring, to be honest. It feels so much like a bootleg version of Hacknet, except without the badass soundtracks and cool hacking features. /STORY and CHARACTERS (6/10)/ First things first, let's start with the story and characters. You're an agent from the government cyber security agency MI7 that investigates with other MI7 agents a group of hackers called Thorn who breached their servers. Your job is to track down all the members of the group and arrest them for a different crime in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a "short" PnC adventure. It's fun and interesting until you get stuck trying to figure out what the right evidence combinations are supposed to be because it's not clear what really counts as evidence. It also doesn't support expected keyboard features, like copy/paste and highlighting, so it's tedious to type out IP addresses and there's too many opportunities to screw it up. I personally had fun playing this, but would I really recommend this for someone else? Not really.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A real disappointment. The concept seemed great, and the story has (so far) been pretty good... but the finagling that it takes to come up with the evidence is painful at times. Sometimes you have perfectly good, incriminating information, but the game doesn't like it. On top of that, there's a myriad of tech problems. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/454950/discussions/0/135507855751058322/?ctp=4#c1729828401684575713]Feel free to follow my ongoing bug report here... Completed the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The fact that I have to repeat an entire chapter after encountering a bug makes this no longer fun to play. The most upsetting problem that could have been easily added into the game is that you can not use the in game notes feature to write down ips as its part of the game. It will just clear sometimes.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After a quick peruse of the other reviews I'm surprised I didn't see this mentioned in every one: The video showcasing this game on steam is WILDLY deceiving. No, you can't "hack anyone" "follow anyone" etc, the game is just a handful of short missions following a storyline. You can never hack or track or do anything with the "hundreds" of npc's, unless its explicitly part of the current mission. The storyline doesn't even branch, you can't make different decisions, or even follow red…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game but the lack of serveral factors made my experience rather flawed. First of all, the start of the game is not really intriguing. I've put the game aside 2 times, after pushing myself to finally play it through a third time. Secondly, I was expecting a hacking game with a little more features. Thrildy, often I had the right answer but not exactly in the right way condemning me on a painstaking search of what is wrong seeing that things just weren't for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hacknet was better - but this is an okay "hack-lite" game which mostly consists of just poking around looking for the right clues to submit.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This plays like a really inferior version of hacknet to me. I don't love the interface, and the command syntax is really awful and unrealistic (can't launch new connection while on a server, console history resets when you disconnect, using an invalid IP says 'unrecognized command' instead of an actual connection error, and there are serious logical inconsistencies with how evidence works that make it necessary to follow a walkthrough even when you've made a better deduction of the correct…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not counting the graphical bugs which there are plenty of, the game just wasn't that fun. Sometimes there were combinations of evidence that would've made perfect sense, and yet the game still requested that you do it their way. I don't know if it bugged out for me or what, but the failure screens also kept saying the same thing even though I got different things wrong on an occasion. The story transition between the WinXP and WinVista segment was also sudden and made no real sense. There's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR; its nice to look at and poke around with, very visually pleasing, just wish it was more polished and made sense. + Pretty art + cool concept and UI - Buggy and not optimized. - Story and choices you're supposed to make (accusations) dont make sense sometimes/aren't clear. Even a user who created a guide walkthrough wrongly wrote who to accuse to progress the game because of this (and later edited). - lots of text mistakes like names of another character at the end of a sentence of an…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Who play this? Seriously.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its time for Mass Effect!!! We're MAINLINING THIS GAME THIS WEEK TILL WE BEAT IT >:3 www.twitch.tv/kyriathanatos
unlabelledView post →Well, I like the idea of the game and I found its story somewhat enjoyable. There are many nods to actual existing software. But even when I knew exactly what I had to do, I sometimes just looked into a walkthrough to spare myself from having to go through all the annoying gameplay mechanics again. Instead of repeating what other people have already said, let me first point you to two well-written negative reviews that pinpoint exactly what made the gameplay kind of a chore:…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am 32 years old. My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old. When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Neet little game. I logged 6 hours because the game was left running for a while, but it took me way less time to finish. The gameplay is pretty repetitive once you've been introduced on how to hAcK once. The story is worth it IMO. There is lots of stuff that I could nit pick about, but for it's price (really cheap on sale), the game is quite entertaining and visually nicely designed. To mention some of the more annoying ones, there is kind of a lot of typos, the sound is pretty bare bones,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It may be worth waiting for a sale on this one, but it isn't actually bad. Allegedly inspired by real life privacy laws being passed in England, Mainlining is a government hacking game where you play as a member of the mysterious agency MI7, aka the "Lions". It's okay though, you're the lightly comedy kind of oppressive government. You've even got an agent who exists entirely to be a walking Twin Peaks reference. Ha ha. You're allowed via the "BLU Pill Act" to hack into any PC you want, but…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Was not a fan of this game. The concept was fairly interesting and that's what captivated me in the first place. Unfortunately, there was a lot of bugs, game logic issues around the "hacking" puzzles which completely turned me off of the game. This game had so much promise. If only they actually tested out the game and made sure it was polished enough in terms of gameplay and gamer experience before releasing the product.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playing the age old game of is this just allergies or am I sick right before my trip. I hate this game. Mainlining dayquil and Sudafed on rotationto cover all bases.
unlabelledView post →Attempts were made, but...well, it's just not fun, or interesting, or challenging. Nothing noteworthy is said or implied, the story beats are somewhat predictable, and the aesthetics would better suit a game set in the '90s. 2/5 I guess it's technically a hacking game?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Mainlining is a pixel-art, hacking-style adventure in which you play as an employee participating in a government surveillance program. With a concise, gripping plot that discusses individual freedom versus collective security, the game holds your hand just enough to make the experience satisfactory; even though, given its firm linearity, you cannot actually fail despite occasionally accusing the wrong person as a result of the not-so-clear arrest process. While there is not much to interact…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Implement copy-paste ffs
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Look, I'm sorry. This "gripping narrative" is inferior to Hacknet/Uplink/Hypnospace Outlaw/Insert Desktop Simulator Here in every single possible way. The fact that missions are bite sized and don't really tie together terribly well doesn't help, and it's horribly obtuse in terms of "puzzles" which are best summarized as downloading everything and attempting to use brute force to incriminate the target of the mission, because the file you think would work never does. The characters are generic…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tough to deal with. Has little opportunities for things like exploration, customization, control optimization. Like Hacknet or Hypnospace Outlaw on rails.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the story really isn't engaging enough to justify the simple repetitive game mechanics, making it so so tedious (i.e. take website url to find the ip and then hack the ip -> download everything -> read through everything -> rinse and repeat ). most damningly, there were a couple of bugs that froze my entire game--forcing me to restart the case from the beginning (since there are no manual saves). at heart, i'm a completionist, but i don't think i'm gonna bother finishing this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great, ambitious game that is only flawed by it's difficulty in controls, would benefit from shortcuts and scroll buttons.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →According to Steam I've played this game for 6 hours. In none of that time did I feel like I was having fun and so at this point I feel it's a safe bet that the game never picks up. It all just feels like busy work. Also none of it resembles real hacking but, to be fair, I've never seen that properly captured in any game. The closest game to it that I've found is Else Heart.Break(), so go play that game instead!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a horror game without actually being a horror game because stuff like this can and does happen in real life.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A good game, but could use some polish to become a great one. Let me start with a pro/con list so you don't have to sift through my personal thoughts in longform. Pros: -Doesn't hold your hand, feels 'authentic'. You feel like you're hacking, in some small way. -Satisfying UI, easy to navigate without tutorial. -Challenging without being mind-bendingly difficult or frustrating (usually). -Interesting story with fun twists and turns and a lot of personal flourish to make it feel alive. -Offers…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Doesn't hold a candle to Hacknet and has a frustrating terminal experience for anyone who's used a real terminal or equivalent (Linux, Powershell and/or CMD, whatever) - can only remember one terminal commmand, not more - for a CLI (command line interface), editing your command using the left and right arrow keys (as archaic as that may be) does not seem to be possible. - sometimes the command could be correctly typed but the game does not recognise it anyway
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I gotta admit, I’m starting to feel the fatigue at 65 hours in. I think I need a second game. Mainlining Rebirth is just too much.
unlabelledView post →Enjoyable enough but should only be bought while discounted. It does feel quite immersive, though I wish the actuall "hacking" wouldn't involve only a handfull of the same simple commands that you type in time and time again. The story is nice however and I like that you're actually working for a good guy intelligence agency (sort of) and not an evil big brotherly type that you then have to overthrow, which is often the case. I do agree with other reviewers that the style doesn't fit the year…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I experienced a problem that another reviewer reported where my key presses were not all being registered. I'd type something and 1/3 of the keys wouldn't get registered. None of my 5 friends who were also playing (we played this as part of our game club, thing a book club for games) experienced this, but for me it made the game basically unplayable. Other problems I had with the game: There were parts where you need to submit evidence and for no reason if you don't submit them in a certain…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm gonna give this one a pass. There are many other hacking based games that doe what this game tries to much better. The controls are repetitive and the text recognition is not very good. The story is lacking and radiates a fair bit of privilege while trying to broach a complex rights issue. I don't want to go into my problems with the plot but it just wasn't for me. There are also a lot of puzzles that are both counter intuitive and near impossible to progress at time without a hint which…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Recommended if you prefer good stories in games, not recommended if you prefer having noticeably different results based off your choices.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The premise of being a dystopian cyber police officer is cool, but the evidence mechanic is very unintuitive at times. What makes sense as ideal evidence to prove someone guilty to you may be completely different from what the game developers had in mind. The fourth case was so bad I stopped playing. I would refund this game, but it's too cheap. In the 4th case, you find a chat log of someone talking about planning a drug trade with somebody at a university. On the suspect's computer, there's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game seems really good. I love all the writing and the game is engaging so far. However, it seems like saving the game doesn't work at all. The game is supposed to have an autosave feature (and you cannot manually save your progress), but the autosave never initiates. You must play this entire game in 1 sitting. I recommend picking up this game when the game has been patched and autosaving works.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun puzzle game with short cases to investigate. You play as a federal agent hacking into civilian computers looking for evidence of crimes. The game has pretty simple mechanics that build with new applications and software to investigate over time. The game doesn't hold your hand, often it doesn't even tell you which criminal to go after. You can find evidence to put people away for 5, 10, or 25 years, so there is often multiple ways to approach an investigation with some harder than…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When faced with a DOS screen... I loved the idea, look, and sound of this game. Part of a inter-web police force- where you must trace, hack, and gather virtual evidence to arrest a suspect. The part that I did not love was the level of computer knowledge you must have to trace, hack, and gather the virtual evidence to make said arrest. I, for one, break into a cold sweat upon seeing a DOS screen. If you do not have the proper know-how to navigate with commands in DOS- then this game may…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The accessible version of a hacking simulator. I saw this on the Switch and found out it was an old game on steam so I wasn't too keen on the price even though this was only a 15 dollar game, but thankfully the Steam summer sale 19 came around so here I am. The game is in a sense a hacking game similar to the vein of Uplink, Hacknet, and Hacker Evolution but instead of just giving you a DoS screen and telling you to figure it out. It immerses you in simplicity, what I mean about that is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dozens of problems make it a miserable experience The original review was 950 words long and Steam didn't like that much text. Yes, this game has this many problems. To make it as short as possible, it has insane amount of small problems and bad design choices that total into one big miserable experience. I suppose developers didn't think these small things would matter, unaware they'd pile up like that. Absolutely do not recommend. This is also a call to developers to contact me for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great bit of interactive fiction; lots of poking around in other people's intellectual property, and very likable characters. I really hope Blaze finishes his screenplay.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I loved it! A puzzle game that made me feel like a real hacker using the back door to snoop around on websites. Some cases were easy to solve, some were a lot harder to solve Like that one case where I didn't take into account that RL time was used in-game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What a great game, if you find hacking fun i would 100% buy this game. Challenging at times and you really have to look for clues in order to solve the cases. Would Highly Recommend! 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While some cases are a bit hard to find the correct solution for, it was an overall fun experience. Sadly it's a bit short, but the constant introduction of new mechanics prevents it from getting stale.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I regret spending money on this game, even if it was on sale. The UI, frankly, blows. Also, the ingame terminal, dear god the ingame terminal. Doesn't even follow the rules of a proper terminal emulator.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this idea. I want this game to be interesting and entertaining. It isn't either.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Likes: - Characters and dialogue (Ashe Barne's emails were pretty funny to me) - The ending was well done I think (interesting time-based mechanics) - Art style & feel of the game (UI) Dislikes: - TEDIOUS typing (hated typing out IP addresses and file names...wish there was autocomplete!) - Early to mid game was pretty boring and repetitive (go to website, ping website, read the files, etc.) - Didn't like how you couldn't keep notes from case to case - Also didn't like how there was a limit…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Decent especially for less than 2 dollars
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playable on Linux! It is not like Hacknet, if you expect it to be like Hacknet, then it might not be the game for you. It is a point and click game with some hacker-ish elements, with very nice pixel art and intriguing story. It is no stress (except one generously timed sequence), pretty short, and not much replay value, however I don't see that as a bad thing as someone who has a backlog of games and the game is still very good nonetheless. Anyways, I recommend it for an amusing one-time…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not Quite What I Expected While the game has a decent plot with a unique charm reminiscent of "Papers, Please," it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I came in expecting a game rooted in real hacking mechanisms and knowledge, but unfortunately, the hacking aspect feels overly simplified. Most of it boils down to basic commands like "ping" and "use this computer on this IP," which left me wanting more depth and realism. That said, the detective narrative is engaging, and the game's style…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Meh out of 10, a hacking game thats lacking in mechanics and is oversimplified. If you want actual fun just play hack net.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →STOPPP I WAS MAINLINING THIS GAME
unlabelledView post →A fun narrative game with very light hacking. You play as an agent of a repressive intelligence group trying to take down a group of hackers who oppose you. The puzzles are enjoyable and not too difficult. The game crashed a few times but I was able to complete it. Overall, a fun, but not great experience.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played this game through multiple times since you can arrest people different ways and you can't complete each stage without working through the puzzles for the evidence. The concept is really cool and fun to play as someone who loves to code (and crime dramas). I definitely recommend!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →⣿⣿⡻⠿⣳⠸⢿⡇⢇⣿⡧⢹⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⡐⣯⠁ ⠄⠄ ⠟⣛⣽⡳⠼⠄⠈⣷⡾⣥⣱⠃⠣⣿⣿⣿⣯⣭⠽⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⢢⠏⠄ ⠄ ⢠⡿⠶⣮⣝⣿⠄⠄⠈⡥⢭⣥⠅⢌⣽⣿⣻⢶⣭⡿⠿⠜⢿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠄⠄ ⠄⣼⣧⠤⢌⣭⡇⠄⠄⠄⠭⠭⠭⠯⠴⣚⣉⣛⡢⠭⠵⢶⣾⣦⡍⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⣿⣷⣯⣭⡷⠄⠄⢀⣀⠩⠍⢉⣛⣛⠫⢏⣈⣭⣥⣶⣶⣦⣭⣛⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⢀⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣎⢩⠌⣡⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣆⠄⠄⠄ ⢸⡿⢟⣽⠎⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠄⠄ ⣰⠯⣾⢅⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠄ ⢰⣄⡉⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠄ ⢯⣌⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣇⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣟⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠈⢹⡧⣿⣸⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠗⣈⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⠘⢷⡳⣾⣷⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⢀⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄ ⠄⠄⠈⣵⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄⠄
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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