These reminded me of a ... "computer game" distributed on a CD (yep, that's at least 15 ago) where you would play a hacker accessing everything through a cli interface (it was fairly realistic, or so I remember it: never played but bought a copy as gift for a friend).

You would get "contracts" being asked to penetrate increasingly sophisticated companies - and you started putting together a worrying picture about some sort of conspiracy.

Can someone help me remember the actual name? And is this still available somehow?

"Uplink" by Introversion Software perhaps?

https://introversion.co.uk/introversion/#games

It's on GOG, https://www.gog.com/game/uplink_hacker_elite , probably among some other options.

A mod to make it look prettier called "Uplink OS" was released recently

http://www.moddb.com/mods/uplink-os

but it only works with the windows version of the game

Yes, thanks!

I think originally it ran on Linux too, but I think it's this one.

Good. You're welcome!

Ran on Linux sounds familiar. It says

Works on: Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10), Mac OS X (10.6.8) and Linux (Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04)

on the GOG page, so there's probably a good chance that's still the case.

Uplink is fairly clicky though, if you're sure it was CLI then it might have been the Hacker Evolution series.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70100/Hacker_Evolution/

As I said it was a long time ago and I did not really play it myself - so you are probably right if you say it was not really CLI... but I am sure it was Uplink (and thanks for the reference to the other game)

Over The Wire challenges are awesome. Bandit is very educational and easy to start. Others are quite a bit more challenging.

OverTheWire is great practice! Bandit starts off easy, but they go up in difficulty quickly.

I'm looking to create some similar lessons + challenges geared toward appsec for developers - there's a sample lab available at https://labs.hunter2.com/demo and I'd welcome any feedback on the approach. (The demo is more a Codecademy-like lesson, but I plan to add some CTF-style challenges as well.)

For those who love playing wargames there's a website that regroups most (if not all) of them with scores. https://www.wechall.net/

Do anyone remember hackerslab.org hosted in Korea? It would be so cool if someone had the source code for that one or if it could be revived although it was running on a very old platform (Linux 2.2 iirc).

I highly recommend these wargames. I have been giving this link to folks I've mentored for many years and it's been nothing but beneficial.

I am probably going to get a lot of hate for this, but, do these games work over windows?

Yep, AFAIK none of them involve installed tools (I've only ever done Bandit), they will mostly be interactions with things such as SSH, HTTP, PHP etc.

for ssh portion i think you can use putty or windows linux subsystem

I must say I have found this rather entertaining.

those aren't wargames

credentials: playing wargames for 30 years. have designed wargames and met famous wargame designers

That depends on your definition of wargames. These tick all the boxes for my definition.

More info please

Wargames under a certain definition involve players playing against each other. Hardening their own system and attacking their opponent's. Since these games don't involve defending your own machine, under that definition they don't qualify.

However, they're still super useful and when anyone tells me they're interested in trying hacking I point them there first.

I think the definition has broadened over the years, even pwnable.tw calls their CTF-style challenges "wargames".

One of the best known wargames is the DEF CON Capture the flag competition where opponents attack and defend target infrastructure to collect points.

Perhaps this is what was meant by "wargames"?

http://www.consimworld.com