Not fair

My write-up for Madness on TryHackMe was critical of the box (or room, to use their preferred terminology), because of the nature of part of the challenge. I haven’t changed my mind about how I feel about it personally, but the criticism was probably a bit unfair.

Someone took the time to make the challenge, and it was provided to me freely. Just because I didn’t enjoy it, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the effort that went into it. So I thought I should put that out there.

Not enough time

This did make me think a bit more broadly though, and it was partly prompted by the new TryHackMe room ‘One Piece’. It came out publicly today, and I started having a look at it.

It’s a themed room based on some anime I’ve never heard of; and it’s heavily themed. It’s essentially a CTF based around the show (or comic; I don’t care which came first or whatever - don’t @ me).

While I was poking around it occurred to me that:

  1. it wasn’t very realistic,
  2. I didn’t know or care about the characters and I would probably have to learn something about the anime to progress, and most importantly,
  3. I wasn’t enjoying it or learning anything.

Pick your battles

Lately I’ve been having at least a brief go at most new rooms on THM. But it’s a never ending stream and there aren’t enough hours in the day - well, not in my days anyway - to spend time on rooms like One Piece.

As much as I appreciate the effort that goes into making these things, it’s time I started being a bit more discriminating about which ones I pick up, and which ones I let drift by.