CTF: Capture the Flag
Terminal-native CTF training and live daily competitions
CTF: Capture the Flag has two modes. The skills tree is a structured curriculum of static challenges that teach Linux fundamentals, text processing, forensics, and cryptanalysis. You work at your own pace, save progress, and climb through tiers of increasing difficulty.
The Range is a live daily CTF event. Every day, a fresh set of objectives is deployed on real Linux infrastructure — shared attack targets running actual services. You connect from your browser to a personal attack box and compete against other players in real time. First to capture wins. Scoreboard updates live.
The static training builds the muscle. The live events test it under pressure. Together, they make CLI-Games one of the best places to sharpen your command-line instincts before showing up to a real competition.
Why Play Here?
- Real tools, real targets. The Range runs actual Linux containers, not sandboxed simulations. The commands you use here are the same ones you'll use in a real engagement.
- The skills tree starts at cd and grep and builds all the way through forensics and cryptanalysis. No shortcuts. Every tier earned, not given.
- Daily competition keeps you sharp. The Range rotates objectives every day. Show up, compete, and defend your spot on the leaderboard.
- Everything you learn transfers. Terminal fluency compounds across every game on the platform — from dungeon crawlers to sysadmin simulations.
Features
- Single Player
- Save and resume your game
- Track your statistics and high scores
- Pure ASCII graphics - no downloads required
- Keyboard-only controls
How to Play
Command
ctf [savename]Aliases
None
History
Capture the Flag competitions emerged from the hacker conference scene in the 1990s. DEFCON hosted one of the first major CTF events in 1996. What started as informal challenges between friends became a global competitive scene. Today, CTF is how many professional security researchers, penetration testers, and red teamers got their start.