This translates to satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay that flows from room to room like a series of stealth puzzles. In one area, I had to evade two guards, pick one of their pockets and successfully find my way to a crawl space. In another, I hacked into and activated a loud alarm to occupy a guard, then scanned photos of a fingerprint needed to open a secured door. Each challenge felt appropriately tuned for my abilities. Tense moments of waiting and watching were followed by a huge rush when I made it through undetected. Successfully passing each section made me feel like a strategic badass.

This exciting structure is built around a slick touch-based interface. You tap on objects that you want to hack — cameras, computers and so on — and tap on areas in the environment to send Hope scurrying forward. Everything is context-sensitive; if you point Hope toward a locker, she'll either climb in and hide or search it for goodies, depending on the available icon you select. For the most part, Exordium controls well and feeds directly into the theme of subverting surveillance technology. But it occasionally falls prey to dopey AI behavior.

Nine times out of ten, Hope behaved as I wanted her to, stealthily sidling by walls, picking guards' pockets without alerting them and snatching up the correct items. But sometimes, she inexplicably ran out in plain view, ruining an attempt at a given area and sending me into a cursing fit. This doesn't happen so often that it destroys the game, and a certain amount of trial and error is to be expected in a stealth title, but it did leave me wishing for more direct control.

I'm willing to allow for some concessions in a game that so intelligently marries its fiction and its gameplay, though. The idea of hacking cameras to see the action, for example, speaks to just how well the mechanics fit into this world. Swiping the screen to pan the camera, hacking from one visible object to another — every action reinforces the idea that you are using this oppressive state's technology against it. It feels coherent and smart, and supports the more explicit storytelling elements.