

Lance McDonald loves his 1990s PC games, and it shows in his upcoming strategy stealth game, Black Annex. Corporate espionage and sabotage is the name of the game here, told from an isometric perspective. Players have to manage money while transporting and training agents for specific tasks. Based on the training, they will silently steal, hack, destroy, kidnap and kill…. or be killed.



The trailer shows off some impressive beats by Abducted by Sharks, who is also scoring the in-game audio. Even more impressive though, is that the game is written in QBASIC. In a recent Steam Greenlight update, Lance said the game will have full mod support for players to create their own missions and campaigns, too.

Lance told me that he thinks the game’s strengths are the overall gameplay and scale. “I’m really doing my best to bring a really life-like AI in a corporate environment with stealth mechanics that make sense, and little chances to have a bit of fun with the AI through the distraction mechanics, as well as a collect-em-up element with the player being able to steal enemy agents and use them on their own team in future missions.”

He’s also adding a layer of action to Black Annex with some twitchy gun-play for when the situation gets out of hand. “It’s been a lot of fun watching playtesters yell, ‘Oh CRAP I forgot he can see through that window!’ and have to quickly switch up their play-style to cope with the in-game situation quickly going haywire.”

Black Annex is planned for late 2013 for Windows with Mac and Linux builds to come after. However, it needs your help now on Steam Greenlight.