Black Annex is one of the six winners of the Aussie Indie Showcase, and was developed by Man Fight Dragon, with Abducted By Sharks having composed the soundtrack. In it, you are in control of the titular company, which is on a mission to sabotage as many other companies as possible.
When I picked up my controller, I was warned that Black Annex is too complex a game for a short demo to do it justice. From what I could gather, I think I agree; there were a lot of things going on that I wasn’t sure about, and felt I would have required more time in order to explore properly.
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In Black Annex, you go on missions to other companies with some form of objective whose end result will hamper their company in some way. You can get bonuses for completing extra mission conditions; for example, you may be asked to remove someone from an opposing company, but get extra points if you manage to capture and not kill them. In fact, any enemies you take hostage will join the team at Black Annex.
You can send up to five agents on a single mission, and each agent can have a number of skills upgraded so they can better sabotage your opponents. Upgrading these skills use up precious resources which must be gained throughout the game and used to make your agents more effective as well as keeping the company running; for example, if you don’t have enough resources, you won’t be able to pay the transportation costs to get to your next mission!
I really feel that when finished, this game will be a tactical gamer’s dream, as there is so much to consider in it. Black Annex will be releasing for PC later this year, and Man Fight Dragon are hoping to follow up with Linux and Mac releases at some stage as well. Be sure to vote for it on Steam Greenlight!
