Invisible, Inc.

Invisible, Inc. is a turn-based tactics game where two agents are selected to complete increasingly challenging espionage missions. You have three days to find out what led to your organization being compromised, find the enemy headquarters and insert the AI Incognita into their systems to ensure her survival. With various missions providing different intel and resources, it’s a tense and thrilling race against the clock to find out the truth.

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Klei Entertainment’s Invisible Inc. will be releasing for PlayStation 4 on April 19th, according to its product page. The game was released for PC last year and will be arriving on PS4 with various updates and new features. The console release will also include the Contingency Plan DLC which adds new agents, programs and other new content to the game.

As a base experience, Invisible Inc. will feature 10 agents along with 8 variants of the same and 10 starting programs. Players can customize their agents with different items, augments and programs. Levels are randomly generated which makes things especially challenging when enemies and loot are given different locations each time through. It also helps encourage replayability should you unlock new agents and wish to try challenge yourself in various ways.

What are your thoughts on Invisible Inc. heading to PS4? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

GamingBolt spoke to programmer and technical designer Jason Lantz about Invisible, Inc. and what fans can look forward to. We also spoke to Lantz about the design philosophy for the game and how it promotes replay value.

"We work really hard to give all our games a distinct and unique style and animations, which helps differentiate Invisible from a more generic cyberpunk aesthetic."

Rashid K. Sayed: Klei Entertainment has developed an eclectic range of titles since 2005. From the maddening difficulty of N+ to the hack and slash of Shank and the survival mechanics of Don’t Starve to the strategy stealth of Invisible Inc. What inspired your current project?

Jason Lantz: We were inspired a lot by the gameplay of X-COM and FTL and wanted to build off of those in a unique way using some of the lessons we’d learned on Mark of the Ninja. In terms of feeling and environment, Syndicate was also a huge inspiration for us.

Rashid K. Sayed: The stealth genre is hard to pull off as is since it relies so much on not committing mistakes and getting spotted. With randomly generated levels, how does Invisible Inc. balance the fun of being stealthy with the tension of getting caught?

Jason Lantz: Invisible gives the player a lot of tools to either rewind mistakes or predict enemy behavior, which allows players to make smart decisions. Risk vs reward holds the whole thing together — it’s fairly simple to get out of the level, but your greed for extra money or loot is often what kills you.

Rashid K. Sayed: The art style is an interesting mix of cyberpunk and spy noir, standing out from previous games. What helped influence the art style and how does it distinguish Invisible Inc. from the competition?

Jason Lantz: Like you said, the art style on Invisible was inspired by 50’s and 60’s spy noir and cyberpunk classics like Neuromancer. We work really hard to give all our games a distinct and unique style and animations, which helps differentiate Invisible from a more generic cyberpunk aesthetic.

"Invisible Inc is all about mastering the systems of the game, and beating the campaign on beginner is just learning the basics."

Rashid K. Sayed: How long does the campaign usually last in Invisible Inc.? Also, outside of the main story, what other challenges does Invisible Inc. hold for the erstwhile spymaster?

Jason Lantz: The game is designed to be replayed over and over like FTL or Spelunky, so the first beginner campaign might take around 5 hours, but it’ll take many dozens of hours for players to master the systems and be able to beat the game on the expert difficulty.

Rashid K. Sayed: What are your thoughts on introducing co-op elements to Invisible Inc.? Is such a feature in the works or has there been any thought towards introducing the same at some point?

Jason Lantz: We don’t have any plans for co-op or multiplayer Invisible. We feel that the mechanics work best for single player and would rather improve the single player and make it the best it can be than dilute it by working on a multiplayer mode as well.

Rashid K. Sayed: Will Invisible Inc. see any post-release DLC a la Don’t Starve?

Jason Lantz: Yes, we’re currently working on a pack of new agents.

Rashid K. Sayed: Is it encouraged to replay the game’s campaign due to the randomly generated levels and other agents that can be unlocked? How do these agents provide for further variety?

Jason Lantz: Yep, Invisible Inc is all about mastering the systems of the game, and beating the campaign on beginner is just learning the basics. The new agents allow players to start with a new set of abilities and items that will completely change their experience with a new campaign.

"The PS4 build needs a lot of love, especially in creating intuitive and natural controls, before we'd feel comfortable calling it a finished product."

Rashid K. Sayed: Invisible Inc. is primarily a stealth game but how does it cater to different play-styles? For example, how will the experience differ for more aggressive players as compared to those more interested in hacking?

Jason Lantz: Unique play-styles will emerge in Invisible, but they might be different than what you would expect from a traditional stealth game. It’s not so much a question of going in hot or quiet, but more of how aggressive your strategies are, how greedy your team is and how you value different items, augments and agent loadouts.

Rashid K. Sayed: Invisible Inc. will be out on the PlayStation 4 in 2016. That seems like a rather long way off, especially since it just released on PC, Mac OS X and Linux, but why the long development time?

Jason Lantz: We’re a small team, so we focused our development the PC/Mac OS X/Linux builds rather than trying to simultaneously develop on a lot of systems at once. The PS4 build needs a lot of love, especially in creating intuitive and natural controls, before we’d feel comfortable calling it a finished product.

Rashid K. Sayed: I feel like, over the last five years, many companies have dropped the graphical fidelity and stopped trying to push graphics and have left it to the realm of blockbuster guys. What is your take on this?

Jason Lantz: I think we’re seeing an explosion in indie talent and in the quality of tools that is allowing smaller teams to make high concept games. Teams are getting smaller overall as new teams pop up all over the place and becoming more confident about making interesting, small games that aren’t necessarily busting GPUs.

Klei Entertainment is also the publisher of Invisible, Inc. making it the second game that they have both developed and published. Running on the Moai engine, which was developed by Zipline Games, Invisible, Inc. released on May 12th 2015 for PC, Mac OS X and Linux. A PlayStation 4 build is also being developed, though it currently has no release date.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Invisible, Inc. first came onto the scene in July 2013 when a “turn based tactical espionage” game was announced by Klei Entertainment’s co-founder Jamie Cheng. During this time, the game was known as Incognita which was later changed to Invisible, Inc.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the game, Cheng has said, “Here’s the idea: if you play the new XCOM — which is a f*cking amazing game — it’s 90 percent positioning. Ten percent information gathering and 90 percent positioning. It’s kind of like, ‘I sort of wonder where the enemy is, but if I position myself well, march forward, and re-position myself well, then I’ll mostly be fine.’ The idea behind Incognita is, we want information to be power. We want information to be a very key part of your experience.”

It was January 2014 when the game was made available on PC for the first time by way of Steam Early Access. A Linux build was offered shortly after. On April 15th 2015, the game was confirmed to be coming to PlayStation 4.

After enjoying comfortable success in Early Access, the game finally shipped as a fully fledged title on May 12th 2015 where it currently has a rating of “Very Positive” based on 1,002 reviews at the time of writing.

Story

Invisible, Inc. is set in a time of mega-corporation dominance, where governments no longer hold any power or control. The plot centers around Invisible, Inc., a privately owned intelligence collection agency that has been compromised and lost many agents in the process. From this point onwards, the agency sets out to restore balance with the assistance of all survivors. This includes the Agency Head, two agents and Incognita.

Gameplay

As referenced by Klei Entertainment’s co-funder Jamie Cheng, Invisible, Inc. is very much like X-COM, but with one fundamental difference. Invisible, Inc. strives to play out as more of a stealth and espionage focused game.

Whilst remaining hidden from opposing forces and avoiding detection at every turn, the player will collect power that will let them use Incognita which is a powerful hacking platform. Using Incognita will allow the player to avoid detection by disabling cameras (and other detection devices) and open locks to aid in progression.

Given that the game operates on a turn based system, when the player has made a move, the enemy will then take their turn and move into position, then attack if possible. Even if you haven’t triggered an Alarm state, enemies will often patrol the area, making constant situational awareness a key factor of the game. If you do raise an Alarm which can vary in it’s intensity, enemy forces of a higher threat can arrive to impede your progress.

Not all of the games locations are a place that the player needs to visit. Many of them are in fact optional areas that the player can visit of their own volition with the sole purpose of gaining assets to further their own ends. Speaking about this, Cheng has said, “The structure is that there is an end mission in 72 hours. Your job is to prepare for that final mission. There are all these different places that you can go to, and you choose to go there for the purpose of preparing. There’s a lot of places that you go to that don’t have an explicit objective; it’s ‘loot the place and get out’, that’s really what it is.”

Characters

The roster of Invisible, Inc. is fairly large and may even be expanded upon at some time post launch. Here is a list of characters that you will encounter in the game:

• Agent Deckard
• Agent Dr. Pedler
• Agent Shalem 11
• Agent Banks
• Agent Internationale
• Agent Nika
• Agent Dr. Xu

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Game Overview:

In Invisible, Inc. players take control of different agents as you need to infiltrate different corporations. Using a combination of  stealth and teamwork, the player would need to make their way out of daunting situations.

Invisible, Inc. is now available for Windows, Linux and OSX, and is currently in development for the PS4. Invisible, Inc.  is developed and published by Klei Entertainment.

Check out the video walkthrough of Invisible, Inc. below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

The next game by the Don’t Starve developers, known as Incognito so far, has now had a name change and will be called Invisible Inc. What you see above is the first trailer, made entirely using alpha footage.

Invisible Inc. seems to be a procedurally generated, XCOM inspired top down stealth game; the XCOM inspirations are not limited to just how it looks (it’s got a grid that restricts movement, for example), but are also more overt- for instance, permadeath exists within this game, meaning if your character dies once, it’s dead forever.

The game is due out on PC for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; it will eventually be sold through Steam, but right now the only way to purchase it is over the developer’s website, where there are several discounts and bundles available to make the game and its purchase seem more alluring.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.