Quadrilateral Cowboy (2016)

Quadrilateral Cowboy is a massive step up from Thirty Flights, creating a fully realized set of computer hacking mechanics in a story as emotional as it is wacky.

The player takes the role of a computer hacker in the year 1980 doing heists with her two other friends. While starting out with a portable computer deck, the player can access "datajacks" to activate doors/gates/bridges/etc and also activate them remotely via telnet. The player accesses heist missions from a simulated program and adapts to the games mechanics with excellent difficulty curves.

The game doesn't stop with telnet though - the player can get a portable robot (a weezer) to walk and connect to datajacks, a portable turret (aimbot), attach commands to eye blinks, and can even participate in full heists near the end. The game doesn't feel repetitive at all and has a ton of amazing mechanics to offer in its breezy runtime. The challenges don't require a ridiculous amount of dexterity but the player will have to keep on their toes for alarms, timed doors, and other things to get the pulse racing.

As for the story itself, the story is very well told through gameplay, ranging from the heists themselves (with shopping expeditions at a weapons dealer run by cute cats, high stakes arm gunning) to gentle slice-of-life moments with your friends. The game goes out of its way to make this strange and fairly anachronistic world feel lived-in and will leave an intense impression at its end. The graphics are crisp, with characters charmingly blocky and clean and simple designs with very nostalgic looks for the environment. The music is mostly old-fashioned classy tunes (out of place for 1980, but sure!) that are silly and cozy.

Quadrilateral Cowboy is perhaps one of the best games about hacking I've played. While realism is not at the forefront, the game brims with creative and well designed mechanics and has a little heart inside that will make you look back fondly on your heisting adventures.