Angels Die

Mood: 1976. Everything is beige. Cigarettes are smoked indoors. Phones are rotary. Trousers have bell bottoms. Every night club has a disco ball. Rust is everywhere.

Background: At the height of the Cold War, an international organization employs a roster of highly trained female operatives. They have access to the best technology and the best wardrobe of the time. They are nicknamed "Angels" because they are legally dead, and have left their past lives behind. Now, their job is to help people.

Genre: Turn-based tactical espionage RPG with permadeath.

Let me tell you what makes the game different from the basic assumptions you may get from the above.

Wide, Not Tall: You can't level up existing skills. The moment you pick one, you're already at the cap. Character growth means picking more skills, not improving old ones.

No RNG: There is no "95% chance to hit" causing you to scream in frustration when it misses. You either have 100% chance of success if you have a skill, or a 0% chance if you don't. No save scumming necessary. 

Wardrobe: You don't pick the right weapon and armor for the operative. You pick the right outfit to gain entrance to a boiler room or to a maternity ward. Outfits affect where you can go and can boost skill results.

Reveals: You choose your character's new skills mid-mission, at the moment they're needed. There's a lock in front of you, and you decide if your Angel knows lockpicking. Improving your character is done in the thick of action, not between missions.

Permadeath: In this game, the flavor of permadeath is narrative and voluntary. The narrative part means that every point where an operative can die is handcrafted; they cannot die at random at any point. The voluntary means that there is always another option than sacrificing your operative; you can choose to voluntarily sacrifice an operative in order to achieve a better mission outcome. But there will always be an alternative.

Historical Immersion: Missions will incorporate real world history in 1976-1977. Storylines in the game involve things like the Entebbe hostage crisis, the Concorde supersonic passenger jet, the Arabian oil boom, Mao Zedong's death, a coup attempt in the Seychelles, a new computer system in a Cupertino garage, or growing dissatisfaction with the Shah of Iran. Historical accuracy is considered a cornerstone of the game design.

What's In The Game: You create a roster of female operatives and select a number of them per mission across three gameplay modes: a strategic hex map for regional movement and planning, a tactical square grid for infiltration and skill encounters, and a real-time vehicle mode for lake crossings, car chases and escapes. Each operative is customized with a name, origin, background, appearance, and a set of skills chosen from over 100 options — languages, martial arts, sciences, social skills, technical expertise, and stranger things. Missions are set against real historical events of 1976-1977. Operatives who die in the field are gone permanently.

AI Disclosure: Generative AI has been used to generate code, images and music.