Shadow Agent

Overview

Shadow Agent is a top-down stealth game across eight guarded compounds. You enter each mission at the lower-left side, retrieve a cyan intelligence case and leave through the green exit. Solid cover divides the floor into routes, while guards patrol in real time. Their highlighted sight areas show exactly which floor cells they can currently see. Walls stop that visibility, so choosing the covered side of an obstacle can matter more than choosing the shortest path.

The run gives you three lives. A guard interception or an expired lockdown countdown costs one and restarts the current compound. Earlier completed missions remain cleared, but any score gained during the failed mission is rolled back. Clearing all eight compounds wins the run; losing the third life ends it. Later missions add patrols, increase their pace and lengthen sight range, making it harder to rely on one hurried crossing.

How to Play

Choose Begin Infiltration. Arrow keys or WASD move one floor cell at a time, and holding a direction repeats movement. Walls cannot be crossed. Clicking a floor tile moves one step toward it rather than planning a whole route automatically. On a phone, the directional buttons provide the same movement without needing precise taps on small cells.

Look at each guard's facing marker. To remove a patrol silently, reach the cell directly behind it and press Space or tap Takedown. Being merely close is not enough: the action fails from the front, a diagonal cell or a distance. Walking into an active guard instead of using a valid takedown costs a life. Removing a patrol stops its movement and sight for the rest of that mission attempt.

Step onto the cyan case to secure the intelligence automatically. The green exit only advances after that pickup. P or the Pause button freezes movement, patrols, detection and the alarm timer. R or Restart starts the whole run again from mission one. After either ending, Run It Again also restores all three lives and resets the score.

Tips & Strategy

Use the highlighted sight cells as a planning tool. Detection builds while you remain exposed and falls when you return to cover before triggering the alarm. A brief crossing is different from standing still in the open. Watch a patrol reverse direction before following behind it, and remember that its next step can change which neighboring cell is safe for a takedown.

Plan both the route to the case and the return to the exit. The case is not an immediate win, and collecting it does not stop patrols. A route that leaves you surrounded at the upper-right corner may be worse than a slightly longer path with protected turns. Pause if you need to inspect the compound without letting the guards advance.

Once the alarm begins, hiding no longer resets the problem. The countdown stays active even after detection drops, so either finish the objective and reach the exit in time or lose a life to lockdown. Do not spend that remaining time chasing a score bonus from a distant guard. An earlier quiet takedown is more useful when it removes a patrol from a route you genuinely need.

A failed attempt restores the current mission's patrols and case. Its score is restored to the value at mission entry too, so repeating the same takedown after a failure does not create permanent extra points. Treat each remaining life as another chance to improve the route rather than as a way to grind score.

What Makes It Distinct

Tile movement keeps the spatial rules readable while real-time patrols create timing decisions. Visible, wall-blocked sight areas make exposure understandable, rear-only takedowns reward positioning, and the case-plus-exit objective gives every compound a clear beginning and end.