, theKickstarter-funded debut project from Camouflaj, didn't make any "Best of 2013" lists from the larger sites covering the mobile games industry. That's not an indictment on the quality of the game, but rather a reflection of the fact that it was released in the back half of December, when all of the decisions on what ends up on those lists were already made.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. Camouflaj founder and head honcho Ryan Payton had been pushing his team to get the first chapter of its episodic saga out before a certain console game launched. The title in question was Ubisoft's Watch Dogs, and while its alternate reality take on contemporary Chicago is a far cry from the totalitarian society depicted in République, there are definite similarities in the way the games approach the pros and cons of living in connected societies.

Still, it wasn't until he saw a demonstration of Watch Dogs protagonist Aiden Pearce hacking security cameras that he started to get some twinges of panic.