Stealth your way to secretarial revenge in Project Madison

Almost immediately upon beginning sneaky secretary simulator Project Madison, you can open up a recipe list that allows you to make helpful items like lockpicks for breaking into your office’s sealed off cabinets. At the top of that list is laxative-laced coffee, and it really sets the tone for the mischief you’re going to get up to playing as the titular Madison. There’s a coworker named Jeff who’s been taking credit for her work, you see. Worse, when the boss suggests promoting Madison, his ego kicks in and he instead winds up getting her fired. So it’s time for some old-fashioned revenge.

By a twist of fate, you get a new temporary job working alongside Jeff, who doesn’t even do you the courtesy of remembering you. Your goal, obviously, is to get him fired, and maybe make his life worse in the meantime, if you like. Jeff is described as “finding it cute that a woman would try their hand at his job,” so you will probably like.

You’re given a set of work tasks to do to impress your boss, a nice coworker named Linda to befriend, and plenty of snooping opportunities. Then, when everyone’s gone home, you can sneak back in to poke around more and nick stuff from people’s desks.

Madison's profession pulls double duty here. Not only is she overlooked for promotion, it's not difficult to imagine a secretary being able to wander around, peeking in cabinets and desks without anyone paying her a second thought. That's very helpful when it comes to pulling off your machinations. Though the clock counts down both your workday and your after-dark escapades, you’ll probably have a chance to get everything you want done.

It's therefore not that difficult to achieve your revenge. (I’m pretty sure I achieved two separate ways of screwing him over in my single playthrough.) This is fine, because the combination of his cartoonishly exaggerated evil and the ease of paying him back ends up extremely cathartic. It's also a nice encouragement to replay and see what other ways you might be able to get even.

Case in point, I didn’t ever actually find myself needing to use the laxative coffee, but I did still hand some to him right before he was due to be fired just because I could. Bye Jeff.

You can play Project Madison for free in browser on itch.io, or download it for pay what you want with no minimum.