Trilby: The art of theft

When Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw isn't being a total xunt reviewing trashing newly released games (rightfully so most of the times though ;)), he makes some games of his own. Not bad too. Here's one I caught myself playing lately.

In this one he uses his main protagonist of his adventure games (more about those on another post, they are very nice too), Trilby, in a more action/arcade game. As you might have imagined, since the guy is a thief, he should sneak into people's houses/buildings and steal stuff. However this isn't a walk in the park; guards, lasers security cameras and inhabitants move around the screens (it's a flip screen game incidentally), making your job harder. So you have to hide in shadows or use a taser to silence the people. Also you have to use a mini-game to unlock doors and another to crack safes.

I love these kind of games. You can cram tens of puzzles in the same screen, you have to create strategies on how to move and when, and in the end you feel you've played through 5-6 screens when the whole level is just 2 screens - the rooms/apartments/hallways partitioning of the screen and the smallish sprites makes the game look huge.

There is also an upgrade system, so the character gets more agile and learns new tricks as you play, so you can revisit a finished level and try it again, which adds a bit of replay value to the game. Also, some later levels require you to upgrade so you have a chance of finishing them.

Some negative points: if you fail a level, you have to replay it from the beginning - some checkpoints might have been a good idea. Also, because some puzzles are reset to random values (for example, safe combinations), you have to go through the whole ordeal of going back and reading those values before you proceed. Dunno, it seemed a bit taxing to me.

Still, it's a whatnot promising hours of gameplay. Have a go :)