You and your best friend are burglars. You break in to places and steal stuff.
Hack computers!
Crack the safe!
Control the CCTV!
Watch out for the guards!
Should we sneak past the security, or do we do a hit and run?
Keys:
PL1 - Arrows + X to Unescape
PL2 - ESDF + Q to Unescape
If playing solo, use O/Z to switch characters.
Features:
- Procedurally generated levels, break in to a new place every time!
- Continual save
- Highscore
Gotchas:
- Sound is needed to open safes...
- Don't press Z unless you're playing solo
(If you find any bugs I'd be very happy if you'd post them in a comment below. Enjoy!)
Changelog
Nice starting point (line of sight, graphics...) but not sure to understand how to really play the game:
- how can I evade guards?
- how much time is left with screen goes blue/red?
- how can I know camera positions & line of sight?
- don't understand how safe can be cracked (don't get relation between sound and red light)
note: it's too easy to loose a burglar when close to the border of the screen ("escape")
thanks @freds72 for trying it out!
- standing in the shadows is the best way to not be seen
- when the police siren comes on they'll arrive pretty soon, would you like a timer or do you have some other suggestion?
- when you peek either through window or through door, you'll see the color of the floor. It'll be either lighted or not- don't go in when it's lighted.
- The safe is a small mini-puzzle, just like hacking the computers. (Simulating a rotating knob with numbers, first one way left/right then the other right/left, a specific number of steps.)
About the early escape problem, do you find it hard to see the burglars when you start the level?
About the early escape problem, do you find it hard to see the burglars when you start the level?
no but it's very easy to misclick!
Surveillance camera control - neat! but guard is in room...
Sorry for being thick - but how am I supposed to sneak past a guard in plain light when the safe is in the very same room?
@freds72 ah, now I see what you mean!
I think this is a communications problem from my side, because it is not really a solvable puzzle each time. Sometimes you'd have to just bail, but maybe you'll get something small to keep you afloat for just that day, maybe a wallet was hidden in that locker in the top right?
Also, now that I think of it, the guards will also guard a broken window if they come close enough to it. So in this case, you could break the window in the lower right from the outside, hope the guard stops by it, and if you're fast enough - crack the safe and escape before the police arrives. I know the game doesn't tell you that, and that's a part of the communications problem as well I guess '^^
Thanks for the screenshot, and for taking the time to play and comment! It's very helpful! I get some ideas to try out to make it clearer.
Tried some more and yeah, there is way too many unsolvable situations. May reflects real burglar life but for a game, that's a bit frustrating.
@freds72 I really appreciate you coming back and playing some more even though you might've known this might not be your cup of tea, big thanks! I probably won't change the game too much, but I'll think of something to manage player expectations. So thanks again!
I love this game! I agree that seeing the burglars at the beginning is a bit hard and sometimes one of my burglars escaped when I didn't mean to. With the procedurally generated levels it never gets boring, but some levels are definitely impossible.
Also, if you could make it that the trees are not spawned right in front of doors, windows, etc. that would be great!
@ChakAttack Thanks!!
Here's a fun tidbit: The trees are added as an optimisation because otherwise the fog algorithm gets too cpu-intense when on the outside of the building (this is only noticable on my raspberry pi though. :)
I'm currently at exactly 8192 tokens, if I can manage a token hunt to get maybe 10-15 tokens I could make the trees not appear in front of doors at least.
Thanks again for playing and commenting!
one obvious token saving would be to replace all:
... floor[y*32+y] ... |
by
function floorget(x,y) return floor[x|y<<5] end function floorset(x,y,v) floor[x|y<<5]=v end |
The performance impact should be partially recovered using bit shift operator.
@freds72 thanks for the suggestion! I did something similar earlier in development but it took too many cycles to run smoothly on my raspberry pi, but I should give this a go now that I have the trees!
I actually love this game - the entire concept is great.
I noticed one small bug - If one partner disables a camera from the CCTV panel and the other then cuts the power, the camera will still come back on when partner a leaves the terminal even though the power's down.
Thanks for making this!
Glad to have been of service!
I'm curious why the wantedness system has been disabled in this release? I kind of liked it. It didn't come into play that often but I played enough that I did get "we've seen your face!" and wanted game over once. I like an extra incentive to be, well, sneaky, and I kind of liked that it's not obvious exactly what would raise or lower the heat on you (I assume things like being seen directly by guards or cameras, vs making a hit without sounding the alarm at all).
It might work better if "wanted" wasn't an automatic game over (I assume it was automatic... I lost on my very next job). Perhaps as an alternative, once you hit a certain threshold, "dare to scout a new job" appears and each scout has a percentage chance to result in a sting op game over - but you also have a "retire" option with an alternate "good" game over? Do you keep pushing to raise your high score or cash in your chips?
Just some thoughts - I have no idea how much of this is practical. Anyway thanks for all your work!
@McDoom I removed wantedness because it was confusing to about 50% of players, and I needed tokens to add Unescaping (which was the most requested feature.)
I do enjoy and appreciate your suggestions! I'm out of tokens once again lol, but I might find the time to slim it down with some of the features from the latest pico version.
I was thinking of adding a minus row to the daily balance if the alarm goes off. I can't come up with something fun and clear to call it though, "new burner phone -50$" or "guard bribe -100$" "face surgery -150$" or something, wdyt?
I think it's a fun idea. Certainly incentivises sneakiness, at the expense of making smash-and-grab tactics riskier (but not that much riskier if the amounts are lowball like that). I don't know exactly what triggered wantedness before but I'm assuming things like being seen by a guard/camera rather than things like open safe/broken window/missing art, and this could trigger off the same stuff.
Sounds like you did come up with something for names! Other ideas: "Moving hideout", "new getaway car", "laying low -[current daily expenses$]"...
@McDoom I added a penalty for being seen in v1.4, it's your idea with Laying Low which fits perfectly! (and doable within token limit!) super thanks!
I loved the updates (even though I liked the wantedness). I found a little bug(?) though: after my burglars were both caught I restarted my "career" and the first day I already had to lay low for a day.
I still dislike the fact that sometimes trees spawn in front of doors or windows or block the way, but it is a minor issue really. A very enjoyable game overall!
I love this so far but I have yet to figure out how to disable cameras BEFORE they see me?
edit
I figured it out!
I love this game <3
It took a while to figure out what to do but I've got it now mostly. Fun game! Not many places will be viable but it's fun figuring out strategies and assessing the situation. I still can't figure out the safe minigame though. I've got the computer hacking down, but not the safe.
I'm trying going in one direction till I hear a noise and then switching but that doesn't seem to be working.
@tinysorcerer thanks for playing! the safe always makes a small beep but it'll be a bit louder beep when it's time to switch direction. Also, if the light goes red you have to start over.
@ironchestgames Thanks! I think the small beep wasn't working sometimes but that's cause I'm playing on mobile and the sound usually messes up on mobile. I'll give it another go on my desktop. Still really enjoying it regardless, it's a great game :)
Edit: I figured out how to do the safe without sound by just paying attention to the red light and remembering the pattern. Thanks! :)
I found myself in this predicament: my top burglar cannot move (whenever he tries, the guard yells "Hands Up!") but the police is not coming. The bottom burglar can move freely (I haven't tried to enter a lit area). If the bottom burglar escapes, nothing happens.
@ChakAttack that's a bug, nice catch! ofc the guard shouldn't see you behind the safe (but the hands up code doesn't respect the shadows, which it should.)
I'm afraid that I reached the point where I can't make any more money... :(
I guess it's time to rat on each other and start over :)
I truly love this game, with the procedurally generated levels it is never boring.
@ChakAttack Oh wow! cooOOL! <3<3<3
(technically what happens is I just use Pico 8's number type for money so it's restricted to go above that specific value.)
Never thought that would actually happen, my idea was that daily cost would get too high and increase risk taking so to get caught. Guess I committed the first sin of gamedev, "never underestimate players" lol.
Superthanks for playing and for taking the time to comment, this made my day!
I know you've already given both suggestions and bugreports above, but if you have more suggestions now that you Won the game I'm more than happy to hear them.
@ironchestgames The game is very enjoyable the way it is, but here are some suggestions:
- Make sure trees don't spawn in front of doors or windows.
- Make stealth more rewarding (for example, if you raise an alarm, your stolen goods are worth 20% less and if you are seen, 40% less)
- Related to the previous point, adding the possibility of closing the safe after stealing its content (maybe requiring to input the code again)
Thanks again for such a wonderful game.
@ChakAttack making goods worth less is a BRILLIANT idea! Gonna see if I can get loose some code tokens and implement. Thaanks~
Quite a fun game once you learn all the mechanics! I'm glad I didn't read through the comments here first, it was fun to discover how everything worked on my own, even though there was some trial and error early on. Also like how you can start with stealth, but if you get caught then you might as well grab everything on the way out. The sirens blaring outside while I managed to finish off a safe was particularly tense and exciting.
I didn't max out my score, but happy with how far I got in about an hour. The jokes like $1 cute cat pictures were pretty funny too. Great game!
Also FYI, to save tokens in the future, you might want to look into the split() function, rather than your manual s2t function. Also maybe a split*2 function, that splits each entry in the resulting table again, since you have a lot of s2t lines right next to each other that could be a single s2s2t".x;1;.y;0;.dx;1;.dy;1;|.x;1;.y;0;.dx;1;.dy;-1;|...". I didn't see much else for quick token reduction going through the code though.
@shy Thanks a lot for the kind words! And day 33 is pretty far still I would say!
Thanks for looking at the code too, that's awesome! Some parts of the code is a bit of a drag and a mess, I confess. I know about the split function though, but it's a bit too rudimentary for this case, as there's just too much in the engine that depends on stuff like table indices starting from 0 as well as named properties (like player.x e.g.), so it would mean a full overhaul which seems too much at this point I think. Superthanks for looking into it though, always great with just another pair of eyes! and if you come up with anything else please pop in!
This game is great! i really love the stealth idea mixed with the simplicity, but i have one question. even with volume on, i cant work out how to open safes. help!
I really wanted to like this game, but the initial learning curve is way, way too steep. Even after I thought I knew how to crack safes, I couldn't do it. I get the first green light, then can't work out how to proceed from there.
What is happening when one of your characters crouches in front of something with a flashing dot? So many more questions.
There's definitely a good game hidden somewhere here but there are way too many UX issues getting in the way right now. It needs a tutorial level or a manual to make it more user-friendly.
@biovoid:
"Even after I thought I knew how to crack safes, I couldn't do it. I get the first green light, then can't work out how to proceed from there."
"What is happening when one of your characters crouches in front of something with a flashing dot?"
I've had some fun here, but I agree that it can be confusing working out how things work. My own best haul was about $5,000, and then the two of us started losing more money on our lifestyle of dissolute excess than we gained on each job. I think some of the best parts are getting halfway through opening a space and then a guard spots me and I try to finish the job and loot it before being caught, so I'm not sure if that should be penalised. If I "ghost" through a building without being spotted at all, it's usually because the RNG created a building that made it possible, not because of skill on my part. And other times, the RNG creates a building with no usable entrances...
@BlazerDog I believe in you, you can do it!
@GavGav thanks for playing and for the kind words!
@biovoid thanks for playing and commenting! Cowirrie explained very well how to do the things. As for a tutorial, I'm already maxing out the pico-8 tokens, and I've also done all token optimisations I can think of, so it's sadly not gonna happen as things are looking right now. If you can think of things to change or remove, instead of adding I'm all ears.
@Cowirrie thanks for taking the time to explain! highly appreciated!
@Dvan that's a new one... Thanks for reporting!
Got a pretty good high score before I was too slow getting out.
@ironchestgames : Other times, the procedural generation really delivers, like this one. I could hide next to the computers and safe, but had to keep flipping from side to side as the armed guard walked back and forth. Fantastic little detail that the sprites lean up against cover when next to it, too.
I got the computers while the guard's back was turned, but the safe was a problem. I practiced its first 3 rotations several times, then gave up, and accepted that I'd get spotted. So I opened it and smashed through the window just ahead of him.
You can see the top of a statuette just below and to the left of a second thief. I hadn't looted this because there was a regular guard patrolling that room. But, after the first thief escaped with the contents of the safe, I also took the statuette and broke through a second window a few steps ahead of the second guard. Here's the haul, a cool $1,600.
What is the effect of armed guards? Can they apprehend you at a greater distance? If you have other ideas and need some tokens, I think the regular guards are enough threat that I'm not sure the game needs a harder type of guard.
@Cowirrie nYCE! congrats on the highscore!
the armed guards arrests you at a distance (only on the same horizontal line), and they can add extra conundrums. But maybe not enough to warrant their tokens, good point!
being a thief has never been more fun. also it would be kinda cool if you could like take out the guards or something
game very cool played it for hours but I have a game idea/feature you should add (multiple floors/basement) art/pictures that you can steal (like the mona lisa)
new stealable item phone or guards/ homeowners that sleep cause some of these place are houses right? they should have sometimes a bedroom where there sleeping and you have to be stealthy and if you make too much noise they would wake up and find out what the noise was. anyways that pretty much it i love your game and play it with a friend all the time :D
@Gucci-Chicken thanks for the suggestions and for the kind words! It is so fun to hear you play this 2p! happy heisting!
@ironchestgames will you continue to update the game? or go onto your next project if so good luck i will most definitely play it when you release it IGN 10/10
@Gucci-Chicken I'm pretty happy with the state of sneaky stealy as it is now, so I don't think any big update will happen anytime soon. (I'm also out of space on the cartridge so I can't really add stuff.) But without suggestions such as yours it wouldn't have gotten as far as it has, so I'm always happy with people commenting. Even if I don't use it for this game, I have better ideas making the next! Thanks again!
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the safes are very annoying to crack, is there a way you can make some sort of password or pass key somewhere hidden around the house?
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