More Yahtzee games

In one of his reviews, Yahtzee said that he thought the thief games were the only games that had implemented stealth elements properly. "Stop being so zetta hard on yourself!" I say in response, for Trilby: Art of Theft does a zetta great job with stealth elements. Although it could just be the shame of having included a timed button-pressing sequence in his game, but the stealth elements worked anyways, so why complain?

Art of Theft's gameplay revolves around the three different levels of lighting. In no light, nothing can see you. In low light, you can hide against walls to avoid being seen. In high light, you've screwed if anything's looking your way. Getting caught means an alarm will be set off, and you can only trip so many alarms before Trilby's high standards force you to retreat. It works zetta well as far as timing-based gameplay goes. You'll also be required to use your brain a bit; pure timing won't get you anywhere.

A few minigames are tied in as you engage in various activities. The minigames for picking locks on alarms and doors work quite well. They'll seem pointless at first, but later you'll have to do them when a guard might turn around and see you at any second. However, the wire cutting minigame feels zetta cheap. You pick a wire, and it might work, or it might set off an alarm. It's really more of a way to get you to decide if you want to risk setting off that alarm or not, but I still would've liked something skill based. Oddly enough, which wire works never changes, so someone with a good memory could easily get past them all just by repeating levels.

A skill system is also present, but it really shouldn't be. In short, the skill balance is completely broken. Beating the game feels more like it's about knowing which skills are overpowered than actual skill. You still can't get through the game just by randomly pressing buttons but having the overpowered skills, but it annoys me that how I spent my reputaion points were a bigger factor than my actual skill.

Another small complaint was your grolly. To change levels, you have to use your grolly (grappling hook in an umbrella) to go upwards. However, whenever you use the grolly, the game treats you as in high lighting. The grolly animation, quite unofrtunately, takes long enough to set off an alarm. It gets extra annoying whent he grolly spot isn't in pure darkness, meaning you probably don't have time to wait for the camera to look away.

However, what really brings this game together is its difficulty. The close calls you have to go through really put you on edge, whether that means narrowly avoiding a security camera's gaze or picking the lock on a door just as a guard turns around. Again, this makes me wonder why Yahtzee's such an opponent of difficult games. True, just being difficult by throwing tons of enemies at the player can be stupid, but this kind of difficult is good.

Considering it's free, Art of Theft is a great way to spend your time. It's not the best game you'll ever play, but don't just write Art of Theft off as a failed attempt at a stealth game.