The Swindle is a unique title that has a steampunk-based theme underneath. The concept of the game is simple, though the construction of it complicated. Essentially, you play the role of a thief (one of many), who is given a goal and a set amount of days to steal/pilfer money from locations guarded by rusty robots ready to rock your world. Pretty simple, right?
The gameplay plants your thief in front of a location. Within that location you’ll find robotic guards that range from simplistic metal bodies to flying security alerts. Your thief’s job is to infiltrate the location (via climbing the sides, roof, breaking through windows or simply going through the front/back door), make your way through in a stealthy manner undetected, grab money/hack bank accounts via computer and make your way safely back to home with loot. Should you set an alarm off, you have a small amount of time to get through the location before a bevy of blue-lighted robotic police arrive on the scene and hunt you down. Should you get caught, you lose the money and your thief.
{media load=media,id=3502,width=720,align=center,display=inline}
It’s a simple gameplay concept initially, but underneath there’s more to it. The money acquired from the heists can be used for upgrading/unlocking tech, abilities, more lucrative levels and other various things that help to extend that life of The Swindle. And none of it feels as cheap as that sentence might have read in your head. The upgrading/unlocking keeps you motivated to continually go back and do better. It helps you take more chances in rooms and stay longer when you’ve already acquired a load of money. In short, the upgrades/unlocks make sense when integrated into the gameplay. They’re symbiotic and the complicated relationship between the two is evenly balanced.
Having said this, the game is incredibly frustrating to get into at first. I had some commitment issues that I had to work through, as the beginning of the game gives you little payoff and the upgrades/unlocks, which depend on financial gain, seemed far and few between. Once you get the hang of the controls, and an hour or two passes, the game starts to shine a bit. Once you achieve that first upgrade in ‘hacking’ computers, you’re given an open invitation to accelerate the financial gain. I can’t tell you how close I was ready to give up on this puppy, but thankfully it hit its stride and connected with me quite well. As I am typing this, I’m thinking about new ways to get into the locations in the game, new abilities to acquire and a perfect exit plan.
Yeah, it has connected that much.
Anyway, once you get into the game it becomes an easy love affair. The controls help to keep the game fast and interesting. You’re initially regulated to opening doors/hacking with triangle, jumping around like a stealthy hooligan and laying down the wood on robots with ease. As the game progresses further and further, you gain hacking abilities (which require you to use the directional pad when prompted), new ways to eliminate enemies and additional moves. It’s a good amount of character progression, with nothing really feeling out of place, or cheap, in terms of control growth.
Now, the level design in the game is a bit on the safe side. The levels, which generate into random addresses and construction, are essentially built the same way. You have some rooms only accessible through doors, windows and such. You have tunnels you can climb up or down through to access more possibilities of money. The game has multi-tiered and multi-building levels that are fun to explore, but nothing huge or that stands out. There are some opportunities to re-explore levels once you’re upgraded, but again there’s not a huge difference in the actual designs. That’s not a bad thing for an indie game of this caliber, but it is something to point out.
One impressive part of the level design are the enemies who live inside them. The folks at Curve Digital did a great job with progressively upgrading the enemies, as they are quite the variety of baddies. You’ve got enemies that are simpletons, some that ride on wheels, some that are big and bulky, as well as some that float around with gatling guns. There are quite a bit more and each has its own artificial intelligence attached to it. The simpletons are weak and even when you’re detected they can be dispatched easily. The bigger ones take multiple hits and are brutes. The ones on wheels are just as easy as the simpletons, until you set off an alert, then they become fast-moving targets that are hard to hit. Curve did well with giving you a variety of baddies to get through, which help to keep the repetitive design of their levels interesting and fresh.
On the presentation side of the equation, the animation is stylish and bold. With an industrial age backdrop leading the theme, the visuals are smooth and perfect for this type of gameplay. The Swindle is built on a solid 2D platformer visual concept that takes full advantage of perfecting the simplistic, yet rugged steampunk flavor it has built. In short, it’s a visually beautiful game that constantly and consistently drives home the steampunk theme it was shooting for when you see the opening title sequence. It never loses focus of what it wants to be and emulates it every chance it can get. For example, outside of the overburdened costume that each thief wears (heavy coats, gloves, goggles, etc.), the heist locations are broken, yellow, black and brown constructions. When your character scales the walls of a location, it crumbles a bit. When your thief runs across the rooftop of the buildings, you can hear tiles on the roof move randomly. Each level is designed as a rundown steampunk building that could collapse underneath all the mechanical mess it resides in. It certainly puts the player in the mindset of the gameplay, as well as establishing a cool atmosphere.
So, is this game worth the asking price? Is it that fun? Again, it is frustrating at first, but once the game gets going and the heists become more lucrative, it turns the fun all the way to 11. For $14.99, it’s tough to argue not acquiring it, as it certainly brings enough variety, depth and style to the overall package to warrant the price.
Anyway, onto the summary!
