Had a lot of fun with this game, played it with a bunch of buddies while goofing off after class. Was wondering though, is there any way to escape a guard after being caught?
Thank u so much for creating such awesome game. I spent whole day with my buddy today playing it and we really enjoyed. You know today there are very few games like this , simple and exciting at the same time (kinda classic arcades [Ps : I love arcades] )
What an amazing game, it's really a special type of fun that I'll never have enough of. Just wish it had more features like having ways to spend our money for stuff like lock picks and it'll be golden.
Hopefully you give it some update soon, my new favorite Pico-8 game :)
I thought that was a bug. I observed it only happen when I lose the previous game by getting caught (both guys busted or can't afford bail). If I loose by running out of money while skipping targets, I start new game without missing out on the first day.
Good question. It's the engine used (pico-8) that has this as default, and it's not possible to change. If I'd wanted to change it I have to do my own mapping, but it would only work for the web version, and then I'd have to deal with instructing different keys for web and the downloaded versions. Which I rather not do.
Oh yeah, there's an emulator for google play store called P8 player and i dunno if it's something with your game or with it being outdated, but it only runs about half the game. (No pre-hit info, sound is completely broken and text is half-broken.) Would you mind having a look? Love the game!
that was pretty long playthrough, but at some point too many cash decreases everyday, imagine spending 400$ everyday. But nice game, enjoyed playing with my friend
If one of your burglars are still on the loose you can escape and pay bail to continue to play (if you have enough money). If both burglars are caught the game is over.
hi, thanks for playing! thanks for the report, just so I understand correctly: when you think you have unlocked it, you press up to open, but it goes red?
hi, sorry for the late response When you have unlocked the safe with the correct code it will start showing a green light. If the red light is showing you'd have to start over.
how would one rob a safe or hack a computer if its a part of a guards path. is there like a item i can buy to restrain a guard? also i love the hit and run strategy with statuettes
hi! thanks for playing, so guards have hearing and can be made go in different directions (it's random). But sometimes the head security has just done such a great job that it's just impossible, then it's better live to burgler another day! GL
hi, it's supposed to be a cam control, so you can both see what the cameras see and you can also turn them off while you stand there. Cameras themselves have a little light to indicate whether they are on or off. Happy burglerin'!
But how would you turn off the cameras as you are there, is it like the green thing is the monitor selection and if you press up it turns of the camera? And if its black its off?
that is exactly right! but you can only turn off one camera at the time, and if you happen to select it again it will become active again. You can disable the camera of you go up to it with burglar nr 2 ;)
The way you open the safe is push either left or right and keep pushing it until you hear a higher pitch and when you do, push the opposite key and keep doing that until the light turns green, then push the up key
Hi, thanks for playing! To open a safe you need sound on. Then imagine you put your ear to the safe's door and try turn the wheel left or right, just like in the old gangster movies.
Hey! Ironchest Games person, I'm a fellow gamedev and would just love to chat with you a bit, if you'd spare me a few minutes, please add me on discord! Thanks in advance. CH51#0897
Hey @ironchestgames, I'm the curator at the PLAY21 - Creative Gaming Festival and would like to exhibit your work. Can you dm me on twitter @sp4c31nv4d3r or mail at matthias.loewe(at)creative-gaming.eu? Thanks!
lol. I just say that because many times the only rooms with valuble stuff in it is guarded by a guard. If we could take them out then those levels would actually be possible
hehe yeah I know, it's a bit of a bummer when you get those situations in a row.
I know it's not a "security appreciation game", but unfortunately that's the only thematic explanation I can give at this point. This is because of technical reasons, the platform pico-8 has extreme restrictions to code length (which is good! otherwise I would still be working on this game!), so to add stuff I need to remove stuff as I'm currently maxed out.
I'm more than happy to hear suggestions though on different ways to fix this. Many of the ideas for updates that have made the game better has come from players like yourself. Any idea big or small on gameplay variation os welcome!
Idk if youve already tried this or how it would effect the game, but maybe try swithcing engines? I am also a fellow gamedev and I use unity. looking at this game I thought that if you switched it to unity you would have so much more possibilitys. I know youve probably heard that already, but that is my personal advice. switching to a different engine like unity or unreal will also improve the features you have already.
Thanks for taking the time to write! I've worked with a few other engines before, and my problem is with me. I can't finish a game if I have too much options. I just go bigger and better and more intricate at every turn, getting stuck in details. That's what I love about the extreme restrictions in pico-8 - you can't go overboard.
With that said, there's always a small chance I have opportunity to recreate this as a bigger game, then a full blown engine will have its place for sure!
I love this game so much I play it with my brother all the time. It was a little hard to figure out what to do at first but now we are masters at getting caught very quickly. The game is simple but so good and we are planning to maybe do this in real life one day (just kidding because they don't let you bring games into prison I asked my mum)
I'm seeing a lot of people recommending that tons of features be added. I think one of the beautiful things about games like these is that it's not kitted out with so much that you have to consult a wiki in order to manage it. Not every game needs to fill every need. There's already so much fun and aesthetic goodness packed into this pico-sized package; I don't think we need to be like "this has potential"--it's ALREADY great.Adding so much more will just bog it down and make it less enjoyable.
Thank you @enyx very much! I fully agree that not every game needs to be a big game to be fun, and I'm not after to get players hooked for years either (if you are tough, that's totally awesome! :D
But I do find it very rewarding that my silly little game tickled peoples imagination enough to want to fill out the fantasy even more, I could never ask for more than that.
Anyways, thank you for taking the time for both playing and commenting!
I'm so happy that there's the option for local multiplayer. My partner and I spent several hours straight just playing this. I love that there are little things that you uncover as you go, like the security panels, that you can check the desks of the computers, and that you can disable the cameras. Still not sure if there's a way to rescue one if the other has been apprehended. Love that each map seems to be totally unique (so far anyway).
That you played several hours w your partner makes my heart smile. <3
Each map is randomly generated, so the probability of seeing the same map again is vvvhhery close to zero. (I did this so I could enjoy the game myself :D
first you walk up to it, you'll see the burglar will have different graphics than for walking. then you just use your arrow keys to interact! to stop interacting you just move downward. happy burgling!
im not sure how easy this is to implement, but can you make it so that you can blow a raspberry or something to make the guards turn around bc its kinda hard to make noise on purpose other than walking into a tree or smashing a window, which are the only ways i know how to create noise
also, ive noticed more and more frequently that some cameras are being blocked off by walls, rendering them useless, and as much as i like free money, it seems kinda weird
also, have you considered adding some kind of shop? maybe a vending machine can be randomly generated in the levels that sells things like a deployable box to hide behind or a firecracker that goes off after 5 seconds that can be used as a distraction, but if you cant drop it in time, it explodes in your hand and you get knocked out. again, this is probably some crazy stuff to code, and im just rambling :P, do what you want
Thanks for the suggestions! Ramblings and brainstorming like yours has helped and been implemented before, and I really like hearing peoples ideas! The vending machine and deployable box was new and interesting, gettin' the gears in my head crankin'. :)
About making noise, you can walk into almost any of the objects to make a sound that guards react to. They'll look a random direction and then turn 180 to continue patrolling, so it's possible to steer them a little bit.
This game is still doing great, especially after the updates! However, I believe some features could be cut back in order to save code room, and perhaps make room for other features. I have listed features I personally believe to be extraneous below
1. The option to skip a heist - I never find myself skipping heists, as it is usually possible to come out with more money than you had beforehand regardless of the building's challenges and obstacles.
2. The ability to knock on trees to alert guards (and trees in general) - trees have always been quite a nuisance during heists, and I believe their presence in the game has almost no benefit, with trees blocking entryways and sometimes entire routes. They also hold little to no viability in distracting/alerting guards, as these trees are usually too far away for any guard inside the building to hear.
The alteration or possible removal of these features would likely benefit the game as a whole and allow room for further improvements upon it due to freed up space in Pico-8. I understand that these changes would be quite drastic and that I don't have much room for criticism having only designed a few small games myself, but I believe that these changes could seriously improve the game and make it an overall better experience for the player than it already is. To whoever you are, whether you're a random passerby, fellow enjoyer of this game, or perhaps even the developer; thank you for taking the time to read this!
You are completely right about the skip action, I'm going to yank that out next!
I understand about the trees, and as a player I agree. But here's a lite tidbit about the trees: they are there for optimisation! The shadow algorithm (most shadow-casting algorithms in 2d roguelikes) take a lot of resources in open spaces. So when running this game on my raspberry pi it started to be janky and less responsive, taking half a second to react to key presses. So I added trees and now it runs smoothly even on my raspberry pi.
The ability to knocking on the trees come more or less free as that action is added to all objects in the map generation.
I'm so glad you took the time to write as it makes me think if there's something I can do different, something to replace the trees with. Maybe have small buildings without doors or just walls, would that work? wdyt?
I just want to add my two cents: I actually love the "skip heists" option *and* I like the trees. Yes, the trees can make it more challenging or impossible to do certain things, but I feel like that's a bit more immersive. The "skip" is beneficial because if you go into a heist that doesn't work out, you have to lay low for a day, which means you end up losing more money than you would've gained. So I like being able to skip. (Please don't yank it.)
Yo this game is amazing! Because of the procedural generation some levels with guards are literally impossible! So I was wondering if you could add this feature of knocking out or distracting guards?
thanks! you can't knock them out, but they can be distracted, by sounds. (some times it will still be impossible though, like in too cramped rooms for example)
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Had a lot of fun with this game, played it with a bunch of buddies while goofing off after class. Was wondering though, is there any way to escape a guard after being caught?
this warms my old burglar heart, thank you for sharing!
If only one of you get caught, the other one can escape and pay bail to continue, but that's the only way. It's hard for burglars nowadays.
i hope u won't abandon the game yet and will add more features ❤
how to crack the safe ??
hi, thanks for playing and commenting!
There's a little knack yo open the safe, you need to have the sound on and then listen with your best burglar ears...
Thank u so much for creating such awesome game. I spent whole day with my buddy today playing it and we really enjoyed. You know today there are very few games like this , simple and exciting at the same time (kinda classic arcades [Ps : I love arcades] )
this warms my old burglar heart to hear, thank you so much!
day 69, nice!
What an amazing game, it's really a special type of fun that I'll never have enough of. Just wish it had more features like having ways to spend our money for stuff like lock picks and it'll be golden.
Hopefully you give it some update soon, my new favorite Pico-8 game :)
hi! thanks for playing and for the kind words, warms my burglar heart. :)
Why do I have to waste money on laying low for a day every time I start a new game?
well, if you had a stable economy to begin with there'd be no reason to go burglering ;)
I thought that was a bug. I observed it only happen when I lose the previous game by getting caught (both guys busted or can't afford bail). If I loose by running out of money while skipping targets, I start new game without missing out on the first day.
that do sounds like a bug tho 😅
thanks for the explain!
I like this game
I like this comment
Great game! We had a fun evening playing it with some buddies😁
that warms my burglar heart! thanks for playing and commenting!
boy, with that inflation it is no wonder people start stealing
Right?! We're all just honest burglars trying to get by
why 'sdfe' and not 'asdw'?
Good question. It's the engine used (pico-8) that has this as default, and it's not possible to change. If I'd wanted to change it I have to do my own mapping, but it would only work for the web version, and then I'd have to deal with instructing different keys for web and the downloaded versions. Which I rather not do.
Thanks for playing and commenting!
Oh yeah, there's an emulator for google play store called P8 player and i dunno if it's something with your game or with it being outdated, but it only runs about half the game. (No pre-hit info, sound is completely broken and text is half-broken.) Would you mind having a look? Love the game!
(I myself am not a big pico-8 nerd so i 'm not sure what the issue is.)
thanks for letting me know! I'll make time soon to see if there's anything I can do.
If it’s not too much trouble would it be possible to get a .p8 for those of us who have a handheld that doesn’t have wifi? Please and thank you. =)
hello! I uploaded the p8.png, would that suffice?
Much appreciated but the emulator will only run .p8 which you get from the pico-8 carts folder after saving.
I uploaded the p8 too now. Happy burglerin'! :)
(I'm curious, what emulator and handheld you are using?)
Thank you kindly. =)
I’m running MinUI’s Pico-8 on an Anbernic RG35xx.
omg, that's awesome!
It's easy for a burglars to get used to the high-life ;)
Thanks for playing and commenting, makes me happy.
is there any way to escape the cops?
hi, thanks for playing!
If one of your burglars are still on the loose you can escape and pay bail to continue to play (if you have enough money). If both burglars are caught the game is over.
ok thanks for telling me
So simple, and yet so good. My second favorite game on itch
oh you heart burglar you! thanks for playing and commenting!
I think the safe is broken because there is no differ in the pitch and when I think I have it, the light turns red.
hi, thanks for playing! thanks for the report, just so I understand correctly: when you think you have unlocked it, you press up to open, but it goes red?
I can't tell if I have unlocked it or not since the sound for you to push the left or right arrow key doesn't seem to change for me
hi, sorry for the late response When you have unlocked the safe with the correct code it will start showing a green light. If the red light is showing you'd have to start over.
how would one rob a safe or hack a computer if its a part of a guards path. is there like a item i can buy to restrain a guard? also i love the hit and run strategy with statuettes
hi! thanks for playing, so guards have hearing and can be made go in different directions (it's random). But sometimes the head security has just done such a great job that it's just impossible, then it's better live to burgler another day! GL
So i found a bug where the guard got stuck in a wall here's some images:
He was only walking up and down forever
thanks for the report! they do be silly sometimes.
Very cool game i played it for hours and learned all tricks in the game >:)
hi! that's great! what do you think of disabling cameras? useful or nah?
VEEERY useful, when i discovered that you can disable cameras i literally became millionaire
haha niCE! I'm happy you enjoy the game!
How would you er use the wierd moniter thing the 4 screens
hi, it's supposed to be a cam control, so you can both see what the cameras see and you can also turn them off while you stand there. Cameras themselves have a little light to indicate whether they are on or off. Happy burglerin'!
But how would you turn off the cameras as you are there, is it like the green thing is the monitor selection and if you press up it turns of the camera? And if its black its off?
that is exactly right! but you can only turn off one camera at the time, and if you happen to select it again it will become active again. You can disable the camera of you go up to it with burglar nr 2 ;)
ah, good to know. i thought is was just some game humor showing some pong game.
oh, that's an impressive day count! straight A's in burglar school!
The way you open the safe is push either left or right and keep pushing it until you hear a higher pitch and when you do, push the opposite key and keep doing that until the light turns green, then push the up key
I can not figure out how to open the safe
Hi, thanks for playing!
To open a safe you need sound on. Then imagine you put your ear to the safe's door and try turn the wheel left or right, just like in the old gangster movies.
OK, thanks
damn this is fire
🙌🙌
Hello ironchest, i've been inlove with this game for a while, can you make it downloadable? so atleast i could play it offline
thanks for playing!
Your highscore and saved game would not be transferable between the stand-alone and web version, would that be okay?
absolutely! i love this game so much and i'm fine with it
Files added, just hit me up if you run into problems! Happy burglerin'
love the game but can't figure out how to open safes
hi! you need sound on, and then listen for the different clicks, just as any real burglar would
Hey! Ironchest Games person, I'm a fellow gamedev and would just love to chat with you a bit, if you'd spare me a few minutes, please add me on discord! Thanks in advance. CH51#0897
found a level where there's a golden statue but I can's get to it because of chair. A chair! Great game tho.
thanks for playing and commenting! if you ever see the bug again sometime, I'd love a screenshot! happy burglerin'
Great game, personal best is 84 days.
that's a real good run! well done!
hey bro pls download file
Hi! can you explain the use-case for a download file? also, which platform do you need?
windows
Hey @ironchestgames, I'm the curator at the PLAY21 - Creative Gaming Festival and would like to exhibit your work. Can you dm me on twitter @sp4c31nv4d3r or mail at matthias.loewe(at)creative-gaming.eu? Thanks!
you should ad like a sneak attack to disable guards.
only sneaky stealy, no sneaky attacky
lol. I just say that because many times the only rooms with valuble stuff in it is guarded by a guard. If we could take them out then those levels would actually be possible
hehe yeah I know, it's a bit of a bummer when you get those situations in a row.
I know it's not a "security appreciation game", but unfortunately that's the only thematic explanation I can give at this point. This is because of technical reasons, the platform pico-8 has extreme restrictions to code length (which is good! otherwise I would still be working on this game!), so to add stuff I need to remove stuff as I'm currently maxed out.
I'm more than happy to hear suggestions though on different ways to fix this. Many of the ideas for updates that have made the game better has come from players like yourself. Any idea big or small on gameplay variation os welcome!
And thanks for playing and commenting!
Idk if youve already tried this or how it would effect the game, but maybe try swithcing engines? I am also a fellow gamedev and I use unity. looking at this game I thought that if you switched it to unity you would have so much more possibilitys. I know youve probably heard that already, but that is my personal advice. switching to a different engine like unity or unreal will also improve the features you have already.
Thanks for taking the time to write! I've worked with a few other engines before, and my problem is with me. I can't finish a game if I have too much options. I just go bigger and better and more intricate at every turn, getting stuck in details. That's what I love about the extreme restrictions in pico-8 - you can't go overboard.
With that said, there's always a small chance I have opportunity to recreate this as a bigger game, then a full blown engine will have its place for sure!
Thanks again for commenting and playing :)
I love this game so much I play it with my brother all the time. It was a little hard to figure out what to do at first but now we are masters at getting caught very quickly. The game is simple but so good and we are planning to maybe do this in real life one day (just kidding because they don't let you bring games into prison I asked my mum)
Haha great! :D
Thanks for playing and commenting, it feels good to hear the game is being played as a 2p too!
I'm seeing a lot of people recommending that tons of features be added. I think one of the beautiful things about games like these is that it's not kitted out with so much that you have to consult a wiki in order to manage it. Not every game needs to fill every need. There's already so much fun and aesthetic goodness packed into this pico-sized package; I don't think we need to be like "this has potential"--it's ALREADY great.Adding so much more will just bog it down and make it less enjoyable.
Thank you @enyx very much! I fully agree that not every game needs to be a big game to be fun, and I'm not after to get players hooked for years either (if you are tough, that's totally awesome! :D
But I do find it very rewarding that my silly little game tickled peoples imagination enough to want to fill out the fantasy even more, I could never ask for more than that.
Anyways, thank you for taking the time for both playing and commenting!
THIS GAME IS SO FUN
I'm so happy that there's the option for local multiplayer. My partner and I spent several hours straight just playing this. I love that there are little things that you uncover as you go, like the security panels, that you can check the desks of the computers, and that you can disable the cameras. Still not sure if there's a way to rescue one if the other has been apprehended. Love that each map seems to be totally unique (so far anyway).
That you played several hours w your partner makes my heart smile. <3
Each map is randomly generated, so the probability of seeing the same map again is vvvhhery close to zero. (I did this so I could enjoy the game myself :D
awesome! Thanks so much for making and working so hard on this game
how do u interact with stuff?
first you walk up to it, you'll see the burglar will have different graphics than for walking. then you just use your arrow keys to interact! to stop interacting you just move downward. happy burgling!
im not sure how easy this is to implement, but can you make it so that you can blow a raspberry or something to make the guards turn around bc its kinda hard to make noise on purpose other than walking into a tree or smashing a window, which are the only ways i know how to create noise
also, ive noticed more and more frequently that some cameras are being blocked off by walls, rendering them useless, and as much as i like free money, it seems kinda weird
also, have you considered adding some kind of shop? maybe a vending machine can be randomly generated in the levels that sells things like a deployable box to hide behind or a firecracker that goes off after 5 seconds that can be used as a distraction, but if you cant drop it in time, it explodes in your hand and you get knocked out. again, this is probably some crazy stuff to code, and im just rambling :P, do what you want
Thanks for the suggestions! Ramblings and brainstorming like yours has helped and been implemented before, and I really like hearing peoples ideas! The vending machine and deployable box was new and interesting, gettin' the gears in my head crankin'. :)
About making noise, you can walk into almost any of the objects to make a sound that guards react to. They'll look a random direction and then turn 180 to continue patrolling, so it's possible to steer them a little bit.
This game is still doing great, especially after the updates! However, I believe some features could be cut back in order to save code room, and perhaps make room for other features. I have listed features I personally believe to be extraneous below
1. The option to skip a heist - I never find myself skipping heists, as it is usually possible to come out with more money than you had beforehand regardless of the building's challenges and obstacles.
2. The ability to knock on trees to alert guards (and trees in general) - trees have always been quite a nuisance during heists, and I believe their presence in the game has almost no benefit, with trees blocking entryways and sometimes entire routes. They also hold little to no viability in distracting/alerting guards, as these trees are usually too far away for any guard inside the building to hear.
The alteration or possible removal of these features would likely benefit the game as a whole and allow room for further improvements upon it due to freed up space in Pico-8. I understand that these changes would be quite drastic and that I don't have much room for criticism having only designed a few small games myself, but I believe that these changes could seriously improve the game and make it an overall better experience for the player than it already is. To whoever you are, whether you're a random passerby, fellow enjoyer of this game, or perhaps even the developer; thank you for taking the time to read this!
I'm super happy you come back to the game!
You are completely right about the skip action, I'm going to yank that out next!
I understand about the trees, and as a player I agree. But here's a lite tidbit about the trees: they are there for optimisation! The shadow algorithm (most shadow-casting algorithms in 2d roguelikes) take a lot of resources in open spaces. So when running this game on my raspberry pi it started to be janky and less responsive, taking half a second to react to key presses. So I added trees and now it runs smoothly even on my raspberry pi.
The ability to knocking on the trees come more or less free as that action is added to all objects in the map generation.
I'm so glad you took the time to write as it makes me think if there's something I can do different, something to replace the trees with. Maybe have small buildings without doors or just walls, would that work? wdyt?
I just want to add my two cents: I actually love the "skip heists" option *and* I like the trees. Yes, the trees can make it more challenging or impossible to do certain things, but I feel like that's a bit more immersive. The "skip" is beneficial because if you go into a heist that doesn't work out, you have to lay low for a day, which means you end up losing more money than you would've gained. So I like being able to skip. (Please don't yank it.)
how does the download work? when i download the files, it gives me an HTML and JS file in a zip. what do i do with them?
it shouldn't be possible to download, there's no use. thanks for bringing this to my attention, I'll try to remove that option.
Yo this game is amazing! Because of the procedural generation some levels with guards are literally impossible! So I was wondering if you could add this feature of knocking out or distracting guards?
thanks! you can't knock them out, but they can be distracted, by sounds. (some times it will still be impossible though, like in too cramped rooms for example)
thx!
Thanks for this--it's good to know that some of these are genuinely impossible; I've spent a lot of time trying to mastermind it lol
what is the computer with the 4 monitors used for?
hi, it's for controlling the cameras.
oh ok, thanks :)