Burglars, Inc. Review

Thievery has a long and proud tradition in video games. Sly Cooper, Grand Theft Auto, Thief, obviously – so Burglars Inc. has a lot to live up to. Can the episodic iPhone game live up to its predecessors and become a steal of a game or will it get caught red-handed for crimes against gaming?

Much of casual phone gaming involves reinventing the wheel – taking established gameplay tropes and ideas, and refurbishing them for a new market who don’t really play games, and as such, aren’t quite au fait with these gaming staples. For example, Candy Crush Saga took the “match-3” puzzle format and ran with it all the way to the bank. Similarly, Burglars Inc. borrows heavily from a gaming classic, the pipe puzzle, where you have to connect two sides of a drain or sluice with pipes. Strap in, it’s like playing 10 years’ worth of DS shovelware in one handy app.

Burglars Inc. begins strongly with a great narrative hook – before discussion story, I think it’s prudent to say that the fact this game has a story of any kind is encouraging, as it indicates to me that the developers cared about the product they were putting out. The plot centres on an aspiring thief called Chase who is desperate to work her way up in the world of thievery, and does so by trying to join her local guild – Burglars Inc. After breaking into the group, she is given missions by the stern old Hackett who tries to mould her into a top pilferer, as well as taking on team missions from the aloof Locke. The story encourages a sense of progression in the gameplay, which provides some extra impetus to keep going through the game, as without its plot, Burglars Inc. would only be a series of puzzles. Not that the story is any sort of Dostoevskian epic, but considering the purpose is to frame individual levels, it’s absolutely fine, and for all the snatches of story content we get to see, our main characters are as memorable as they need to be.

The gameplay will take you by surprise.You would never ever think a game that totally revolves around pipe puzzles could be so initially entertaining and effective. They squeeze every last drop possible out of the format; you won’t just connect point A to point B with metallic cylinders, but you’ll also be fighting against the clock, cracking security systems, and completing levels in the smallest number of moves. Power-ups come into play, but these are largely superficial and uninspired additions that don’t add very much to the core gameplay, and don’t ultimately prove to be a big help – freezing the time for a few seconds, for instance.

Don’t get too excited, because they’re all variants of placing and laying pipe, which will get repetitive after a while – another style of minigame for safe and security breaking would have been greatly appreciated – but because the pipe mechanic can have genuine difficulty to it, the challenge does keep proceedings interesting, even if the general concept does wear thin after a few episodes.

The music is more than serviceable for this sort of thing, adding greatly to the standard covert atmosphere that comes to mind when thinking about espionage – lots of low-key bass, cymbal work, and sultry saxophones. It’s quite generic and stock: you get the strong impression that the developer just searched “thief music” on Incompetech, but it fits the mood, so there’s nothing to complain about.

The game is free to play, but is broken up episodically, with around 15 episodes in total, 4 included when you initially install. The first four provide a decent amount of content which provides enough fun for the casual fan, but should be enough to sway you if you appreciate this genre. If you’re cheap and don’t feel like playing on, you can achieve a decent amount of mileage out of it, and the game isn’t naggy at all in regards to microtransactions; if you want to play the full game, it’s £2.99 and that’s it, which is a fair priced for a decently enjoyable and well-polished game. You can buy the aforementioned useless power-ups, but this is entirely your choice. It’s nice to come across a mobile game that treats users with a bit of respect.

Burglars Inc. is never going to set the world on fire, but it’s a decent, challenging game that will keep you well occupied for a few hours, especially if you like the puzzle genre. Plus, the first chunk of the game is free, so you can give it a chance and lose literally nothing.