Publisher Curve Digital is back on the Switch eShop with The Swindle after partnering with BAFTA-award-winning studio Size Five Games. The Swindle is a stealth game where you prowl through a steampunk London, stealing from less-than-reputable rich folks, while working to prevent an Orwellian surveillance police state. Be still, my millennial heart.

The premise is that in 100 days Scotland Yard will finish developing an artificial intelligence program to monitor all of London. This is detrimental to the occupation of burglar, so a plan is made to steal it. Before making an attempt, the mission needs to be unlocked. Unlocking it requires raising £400,000 by “borrowing” money that’s “found” around five London boroughs. Each district also must be unlocked, along with any thief upgrades.

All upgrades are useful. Depending on a person’s playstyle some will be more desirable than others. For instance, there are upgrades to release an electromagnetic pulse around the character and the capability to detonate mines from a distance. Personally, I was longing for the ability to look down to the screen below me, similar to Spelunky, so I prioritized that ability. It is nice to play how you want to and adapt as you upgrade.

If you’re worried about losing progress of your purchases, don’t be. While the game features thief permadeath, upgrades are permanent. A character death doesn’t mean that “double jump” or “hack” needs to be purchased again either. Thankfully, a character’s demise doesn’t signal the game being over. The Swindle will infinitely generate a thief to continue with. The only true game over comes from not stealing The Devil’s Basilisk by the end of day 100.

There is a myriad of tools to outfit a thief

What makes losing a character matter is that each thief can gain experience at the end of a heist. Successful expeditions add to a multiplier that modifies the amount of money gained. The highest multiplier I reached on any character was 2.20X. It was very painful when they died. Maintaining a high cash multiplier early is essential to getting started on the right foot.

Other than the XP_Bonus there are also bonuses for not triggering the alarms (Ghost_Bonus) and one acquired from a purchasable skill (Aptitude_Bonus).

When things start to go wrong in The Swindle, they can go very wrong. During my playtime, I started two campaigns that could not have been more different. The first I bungled to the point that I ended up stuck on the third stage hemorrhaging thieves. In the second, I used the lessons I had learned about how the game worked, and nothing could prevent me from pilfering the riches hidden throughout each stage. The learning curve is steep, but mastering it feels like an accomplishment.

I am the night.

Two important lessons from the first campaign are: thieves have one hit point, and the game doesn’t include coyote time (ledge assistance). Coyote Time is an accessibility option that allows the player to jump after walking off a platform for a brief amount of time. While jarring at first, these decisions force the player to make deliberate movements. Planning is key. Assessing a situation, forming a plan, then executing the plan will always lead to better results than running in blindly. Several days were burned because I stopped paying attention for a second or got impatient.

All this adds up to make The Swindle one of the most intense games I’ve played all year. Frequently I would head back to the airship, not because I wanted to buy an upgrade, but because I needed a second to calm down. The tension in each level starts out high due to not wanting to lose a thief or waste a day. Tension only increases after working through a level as whatever haul was scrounged together is added to the potential losses.

As much as I enjoy the gameplay, I need to take a moment and mention the visuals and music. The art by Michael Firman is gorgeous. Each background is stunning. Running along the rooftops is breathtaking every time. The music is equally great. Composer Tobey Evans manages to capture exactly how I want heist music to sound. The change to the soundtrack when tripping an alarm only adds to the intensity of running for your life.

*swoon*

Two negative lessons from the first campaign attempt are that the game is a little buggy and no one should play the game with the analog stick. The most common bug I encountered was a guard’s vision cone would go through walls that were clearly not windows. It seemed that when a guard would turn around to patrol in the opposite direction, the game would load their vision cone first then check if there was a wall obstructing their vision. A less common bug was that my character would occasionally go through walls or floors. Jumping up the side of a mansion, I was shocked when I went straight through a block that I was expecting to be able to climb.

Oooooooookay.

The vision bug is unfortunate, but it never made it impossible to complete any of the procedurally-generated levels. As long as the proper tools or abilities are purchased, it’s possible to think of a way around any obstacle, intended or not. Bombing an alternative path like an overzealous miner or cloaking myself in steam were ways I worked around the bug. They’re also methods I used to work around a number of the tricky puzzles encountered on my journey.

The joystick being the less ideal input method, while not The Swindle’s fault, is problematic. Input errors were noticeably more common when using the joystick. Controlling the character and the hacking mini-game that requires pressing direction buttons feel much better and precise with the pseudo D-pad. The D-pad still has its own problems though — namely, it’s in a bad spot. After long play sessions in handheld mode, my thumb would cramp. This isn’t a fault of The Swindle itself, but it’s worth mentioning if you have the option to play the game elsewhere.

I enjoyed The Swindle, bugs and all. It wasn’t looking like I was going to during my first playthrough, but changing the control input was night and day in how the game played. After that switch, breaking into people’s homes and stealing their money was nothing but a delight. Fun gameplay mixed with the stunning aesthetic and musical brilliance form a recipe that ensures I’ll be visiting The Swindle’s steampunk London again soon.

Updated on 11 – 13 – 18

Curve Digital has published a patch for The Swindle that includes a fix for the vision cone bug that was mentioned in the body of the article. I have confirmed the fix in game.

A silly stealth game more your speed? Here is the Serial Cleaner review. If you were looking for something similar but in 3D, see our the Light Fingers review. Share your thoughts with us by joining our Discord. Nindie Nexus is an ad-free passion project – consider buying us a coffee.