Tiny Thief

Developer: 5 Ants | Publisher: Rovio Stars | Release Date: 2013 | Genre: Adventure / Casual | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Tiny Thief places you in the pint sized sneaking boots of a charming little robber and task you with making off with everything that is not nailed down. Fortunately the diminutive bandit has a heart of gold so while pilfering everything in sight you also have to help the locals. From thwarting a greedy, tax grabbing sheriff to saving a princess, it’s all in a days’ work for the tiny thief.

Tiny Thief is part of a growing tide of mobile titles that are making the leap to PC, but it has a little more to offer than the usual ports. The game is a classic point & click adventure at heart but streamlines the formula and throws some stealth elements in the mix. Imagine a cross between the Goblins games and Neighbors From Hell and you might have an idea what to expect.

The game consists of six levels, each with five episodes per level. Your primary objective on each level is to pinch a particular item but along the way you can nab some optional loot and find your ferret companion hiding somewhere. Casual players can finish a level and receive one star before moving on but serious players can aim to three star every level which is trickier than you might think. The game has a built-in hint system that basically tells you exactly how to solve each level, including the bonus items and hidden ferret but it can only be activated once every four hours to save weak willed players from spoiling the game for themselves.

While it might be a mobile port the 2D papercraft visuals look quite nice on a big screen. Each scene is bursting with color and characters making it look like an animated children’s book. The game is set in a fantasy, medieval world so you can expect to see everything from dragons and wizards to pirates and knights. There is no dialogue in the game, but the comic style panels sets each scene up perfectly and the wonderful animations never leaves any doubt about what is going on. The hilarious animations that play out if your thief is caught almost makes it worth getting busted at least once per level just to see what happens.

Almost all of the episodes take place on a single screen so it is virtually impossible to become stuck for too long. Some of the later episodes have two or three screens, but there is never any tedious backtracking or trying to combine obscure objects in your inventory. Instead the entire process is streamlined so if you stand next to an object that can be picked up or interacted with a contextual icon appears above it. This means that many of the puzzles can be solved by trial and error, but figuring things out by yourself is very satisfying.

Being a thief, our hero has to avoid the guards that patrol each level. Check points are very generous and there are plenty of barrels and cupboards to hide in so the stealth element never becomes annoying.   Because the six levels are split up into bite sized chunks I quickly found myself hooked and it unfortunately meant that it was all over long before I wanted it to be. I will definitely be replaying the game to three star all the levels and get all the achievements but as charming as the game is it does have a rather hefty price tag for what is on offer. The audio is very good with some nice but rather sparse tunes. There are tons of sound effects however so things are never too quiet. While the game was obviously designed for touch screen devices, it works well with a mouse and I never had any issues with the controls.

Tiny Thief is obviously not going to tax classic Lucasarts and Sierra veterans, but casual players should have a blast. The bit sized levels also offer some nice point & click adventuring without investing a lot of time as demanded by other titles in the genre. Hopefully further episodes are released as I would definitely like to experience more of the wacky world that 5 Ants have created.

*Review originally published December 2013.