Is The Swindle the First Great Heist Game? 

I've got only one problem. Those slippery, unresponsive controls. In a onehit kill heist game, controls should be precise, take Mark of the Ninja for example

The Swindle is a great idea for a game but it's poor controls and sometimes odd level generation leave a lot to be desired :/

I just discovered your channel tonight. You strike a lovely middle ground between Extra Credits and something like Every Frame A Painting. You have a thoughtful, respectful process in your analysis, and that really resonates with me. Thank you, and subbed. :)

I had to give in. Your content is too good for my not to throw you some money on Patreon. Love your work, Mark! Can't wait to see what kind of content you'll bring us next!

The best heist game I played was the early access of Rust. Nothing quite like raiding an enemy base after watching them for days, stealing a week worth of stuff, then trying to bring it back safely to your house and worrying if they will find you or be able to raid you in turn.

Something worth noting, Payday 2, which you referenced, has a mode where ifyou pull off the mission you get more money and experience points, but it requires a higher down payment and you can't restart the mission from the beginning. If you screw up, you must continue. Making you pay for a lot for the mission and not giving you any restarts does raise the stakes, as its fairly easy to not make your money back if you botch the job. It doesn't have the behavioral feedback loop Swindle has as the individual heist is not in the broader scheme of things, so it ends up being more like double-or-nothing game mode while allowing the player to play normally if they so choose. It doesn't fundamentally change the game but it can change how a player approaches an individual heist. That said, most traditional games don't do anything to raise the stakes well. Thats why you end up with player set limitations on generally unchallenging games like the Nuzlocke or the many open world games where players decide to play until their first death and keep a journal of their experience.

Look into Heat Signature. It's a permadeath ship infiltration game with no saves or loads and randomly generated ships. Equipment is general in use, and the player is heavily encouraged to find creative ways to get past obstacles by using their items in unconventional ways, should they find themselves up against something they can't beat head on. I find it gives rise to some wonderful stories of player experiences; the Steam cards are user-submitted tales of unique problems and solutions. In my opinion it's a great game for making do with what you've got and outside-the-box thinking when your plan goes awry, because there's no saves to fall back on.

The important part to understand when encouraging your players to engage in the most fun playstyle is this: Do not punish the slow and safe styles, but reward the risky fun playstyle. X-Com had this problem where players would carefully advance during each level, playing safe and taking their time. But going in like a Blitzkrieg was actually more fun. So X-Com 2 released with a turn-timer, if you didn't finish the lvl within x turns, you'd fail. People hated it because they felt like they were forced to play a certain way they didn't want to. Instead of a stick, you need a carrot. Give extra bonusses for risky plays instead of punishing or making impossible the slow way. That way people can still play the way they want while being encouraged to do it the fun way.

It's interesting you mention how the 100 day limit encourages players to take risks for bigger rewards. The lesson here is that it's the designer's job to make the game in such a way that encourages or even forces the player to play it in a fun way. As was mentioned, players will almost always choose what approach is most efficient and no one can act like they're playing the game incorrectly when it was made with that as a possibility. The reason I mention this is this came up in a TotalBiscuit video where some of the viewers criticized him for playing Titanfall 2 the 'wrong' way because he didn't make use of the platforming (which is perhaps the game's biggest selling point). It would have probably been more fun, but he did what was more efficient, in this case being the less fun option.

Heat signature is similar to this

Sorry for the delay - English subtitles are now live! Thanks for all the comments - I read them all :)

Personally, I love the existence of dominant strategies in certain games. It's immensely satisfying to discover some consistent, effective strategy, especially if the game is particularly difficult. It feels like I'm beating the system when I can overcome obstacles with ease because of careful planning or a clever workaround. When the optimal strategy still requires some skill (or plenty of patience) to pull off, well, that's the best. Could a developer use "dominant strategies" to their advantage, I wonder?

Best heist simulator? Eve Online. It's the only game that was smart enough to know that if you want people to take an in-game robbery seriously, you need to give them the ability to steal real money. Also, don't tell people it's a heist game. That part was just genius.

It's good to see designers remembering that failure, high risks/high rewards scenarios and vulnerability when done well can be one of the best parts of playing video games.

You are an excellent journalist The way you set up the “feeling” this game gives you with narrative from other well known games and phenomena humans experience. Instant purchase. This video was such a delight to watch

While Payday 2 may not be as great as the Swindler in this regard, it is still chock-full of good design choices, and is both great and a heist game. To me, this video should have been titled "Is the Swindler the first great risk-based heister?"

I've never played this game, but it reminds me of heat signature, where your liberation progress lets characters start with more money and have better optionz in the shop, but all the truly great items need to be stolen, and the really good items tend to be in the hardest levels.

I have little to no time to spare at the moment and here I find myself one late evening after another watching all of your videos, because they are so insightful, to the point and interesting to watch. Best video game related content I have ever seen. Thank you very much, I think I will have to look into this Patreon thing. Looking forward to more evenings of time spent wrong/right.

My favorite heist game by far is Tom Francis' incredible Heat Signature. Very gentle permadeath adds stakes without being too punishing. A diverse failure spectrum ensures that the tension on a heist is always slowly ratcheting up as alarms go off, more guards show up, escape timers tick down, and the enemy crew closes in on your location. However, time can be paused at any time, and bailing on a mission is as easy as smashing the nearest window, so the player is encouraged to take risks, play through their mistakes and be a little greedy, knowing that most situations are recoverable with a little creativity, and that escape is usually there if you really need it. And if you really do botch it, you rarely lose more than a few minutes of progress, and can even regain it by rescuing captured characters. The game lacks the time pressure you describe in Swindle by default, but does add optional challenges such as special characters with time limits, Ghost or Pacifist vows, or missions with special requirements, so that bigger challenges are always available when you're ready for them. Definitely one of the best stealth/heist experiences out there IMO.

Actually, PAYDAY 2 is a great heist game too, it doesn't have limits about how many heists you have to do to finish the game(there's no end btw), but it gives you many solutions to finish a heist, and there's also a RNG that can change the way you have to play the heist. even if the tons of DLC may make it look like a bad game, it still got good gameplay mecanics, and it's fun to play heists that has been planed, and how to repair failures However, it's still a good video, and i love your channel :)

Mark, I've been watching your movies for the last 3 months, and the are really great! I supported you with a one time funding at Patreon and I do not regret! Congratulations! Keep going!

Marvellous Miss Take is another great heist game, and a great stealth game on top of that! Was gonna mention Invisible Inc as a heist game but you already did, and the advantage this game has over that for people who don't like failure states as much. The roguelite nature added to a high stakes heist theme makes so much sense, hadn't thought of it like that until this video. Thanks!

Thank you GMT for showing me new games

I think another game that nails this risk/reward system is This War of Mine. The scavage sections can be incredibly tense. Getting high-value items usually requires you to use risker stealth moves or even resort to combat tactics, and failure could leave your character seriously wounded or even dead, which leaves you with fewer survivors to make it through the remainder of the game.

Omg, I just found your channel a few weeks ago and this is the 10th video I watched. I was disappointed with how my friends didn't like the swindle or realize why I spent a solid week on it. You are so great and honest with every game you analyze. Today alone I found 3 great and innovative pc games from the past few years that you have made videos explaining. (Her story, [0], snake, ect..) You sir, are a RU-vid GOD.

Great episode!! Definitely made me want to play this game but also, as always, brought to light some of the spins in games that make it worth playing over others that try for the same concept but end up making something entirely different. Thanks!

That time limit is the very small but oh so important tweak I wish Darkest Dungeon had when I played it. A game of genuine tension when you take risks, but there's no need to take them when you have all the time in the world.

I would like to thank you. This game appeared in my discovery queue on steam and I would have just dissed it as "another indie steampunk game" but, I figured that with this, I would get a neat stealth game that reminds me of Monaco, which is a game I love. Cheers

I think that being a side scroller is what makes this work. I would argue that Payday 2 is a really neat Heist (and more) game when it comes to getting into banks and casino's unseen and getting out with the highest amount of cash. Both of these seem equally tense when it comes to sneaking around. :)

I feel like I am mentioning this game for each of your - brilliant - videos, but this is also what Spelunky does! (which can also be seen as a Heist game...) I know you're also fond of this one. Thanks again for the videos.

The mentioned mechanics where the game seduces you to take more risks because there is a final mission where the added loot would help is very similar to Invisible Inc. You mentioned that game as well, but only the latter was critically acclaimed.

I know you mostly look at more recent games, but the 100 day limit made me think of the original Pikmin game. I wondered if you've considered taking a look at how that type time and resource management can effect gameplay or if it's part of a larger mechanics methodology.

I always got tense doing a Need for Speed: Most Wanted cop chase. Just the thought of being caught was always so harrowing and the way the made time slow down when you were spotted (shivers)

The bit about optimal strategy is sooo true. Its one of the reasons why I think Dark souls actually is worse for having the ability to grind. I am building a weird horror game and it had light rpg elements, but I had to remove them because they incentivized grinding instead of exploration, so I switched it out to a lighter stat upgrade system that consumes rare items with increasing cost.

Finally picked it up after being a long time fan of the channel specifically because of your recommendation. 80% off sale helped lol

Great stuff, as always!

MGS 1 did an interesting thing to raise the stakes, when you were being tortured you could fight off the pain or give them the information they wanted. And they heavily implied that if you die while being tortured you couldn't continue the game.

The torture scene in Metal Gear Solid 1 is a great example of "I've only got one shot at this" done absolutely perfectly.

See also: "Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine"

This was so great! Your videos are good enough for an online course XD

Glad to have stumbled upon this great channel! Your analyses are far better than other channels' (not naming any); or I am just biased because your content is just really good! Keep it up! By the way, can you make an analysis on what makes a great fighting game? Say... Skullgirls?

The criminal mastermind challenge on GTA V sort of achieves this. There's a massive cash reward for beating all the heists on hard mode without dying once, and the same exact group of people. The high stakes puts a lot of pressure on you to watch every movement you take

HEAT SIGNATURE!

I would say if you want a heist game, Monaco is another good one. It feels scrappy, like you'll never have what you need to be completely safe and that's a good thing when you're a ragtag bunch of thieves. Getting spotted isn't an immediate loss, but you're always afraid of getting busted since that means losing EVERYTHING and having to start the entire level over again, and some of these aren't small and none of them past the tutorial levels are easy. The minimalist style will turn some people off, but I like the look it's going for where you're invading the blueprints of a building.

I love your content so much! Did you ever think of releasing a audio-only version of your videos as podcast? That would be awesome.

Hey Mark, How does one get a hold of you? You seem quite the elusive man to contact :D

Been anticipating the next episode. Will watch now

*gunpoint* Gunpoint is a good stealth game. So is heat signature...

3:48 made me sad for not mentioning heat signature. It's a great stealth heist game and gave me, the player, the fixed idea of the epic journey leading to the grand final (procedually generated) mission. the way it dealt with death, losing your character, having (the option) to rescue lost characters using other new, low leveled characters, it's open world map and it's rebellion mechanic, nothing new but completely fitting for the game, all of this added up to a fantastic experience and i think it would make into a great video

I think it's interesting to analyze the concept of "punishing & tense" versus "forgiving and mindless". Either way it's never a sure thing: different people like it at different ends of the spectrum. Also it's more of a problem when stages aren't procedurally-generated - and The Swindle's apparently are. Personally though, an indie favorite of mine, Copy Kitty, does the following: a level select (with levels gradually unlocked as they're beaten), short stages, infinite lives, and level-specific score/time/no damage optional goals (or leaderboards). That way players can choose their own pace. Although it still sacrifices the sheer tension of a strategic "marathon" with limited retries, - again, no 1 solution is perfect, it's like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - it also offers an Endless mode. Also thank you for mentioning an indie game I hadn't heard of.

it's all about balancing the perceived risk vs the perceived reward. I'm not going to stick my neck out on the line if it means hours of wasted gameplay just to get a few extra bucks, but if sneaking past 3 guards to get the loot then back past them again means that I can get that upgrade that will help me hit the goals faster, maybe I risk the minor setback and harder run

Just finished the game a few days ago and decided to watch this again. Great game and yet I don’t think I’ve ever played a more stressful one either

Given that the steam release of oneshot was really vague about what having one shot meant, I was extremely tense right up until the point when I found out about the old freeware version

Thank you for introducing this game to me.

I tried this game because of your video, and it was awesome. When you've got that bonus going and die it is infuriating. Great Video, Awesome Game.

There's also Bad North that has a good example of taking hight stakes. In the game, money is everything, you need money to upgrade your troops and their items, and the money you get from the houses you've saved, ao the game has the idea of making the island thta has the most house usually has the worst type of enemies or bad terrain, and choosing those islands will put you up to test of your skills, because if you mess up and killed your commander, you'll lost them forever, along with all the money you paid to upgrade them, and the number of commander is very important because, you cannot just take one guy and expect to win, there's also situation where your left over people will be too much one fighting type, you can't let the archers fight on close combat, so the game gives you the feeling of not just loosing one commander, but loosing the money you spent and the fighting they use

The new Hitman model can be great for heist games. Where you repeatedly do the missions in a different way planning your way through all the defences and fortifications. And each time do then in a different way.

The thing with those games that have a lot of risk is that after failing once or twice I will just not play it anymore because it won't be as fun having to redo everything for a minor mistake. I think grinding is a fun way to play that is easier than playing regularly but takes a lot more work to get the same outcome making it more satisfying at the end.

I LOVE this game and am stoked about this video

been on the fence about the swindle but that just tipped me over.

While the Swindle is great in a few aspects when you analyze the theory behind it and a lot of the design, in practice the game is slippery to control and full of unfair levels that don't give you anything interesting to do, even if you do want to play risky and go for the higher rewards.

I believe the swindle is a great example of feedback loops, both pos and neg.

Smithing iron daggers was the dominant strategy in Skyrim.

how did you divide the video like that, it's amazing

I love this channel, I love Mark's deep dives into game concepts, and yet I disagree with his conclusions or perspective so often - including now. 1. I don't want pressure, or tension, or pressure and tension that are even more artificial than the artificial tension of timers and deadlines in real life, because it's not even real life! I just want a game, and the more tense a game makes me feel the less likely I am to return to it - if that's what the game is about, I may just not even play it in the first place (unless it's a horror game and I've specifically signed up for a tense experience, of course). I like the option to do a slow and methodical "grind". I LOVE stealth games, and I'll gladly sit in a dark shadow and wait real minutes of time until I'm ready to make my deliberate and well-considered move. I want slow incremental progress. I don't want a pulse-pounding escape full of expert reflex moves and lucky timing. That's the ultimate fantasy of games! That if you put in the time, you're not just spinning your wheels and keeping the bills paid, you're making meaningful progress toward something - that slow incremental progress leads to something positive - that our actions can make a difference. That's a more fulfilling fantasy to me than any "wooo I can fire literal explosions out of my butt, not explosives, EXPLOSIONS! AND I CAN ALSO USE THEM TO FLY AROUND THE LEVEL!" (someone make that game, though) and way more than any "wooo I may have carpal tunnel syndrome now but I improved my time by 0.0002 seconds and now I'm 2nd on the worldwide server!" I don't care about that stuff, and I'm not interested in suffering for a game. 2. When I buy a game, it's MY game. I play it how I want. I bought it. If you don't want me to have it don't sell it. It's not the designer's game anymore, it's mine. Designer's have to let players have the game, and have their own fun, and give up authorial control over the experience once it's in someone else's hands. I can't imagine anybody wants to be told they're having fun "wrong". For example, I would play this game, The Swindle, if there are mods or cheats to turn the arbitrary time limit off. Why should I play a game where I'm forced to play a way I DON'T want to play, instead of being able to play the way I want to play (or playing something else)? Obviously, some standards have to be maintained in multi-player and especially competitive play, but after wading into the cesspools of humanity in multiplayer games for quite a long time years ago, I've sworn off any of that anyway, in favor of the single-player experience. Mark often talks to people who play games because they want a "challenge". I don't. At all. I mean that. I literally don't want a challenge at all. I don't want to TRAIN for my fun, I don't want to have the content I paid money for held back from me because I'm not "good enough" to be allowed to have fun yet, and there is no real accomplishment or achievement to all that trouble anyway, it's all just a game in the end (except for a tiny handful of people who have gotten so obsessively good and are so young and caffeinated that their reflexes and hand-eye coordination are at Olympic levels, who can turn professional). I don't want frustration. I just want to have some fun (or I want to explore and engage with an interesting story and/or world). Whether that fun is shooting zombies with the biggest possible shotgun, or sniping bandits from halfway across Skyrim, or walling myself into the forest until the Byzantines can research every wall upgrade in history before ever even looking for an enemy out in the fog-of-war. Sometimes it's just seeing what's over the next hill. The parts that make me go "Ah! Oh shit oh shit oh shit!" are never the parts that feel rewarding or that I remember fondly. I wish there weren't such a trend in recent years of games coming out that look really cool or beautiful or interesting, that have as their selling point "it's hard as fuck and you won't get past the first level you filthy casual." It's like, okay, sorry you don't want me, I would have liked to have known you, Celeste. I'd love to have been a part of your world, Cuphead. I'm... still on the fence about whether I should get Hollow Knight, or if the hand-eye-coordination and reflex requirements are too high for me to actually get what I pay for, and get to explore and engage in that really interesting world. I always find it interesting that there are so many people who feel the opposite to me, and actively want a gaming experience that frustrates, denies, and agitates them. Everybody's different, I guess! If you got this far, thanks for reading my manifesto! I hope something nice happens to you tomorrow!

Hmm... It almost seems like this is an ad for a game that was just released today. A very convincing ad. Let me just go and add this one to the wishlist.

Renowned Explorers is also pretty good encouraging risk taking.

I just discovered your channel and was wondering if you would think of talking of game-design of others things than video-games (tabletop games, tabletop-rpg,...) if so this episode made me think of a Tabletop RPG named "Blades in the Dark" that also propose to make scores as a central part of the gameplay.

I think the first great heist game was "They stole a million" for the c64. It was very strategic and required a lot of planning and hiring of the right people to successfully pull off the heists. It was very satisfying when it all came together perfectly.

What a really cool game, gotta check this out.

What a fun little game.

I have been searching for a game similar to the swindle forever now...

very late, I know, but I recently picked up this game and really liked it! Good analysis. I agree with some of the other comments that the randomly generated levels can be a bit restrictive sometimes, especially early on when you may not have the abilities to get passed an obstacle. But I think the game makes for it by instilling a GREAT sense of tension. Even though its just a 2D world with yellow lights coming out of the enemies to represent their fields of view, it somehow still feels great to sneak past them. Also, you ALWAYS feel like a boss when you jet out of a level after tripping an alarm, just in time to see the police come.

Just got it on PS4 for like, 4 bucks. Saw this video a year and a half ago and remembered it when I saw the title on sale.

This reminds me very much of the original Pikmin. You had to risk it because of that hard - coded time limit.

I feel like there should be a game that’s like paydays targets and hitmans planning mechanisms to make a game similar to the oceans movie where you can plan out a perfect Heist or go guns blazing

I grew up playing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue! Which is a heist game where you need to think about things like guard routes, police presence ,even the fact of fencing goods and being tracked by police.

Nice Brown, its very informative.

Reminds me the difference in tone between the three Pikmin games. One had a strict time limit one had none and the last one had a limit but rewarded you if you were good to the point it was non existent

Great review! Bought immediately! 50% off on Switch right now!!

"They stole a million", 1986 (?), Commodore 64...😗

Rust does high stakes heist gameplay with greed quite well

This video made me purchase this game and it's awesome!

I love this game so much

Hands down the hardest game I ever played. I was so excited and bought it day one (not many Xbox One Indies back then), and it kicked my ass so hard I uninstalled and haven't played it since

To sum it up: Every game has a dominant strategy. The swindle uses pressure to make the player use a certain strategy, which is how the developers intend for the game to be played.

Now someone managed to complete the game by getting perfect heists in every mission.

Really cool and informative videos David. Keep them coming man

The problem is The Swindle wasn't fun to play, or control.

What tension is there in swindle, oh this map generated to be impossible, oh this map has no treasure. oh I'm not getting enough money to actually do anything... what a fun game. Was a great test of Steam's refund policy

Time limits always stress me out in video games. What if you fuck up near the end of the 1100 days and find yourself in a position where it's impossible for you tto gather enough money to retry the final level? You'd lose hours of hard work. Starting from scratch would suck and most likely just discourage the player from trying again.

This game deserves a sequel with a more elaborate story.

XCOM also does this really well!

Man, we need another sly cooper game.

Well in the gta heists I do the stakes are super high because if you die you have to start the whole mission over, but idk

you definitely got me to buy this game....

More videos, please. Soon. Thank you.

This is a awesome game The art design isn't really my taste though I'll still get around to trying this out Thanks!

Hi Mark, I just wanted to say that I think your channel is really awesome (#subscriber) and I will promote it to some friends in the industry (@King, @Dice) who are going love it for sure.

I'm not sure about the lessons/points you've highlighted in this game, which boil down to "be a roguelite with a strong incentive to replay content." This point undermines the question you seemed to asking, which was, "How do you get a AAA game to raise the stakes of a major event even after you fail?" Some of the points you did raise could be useful in mission-based games like GTA V and the Payday series, where failure could lead to staking out another heist at another location and losing some equipment and weapons. However, even this solution can be a bit wonky for more grounded story-driven games like GTA V. What happens if Michael is gunned down during a heist and is gone for good? Do we get one of his family members or some other goon to take his place? The former choice would seem silly and untrue to the story Rockstar wanted to tell with the main characters; the latter could eventually make the main story moot if Franklin and Trevor also died during a heist, ultimately leading to the story as GTA Online. Meanwhile, games like Uncharted may not be able to ever have any high stakes at all, since these stories revolve around the character you're playing as. Assuming you fail to get Drake to the other ship, your choices as a designer are either to have the story continue on with another character a la Heavy Rain or have the player start from the very beginning (similar to most Hardcore modes found in Diablo-esque dungeon crawlers). The latter one is a no-no given the context; with all else equal, the former choice could lead to branching paths the developers would have to create to tell a story they never intended to be told. Heavy Rain does exist as an example of this design choice, but the story and its scenarios were so pedestrian compared to David Cage's other outlandish stories. Another good example are the more recent Telltale games and their mostly inconsequential choices. Heavy Rain was a reminder to AAA game developers of how expensive it is to make every choice lead to a major ending; meanwhile, the Telltale games were the result of that reminder. This topic has been talked to death on both traditional game news outlets and game developer forums and blog sites, which is why I find it so disappointing why you reintroduced this concern merely to push it aside to tell me why you think this new game and is game design are interesting to you. You bring up major concerns only to throw them under the bus while you talk about a much simpler topic. Hopefully, the next one of your videos will be more insightful in it application to ALL kinds of games. Until then, take care.