We go hands-on with procedurally-generated Vita crime caper The Swindle

Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on

It's a lightweight, side-scrolling stealth game about breaking into buildings, looting safes, and then escaping from the cops. Everything - from the level layouts to the name of your master thief - is procedurally generated.

Kind of! But it's a little less harsh on the whole permadeath thing. You have 100 days to pull off one big burglary (the eponymous Swindle) on the final level, and every run up to that point - successful or otherwise - uses up a day.

So you don't go back to the start when you inevitably get killed (by a guard or a bomb or a long drop), you just lose a day and any money you earned in that stage.

Money buys upgrades, and lets you unlock later levels. You can buy new abilities like double jumps and short-range teleports, items like bombs and bugs and smoke bombs, and you can even pay to get a few more days on your countdown.

Your cash balance stays with you for the entire 100 day run. But if you start from scratch your money resets to zero. This isn't a big grindy game like Rogue Legacy - it's more about choosing your purchases wisely like in Invisible Inc or Spleunky.

There are loads of items, all picked from a handy radial menu. Bombs let you blow up bits of the stage. It's all on a big grid and you can smash through walls and roofs with a well-placed explosive. Bugs can continuously hack computers to drain them of funds - even when you're not in the level.

Smoke bombs give you momentary invisibility, EMPs knock out nearby electronics, and remote detonators let you overload circuits to fry guards.

Not very. They aren't fazed by broken glass, dead bodies, or massive explosions. You'll see big vision cones (which get longer and longer as you get to harder levels) floating in front of their face and if you get stuck in there, everything goes to hell.

No. But the alarms are on and guards will swarm to your location. If you're fast you can escape back to the exit and take your money with you. But things will go a lot smoother if you stay undetected. You also get bonus cash for doing so.

It's a little tough to get used to, I'll admit. Jumping up walls and hitting guards from behind with your truncheon can be a little fiddly and it's annoying to end a level by tumbling into a spike pit on accident.

Using the left trigger to move slowly and sneak about might be a good idea.

It certainly can be. Levels get harder and harder each time you return, and new stages - like the banks and the casinos - add extra security like guards with shields and guns, and doors that must be hacked with a simple mini-game.

You're always on a knifes edge of wanting to grind early levels to earn more dosh, but also wanting to unlock later levels because if you don't get a wriggle on and finish before day 100 it's game over.

Luckily, the levels themselves aren't timed (regardless of how that ticking clock on the tense soundtrack will make you feel) so you're free to study guard patterns, look for alternate entrances, and plan your assault.

Creator Dan Marshall likes to call it Deus Ex meets Spelunky, and there's some truth there. It's a stealth game with lots of gadgets - and it's got those roguelike elements that are in vogue right now.

It's maybe not quite as tight as the king of 2D side-scrolling, Mark of the Ninja. And the progression system feels a lot like Invisible Inc on the PC where managing funds is very important.

Pretty good. The screen's a little small - the game is packed with details and HUD elements that can be a little tough to spot on the pokey screen. The Vita version is also suffering from some long ass loading times right now but Curve promises to shorten them considerably before launch.

Otherwise, this is the full game. Just a little smaller. Maybe not the ideal platform, all things considered, but as its cross-buy and cross-save with the PS4 edition, having a handheld edition for free is pretty swish.

I had a lot of fun with The Swindle. And like most roguelikes, it's immediately addictive. Your brain starts running through all the ways you could do things better on the next run, and you start formulating your plan for success.

Also, don't let the stealth stuff put you off if you don't like games about hiding in lockers waiting for guards to wander off. It's as streamlined and straightforward as sneaky games get.

So yeah. You should probably buy it. It's out July 28th.