How to crack the vault: The Heist walkthrough

Welcome to the vault. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to blast this baby open and snatch the treasure inside. To do so, you'll have to prove your mettle by solving these puzzles.

The Heist, from developer tap tap tap, is a slick and polished collection of 60 different brain-teasers (based on four different types of puzzler) for you to work through. Solve enough of these tricky enigmas and you'll get your mitts on the grand prize.

We won't spoil the super secret treasure for you - but rest assured that the loot is worth your time and trouble.

This guide will give you the low-down on how to play The Heist, some hints and tips to get you started and then step-by-step video and image solutions to every single riddle in the game.

Half of the fun is working out the solution yourself, but if you're plain old stuck or want that prize pronto, read on.

The Basics

This is the vault. You can see your current progress by setting your peepers on the four locks to the right of the giant metal door.

They'll all be red at the beginning of the game, but as you complete more puzzles and turn off more security they'll gradually turn green.

As you beat more and more puzzles you'll disable the laser beams, shut off those nuisance security cameras, turn off the electric bars, and raise the gate. Your pal Sophia will do the rest.

The buttons at the bottom of the main screen will take you between the puzzles. The top four icons will let you choose a type of puzzle (Left to right: sliding block, sudoku, block-pushing, and circuit making).

The puzzle pictures take you to the brain-teasers. If it's locked it means you need to take down another of the main vault locks (the number of padlocks tells you how many more items of security you need to get through).

A tick signifies you've completed it. The number of electric volts shows how much energy the puzzle will give you when you beat it.

The bar at the bottom will fill up with energy as you beat puzzles. When the blue bar hits the end of the gauge you'll shut down another item of security and unlock more puzzles. Do it four times and you'll get the prize.

Every now and again, a lady called Sophia will give you a bell to let you know how you're doing. You can always hang up mid-conversation to shut her up. No offence, missy, but I've got puzzles to solve.

You don't need to solve every single puzzle to unlock the secret treasure. Just fill up four energy bars, and turn off all the security, and you'll get your prize. This means you can concentrate on puzzle types you prefer, or skip puzzles that are giving you the biggest headache.

You'll need to be a member of MacHeist to unlock your prize. You can sign up from within in the game, and tap the treasure at any time to finish the process. Tap the bottom of the screen to get back to the puzzle list and finish off the riddles you missed.

The Heist comes with 19 achievements for Apple's Game Center social service. You'll get five achievements for beating the game (Energy Efficient, Disappearing Act, Grounded, Open Sesame, and Payday for removing each item of security and cracking the safe). You'll also earn Backstabber.

You'll get Jack Of All Trades for solving at least three puzzles in each type. You'll also get achievements for beating all 15 puzzles in a single riddle collection (Extraction Mastery, Zen Mastery, 3 Laws Mastery and Electrician Mastery) as well as a massive 100 point achievement for beating all 60 stages.

Log in as a MacHeist agent to collect your prize, and unlock the One of Us achievement. Complete all 60 puzzles and collect your second prize (a 99 cent discount from MacHeist) to grab the 5 Finger discount award.

Solve a puzzle in three seconds to unlock Quick Fingers. It's easy to nab this one on the first sliding block puzzle. On the other hand, take forever and do over 100 moves before solving a puzzle to get the Convoluted badge. Reset a puzzle at least ten times before solving it to receive Master of None.

Launch the app and solve at least one puzzle for three days in a row to grab Regular. Solve three puzzles between midnight and 5AM to nab Night Owl.

Scrambled Blocks

These classic block-shifting head scratchers have been in hundreds of games. Most recently, they've been driving us mad in the Professor Layton series.

You need to get the computer chip into the glowing blue port on the right. Trouble is, these blocks are in the way and the claustrophobic conditions means you can't just move them out of the way. You have to methodically nudge and shove them about to free the chip.

Let's look at the solution to puzzle number one.

1. The chip is lined up and ready for entry, but these blocks are in the way. 2. Shift this one down to make a path. 3. Move this baby up to clear the run way. 4. Grab the chip and slot it into the blue port to clear the level. One down, 14 to go!

Tip! As much as it might pain you to do it, you sometimes need to move the chip away from the goal to win.

Tip! If you get stuck and can't be bothered to slide everything back to how it was, just tap the 'reset' button (the rounded arrow) to restart the stage from scratch.

Video solutions: Click here to get video solutions of all 15 The Heist Scrambled Blocks puzzles. Sand Gardens

These Sudoku-style sand gardens task you with placing coloured runes in such a way that you never get any duplicated shapes on any horizontal or vertical line.

Simply drag a rune with your finger to place it amongst the like-coloured stones. If you can't place it, flashing lights will show you which ruin(s) it clashes with.

Let's look at the solution to puzzle number 2.

1. Here's the empty board. The runes are to the top and bottom. Drag them with your finger to place them. 2. Let's place the blue frog. You can't put it in either the left or bottom-right positions because it will clash with the green frog. So let's put it in the bottom corner. 3. There are two positions left for the blue leaf, and the top-most would clash with the green leaf. Bottom-right is a safe bet. 4. That leaves just one position for the blue diamond. Keep this up, and you'll be done in no time.

Tip! Look out for safe bets. There will often be some runes that only have one possible placement, so drop them and never touch them again.

Tip! Work by process of elimination. Figure out where you can't place runes to work out where you can place them.

Tip! Just because you can place a rune down, it doesn't mean it's correct. You may find out later that your previous moves are clashing with your new ones. Unless it was a safe bet, be prepared to re-examine your past moves and try, try again.

Image solutions: Click here to get image solutions of all 15 The Heist Sand Gardens puzzles. Maintenance Jobs

In this Sokoban-inspired puzzle, you'll guide a wee robot about as he pushes coloured power blocks into giant floor sockets.

Tap anywhere on the floor to move your robot. If he's next to a block, tap the block and he'll push it from the side he's currently stood on. These puzzles are about thinking ahead, memorising movements and pulling your bleedin' hair out.

Let's look at the solution to puzzle number 1.

1. We've got two blocks and two sockets. Seems easy enough! Your robot is even in the correct place already 2. Tap the block on the right twice to move it into the socket. 3. Press your finger on the space above the left-most block to move there. 4. Tap the left-most block to push it into the socket. Once the purple lights come on, you're done.

Tip! Think ahead - you might have no trouble fitting the first three blocks into their holes, but will be scuppered by the time you come to move the last block.

Video solutions: Click here to get video solutions of all 15 The Heist Maintenance Jobs puzzles. Electrical Wiring

These tile-shifting puzzles have been in everything from Resident Evil 4 to Cogs to Christmas cracker toys. But if you've never seen one before (how?!), here's how to play.

You need to form a complete connection between two like-coloured LEDs (on the sides of the game board) by moving the coloured wires into place. Find a tile next to a gap in the puzzle board. Hold your finger on the tile and drag it into the gap to move it.

Let's look at the solution to puzzle number 2.

1. Here's the starting puzzle board. We need to get the red wires to connect the red dots, and the pink cables to hook up the pink LEDs. 2. Let's push this pink cable down to the bottom. It will connect up to the dot and leave a handy hole for our criss-cross cable. 3. This pink and red cable obviously needs to sit in the middle. Shove it over into the centre. 4. Finally, move the red cable into the gap to finish off the puzzle. The lights will flash to signify that the level is over. Video solutions: Click here to get video solutions of all 15 The Heist Electrical Wiring puzzles.