Safecracker

Rating:
Summary: It's fun breaking and entering!
Review: I couldn't tell you if the game was short because it was short, or whether I got so addicted to it that I *had* to solve it as quickly as possible. Most of the safes had a different type of problem to solve; those that were similar had at least a variant or twist to it. I didn't need a walkthrough at all for this one. Clues were in the game IF you could find them. I liked that I could solve the final safe without having to solve all the safes. There were only 2 drawbacks: you couldn't

click through the opening or the final credits, even if you'd already been in the game, and a couple of the scenes were very dark.

I hope Daydream Software is working on another set of safes!

Rating:
Summary: obsolete
Review: i'm running WinXP pro, i can't get this thing to run at all-- it uses an ancient version of quicktime that you are required to install, as well as DirectX 7.0A.

unless you're running win 95, or you like installing old software and reconfiguring your whole system for one game, i'd save your money and get something a bit more modern.

Rating:
Summary: obsolete
Review: If you like puzzle games, especially games that have a sense of humour, you could do a lot worse than play _Safecracker_. The premise is a simple one: You're in line for a job at Crabb & Sons safe manufacturer, designer of elaborate safes for the well-to-do and eccentric. In order to get the job, you must break into the Crabb headquarters and retrieve bits of the combination of the "master safe" from safes located throughout the mansion's cluttered rooms. When you get the combination, you can crack the master safe and retrieve your job contract. You have twelve hours.

The game is played in real time -- you REALLY have twelve hours, and a convenient clock counts them down for you. I was afraid at first this would be a problem, but it didn't turn out that way; I actually finished the game in half the time allowed, cracking a few safes every night over the course of a week. None of the safes is particularly challenging to crack once you have all the pieces, and several are possible to crack without clues, using a combination of inspiration and educated guessing. (In fact, after cracking a certain safe, I was surprised to find almost the entire solution hidden in another part of the house, which I thought rather unnecessary). But the variety of safes is quite entertaining. You must do everything from math puzzles, to sliding tile puzzles, to win a game of poker to crack them.

The graphics are quite good. I was amused to see numerous reproductions of famous art masterpieces on the walls, with the heads and faces of the game programmers substituted for the real ones. There are several fun spots, like the computer that plays 30-second satires of real games. The music was simple enough and somewhat repetitious, but provided a nice background.

Two things keep me from giving _Safecracker_ a five-star rating. One is that the play area/screen size is very small -- only about four by six inches. I would have liked it to have been bigger. However, I still had the sense of being immersed in the environment, so it was not a major concern. The second is that there are numerous red herrings in this game -- hot spots where nothing happens, inventory items that are never used and the like. So you can waste a lot of time trying to do something where no action is possible.

All in all, however, I really enjoyed this game. I'd play another like it in a minute.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and Addictive
Review: If you like puzzle games, especially games that have a sense of humour, you could do a lot worse than play _Safecracker_. The premise is a simple one: You're in line for a job at Crabb & Sons safe manufacturer, designer of elaborate safes for the well-to-do and eccentric. In order to get the job, you must break into the Crabb headquarters and retrieve bits of the combination of the "master safe" from safes located throughout the mansion's cluttered rooms. When you get the combination, you can crack the master safe and retrieve your job contract. You have twelve hours.

The game is played in real time -- you REALLY have twelve hours, and a convenient clock counts them down for you. I was afraid at first this would be a problem, but it didn't turn out that way; I actually finished the game in half the time allowed, cracking a few safes every night over the course of a week. None of the safes is particularly challenging to crack once you have all the pieces, and several are possible to crack without clues, using a combination of inspiration and educated guessing. (In fact, after cracking a certain safe, I was surprised to find almost the entire solution hidden in another part of the house, which I thought rather unnecessary). But the variety of safes is quite entertaining. You must do everything from math puzzles, to sliding tile puzzles, to win a game of poker to crack them.

The graphics are quite good. I was amused to see numerous reproductions of famous art masterpieces on the walls, with the heads and faces of the game programmers substituted for the real ones. There are several fun spots, like the computer that plays 30-second satires of real games. The music was simple enough and somewhat repetitious, but provided a nice background.

Two things keep me from giving _Safecracker_ a five-star rating. One is that the play area/screen size is very small -- only about four by six inches. I would have liked it to have been bigger. However, I still had the sense of being immersed in the environment, so it was not a major concern. The second is that there are numerous red herrings in this game -- hot spots where nothing happens, inventory items that are never used and the like. So you can waste a lot of time trying to do something where no action is possible.

All in all, however, I really enjoyed this game. I'd play another like it in a minute.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, but only for slower systems
Review: It really is amazingly fun to wander around an abandoned house cracking safes. The only problem is that this game is really only possible with an older, slower system, say a 486 or so. My 4-year-old computer was too fast to make it possible to scroll through the inventory list slow enough to actually select items in the middle rather than on one end or the other. Quite frustrating, since by the time I discovered this I was about halfway through -- and now I can't finish. Oh well; that's the price of having up-to-date technology, I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Good entertainment value
Review: The story line: you are an expert safecracker, the best of your kind, hired by Crabbe & Sons, the leading company in the field, to crack their latest safe in less than 12 hours. Your reward: heavy financial retribution, and perhaps... (no spoiler here :)

You start by breaking into the company (a nice old mansion in the London suburbs). From the beginning sequence onward, you just crack safes all night. It can get pretty addictive! My wife started cracking and couldn't stop until she was over. The puzzles are varied, a mix of ingenuity, mathematical skills, resourcefulness, and exploration (curiosity always rewarded). But you don't need to be a genius: all the hints are scattered in the game. Look at all the objects, take notes of the objects you cant't take with you, and walk around until you are stuck. it's then time to think about what you have, your next step, etc.

The game is very well done, despite a couple of bugs. the most annoying is actually common to other dreamcatcher games for the MAC PowerBook: they don't handle the trackpad very well, and you can't scroll your inventory (only beginning and end). Since it's in alphabetical order, and Key comes about in the middle, it's most annoying. But I discovered you can get around by clicking very shortly on the scroll buttons (tapping is hopeless; it always takes you to the beginning or the end).

The game is not that short, and you'll need to take a few pauses, and restart (unless you're a master safe cracker with an eagle eye). Most useful is to find the map of the house at the beginning of the game. Avoids to draw it by hand as you're walking along :) And since time is counted, you might want to save after each safe, and restore from there once you know how to crack the next one. Just avoids you to be short of time at the end. We did it loosely and had plenty of time still left at the end.

What I liked best, is that you can guess. Even if you have not seen all the clues, but guess how to crack the safe, you can go ahead. That means also you can redo the game without looking for all the clues (in case you forgot to save). And you can crack the final safe without having cracked all the other ones. Actually, we never got around to crack the jackpot safe (it's apparently random, and you can only try so many times). But we managed to guess the missing letter anyway. And some of the safes are really darlings: they'll make you laugh and feel good about yourself!

It's a great game, a great concept, and I'll definitely buy the sequel. So should you :)

Rating:
Summary: Good entertainment value
Review: The story line: you are an expert safecracker, the best of your kind, hired by Crabbe & Sons, the leading company in the field, to crack their latest safe in less than 12 hours. Your reward: heavy financial retribution, and perhaps... (no spoiler here :)

You start by breaking into the company (a nice old mansion in the London suburbs). From the beginning sequence onward, you just crack safes all night. It can get pretty addictive! My wife started cracking and couldn't stop until she was over. The puzzles are varied, a mix of ingenuity, mathematical skills, resourcefulness, and exploration (curiosity always rewarded). But you don't need to be a genius: all the hints are scattered in the game. Look at all the objects, take notes of the objects you cant't take with you, and walk around until you are stuck. it's then time to think about what you have, your next step, etc.

The game is very well done, despite a couple of bugs. the most annoying is actually common to other dreamcatcher games for the MAC PowerBook: they don't handle the trackpad very well, and you can't scroll your inventory (only beginning and end). Since it's in alphabetical order, and Key comes about in the middle, it's most annoying. But I discovered you can get around by clicking very shortly on the scroll buttons (tapping is hopeless; it always takes you to the beginning or the end).

The game is not that short, and you'll need to take a few pauses, and restart (unless you're a master safe cracker with an eagle eye). Most useful is to find the map of the house at the beginning of the game. Avoids to draw it by hand as you're walking along :) And since time is counted, you might want to save after each safe, and restore from there once you know how to crack the next one. Just avoids you to be short of time at the end. We did it loosely and had plenty of time still left at the end.

What I liked best, is that you can guess. Even if you have not seen all the clues, but guess how to crack the safe, you can go ahead. That means also you can redo the game without looking for all the clues (in case you forgot to save). And you can crack the final safe without having cracked all the other ones. Actually, we never got around to crack the jackpot safe (it's apparently random, and you can only try so many times). But we managed to guess the missing letter anyway. And some of the safes are really darlings: they'll make you laugh and feel good about yourself!

It's a great game, a great concept, and I'll definitely buy the sequel. So should you :)

Rating:
Summary: short and sweet
Review: This game has some good puzzles, but none are too hard. It's possible to guess if you aren't too sure on something and there are no penalties for the wrong guess (big plus if you want to try a safe by trial and error).

I had to use a walkthrough though and restart a few times. For some reason the game kept hanging on me. The other problem that kept this from being a 5 star for me was there were two problems which were difficult or impossible to solve without a walkthrough. In one case I had figured out the idea, but couldn't get it (and thus thought I was off on how to solve) because you needed to move something to a precise position. The other major bug was a place where audio was necessary to solve the puzzle, but the audio didn't play for me.

(Oh, and for those who want to get through the intro on future tries you can skip it by pressing escape. I found it through trial and error. I hate going through intros everytime, especially when the game hangs.)

Rating:
Summary: Good puzzles, a few bugs though
Review: This game has some good puzzles, but none are too hard. It's possible to guess if you aren't too sure on something and there are no penalties for the wrong guess (big plus if you want to try a safe by trial and error).

I had to use a walkthrough though and restart a few times. For some reason the game kept hanging on me. The other problem that kept this from being a 5 star for me was there were two problems which were difficult or impossible to solve without a walkthrough. In one case I had figured out the idea, but couldn't get it (and thus thought I was off on how to solve) because you needed to move something to a precise position. The other major bug was a place where audio was necessary to solve the puzzle, but the audio didn't play for me.

(Oh, and for those who want to get through the intro on future tries you can skip it by pressing escape. I found it through trial and error. I hate going through intros everytime, especially when the game hangs.)

Rating:
Summary: Not much thinking involved
Review: This game is supposed to be puzzles and strategy. Most of the safes are solved by codes, which can be found by opening other safes or located with clues scattered throughout the house. There's little thinking involved. Overall, this games is mildly fun, with cool rooms to explore, but is very easy. Don't bother if you're a seasoned puzzler.