Written by MenhirMike
I left you with a cliffhanger last time, but unlike Dallas’ “Who shot J.R.?” I’m not going to let you wait four more episodes to resolve it - the caller was Herbert Briggs, who tasked Matt with picking up a parcel from a woman named Sabien at Lisson Grove 17.
If you remember the intro to the game, Sabien was the woman mourning at Matt’s grave, so this is the romance act of the story kicking into gear.
Written by MenhirMike
I am not going to lie, this session was a real struggle for a while. Not so much because of the game, which is still great despite some interface troubles I will get into. But because these last three sessions were essentially me keeping notes in an Excel sheet and then writing those notes into prose that read more like math homework than a blog about a game. I am happy to report that the game did pick up on story bits again at the end, but until then it’s going to be a bunch of facts and numbers.
In the previous episode, we’ve burgled the Jeweller, got arrested for 24 hours as part of the story, sold our stolen goods, and are now left with 2398 pounds and no clear direction. Time to look at the available targets, and it’s clear that the next heist is going to be art:
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| Despite the name, it's not a butcher's store. |
Written by MenhirMike
This session started with me having a closer look at my available tools. I really wanted to do the Jeweller the last time, but couldn’t find an accomplice that could open the safe. Would the game really give me a location and no way to burgle it? It’s possible, but it’s had a pretty good progression so far. So I went back and looked through every tool available and found that they sell a cutting torch that only requires a 35% skill in safes, whereas a stethoscope requires a whopping 70%. The stethoscope is faster, cheaper, and creates less noise, but the cutting torch is usable by accomplices I can actually recruit.
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| Also makes great Crème brûlée. |
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| I look like Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan in this. |
Written by MenhirMike
Last time, I ended up liberating the bones of Karl Marx, but unfortunately the police liberated my car from me. So I started this session with a trip to Cars & Vans, Wellington Road to buy a new one. You can go to the parking lot and look at available cars, which includes the cheap Fiat Topolio in various model years. But since that was only a 2-seater, I turned to the 4 seater options instead, of which four fit my budget of 1797 pounds.
Morris Minor 1948 (29 PS, 100 km/h maximum speed, 66% condition, 40% capacity, 17% conspicuousness) for 1260 pounds
Morris Minor 1950 (29 PS, 100 km/h maximum speed, 78% condition, 40% capacity, 23% conspicuousness) for 1490 pounds
Morris Minor 1953 (29 PS, 100 km/h maximum speed, 94% condition, 40% capacity, 28% conspicuousness) for 1780 pounds
Jeep 1940 (54 PS, 100 km/h maximum speed, 27% condition, 42% capacity, 76% conspicuousness) for 1010 pounds
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| The 1945 CJ (“Civilian Jeep”) was the first mass-produced civilian four-wheel drive car |
Written by MenhirMike
Before I start, I wanted to thank a commenter on an earlier gameplay post who clarified that “jemmy” was indeed a proper term for a crowbar used by burglars in British English. So I’ll take back my criticism on that. I still think there are some translation issues, but apart from “prey”, nothing really stood out as terrible. And definitely nothing that broke the game or made it hard to play. With that out of the way, back to our regularly scheduled content.
We robbed the Aunt Emma Store and went back to our hotel room, about to celebrate with some great Bill Haley music on the radio. Instead, there’s a special news broadcast going on: Burglars have tried to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London! And they almost succeeded, if not for their conspicuous car: A silver car with a blue fish painted on it. The police arrested one of the burglars when they entered the Fat Man’s Pub and are hopeful to arrest the other burglars soon.
Needless to say, Matt is shocked when he remembers Briggs saying that the codename will be Blue Fish. Is Briggs going to rat us out? Matt decides to do the only thing that makes sense here: Continue as usual. Nothing else to do, and if Gludo wants to arrest us, we can cross that bridge when we get there.
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| Coincidentally, I once knew an ornamental droid that had similar misfortune with the password “FISH”. |
Written by MenhirMike
Last time, we burgled a Kiosk and stole 380 pound sterling worth of loot. But let’s travel back in time and explore what I could have done differently, because the game actually offers alternate approaches.
First, I could have gone to the Hotel and said that I reserved a room under the name Mark Goldberg, who is apparently a millionaire. Doing so gets me into the hotel room, but without getting Gludo’s identification card - I do not know what the ID card is useful for, so I have no idea if this is a good or bad thing.
Another option would’ve been to go to the police station and insult Gludo instead, which gets me kicked out without the 10 pounds, but with the identification card. Since I don’t have money for a hotel room, I eventually ended up at Cars & Vans, where a Mr Danner thinks I’m a relative of Sir Henry of Yorkshire and insists on giving me 20 pounds. So this gives me both the ID card and an extra 10 pounds.
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| Excuse my French. |
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| 20 bucks is 20 bucks… |
Written by Menhir Mike
We’re starting the game at Victoria Station and have a first look at the interface. The game has essentially two different modes: Exploration and planning/executing a burglary. I can control the game with either the keyboard or a mouse, but the keyboard is significantly more efficient.
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| Exploring the surroundings at Victoria Station. |
In exploration mode, I can walk to another location, wait (to advance the clock), talk to people (if anyone is around), look at surroundings or people, investigate (more on that later), and think. The “Look” command mostly gives some flavor to a location or person, whereas the “Think” command gives information about everything Matt knows, like how much money we have (3 pounds) or any people that we know (we don’t).
Since there is nothing to do here, I am calling a taxi to go elsewhere. And as luck would have it, we’re the one millionth customer of the taxi company! Our reward is a full year of free taxi rides, which is a very convenient mechanism to make sure we’re not wasting money driving around (and potentially softlocking ourselves) that thematically fits in the game.
Written by MenhirMike
