Museum Heist

Played: 7/21/24
Playtime: 30min, 8-10 runs lost track, 634/752 (should be more)

A clever little jam entry asking you to optimize your thieving in a ten minute guards-are-coming window. This time, I went straight to the web implementation and had no issues with ADRIFT (in linux). Well, no platform-based issues. Per the rules of the JAM, it was implemented in a two week window which, ok, that buys it some forgiveness. Because for parsers, that is insane.

You are tasked to steal as much as you can carry and get out before you are caught, in a museum with a limited number of objects worth stealing. (Beyond the painting you secured that started the alarm timer.) That’s it! As an optimization game, on repeat plays you will divine the value of each object and figure out how to make away with the most value in your short window, until you decide you are done. It’s an interesting, if shallow logic problem, requiring some classic parser object manipulation.

And some classic parser fighting. Probably as an artifact of the short development time, you will often burn precious time guessing verbs or struggling with incomplete synonyms. Sometimes you quietly drop things you think you are carrying, other times objects are mysteriously not reported. Most vexing, in at least one scenario your final haul is not tallied correctly, where items in your inventory are not present in the final scoring.

Look, there are two kinds of people in the world: people who need to fill in every last cell in Sudoku, and those that are satisfied knowing it is solved once it tips past critical and don’t need to mechanically complete it. I know what you’re thinking. “Given every word you’ve written you are CERTAINLY the former, Reviewer! Just no room for doubt.” Seems likely doesn’t it? But NO! I CAN leave blocks unfilled once solution is certain! I AM FULL OF MYSTERIES AND CONTRADICTIONS, MARVEL AT MY UNKNOWABILITY!!!

So yeah, it ended up being an engaging enough puzzle for its tight scope. I figured out how to get high payoff items, but decided the mechanics of closing the score (including bug and syntax fighting) wouldn’t improve my experience further. Because I am ALSO composed of unimpeachable integrity (as well as so much bacon), I am only reporting a score the game alotted to me, above. As a two-week Jam game, its sins are easily forgiven and the its achievements against that time frame admirable. Also, not for nothing, quite fun.