Yahtzee Croshaw’s “Trilby: The Art of Theft”

By now, The Escapist’s Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw has earned quite a following with his series of hilarious game reviews. But apparently, he’s not just interested in reviewing games, he wants to make them too. In fact, he’s just released his newest creation, Trilby: The Art of Theft, free of charge. It’s a stealth platformer that has you playing a smarmy master thief breaking into various places and pilfering loot. At the end of each level, you’re given a score on how well you did and then rewarded more “reputation points” which can be spent at your hideout on upgrades like new moves and lockpicking skills. The graphics are very last-last-last-gen (I’m almost positive the game was made on Lucasarts’ old SCUMM engine used for the Monkey Island games), but the gameplay is solid. It’s actually pretty fun to try and run through the different levels as quickly as possible, grabbing loot as fast as you can and tasering guards with an umbrella. If you’re looking for Croshaw’s usual brand of humor, you won’t find much of it here, but it definitely is a fun game. Seriously, if this had been made a little over a decade ago, it would be a full retail release.

If you want to check out the game yourself, you can download it from The Escapist.