In Size Five Games’ The Swindle, players are tasked with controlling one of a great number of swindlers, or thieves, as they attempt the ultimate heist. Taking place in a reimagined, Steampunk version of London in the Victorian era, the plot begins as Scotland Yard has acquired a device that will make all security flawless. Seeing as this threatens your way of life, you and your ragtag band of compadres decide to steal the device before its activation, which will take place in exactly 100 days.

If 100 days seems like an ample amount of time just to steal one device, I need to inform you that it doesn’t quite work that way. You see, your band of thieves isn’t quite ready for the Swindle yet, and you’ll need to complete a plethora of smaller heists to obtain funds to upgrade your characters abilities before you even think about the final theft. Each attempted swindle takes up one full day, and so it becomes crucial to use your time effectively. You’ll begin in the slums, and eventually work your way up into the richer parts of town, from warehouses to banks, until you’re ready for the ultimate Swindle. Successful swindles are graded by what percentage of the cash you were able to steal from each level, and chaining together multiple successful swindles grants your current character a bonus multiplier. I say current character because the game features a permadeath system in which a thief is gone for good if he dies. This system creates a sense of caution, especially once you get your character’s bonus multiplier up, because losing that character means that the multiplier resets and you get less cash in the next round.

The cash that you earn can be applied in various ways, from upgrading your abilities to unlocking new areas of town. It is up to you to decide how to use your hard-earned money, as the game offers no suggestions or help in determining which abilities will be useful and which will not. Some abilities you’ll use consistently to make your way through the game, while others are mostly luxuries. It took me multiple restarts to figure out how to best equip my characters, as the game features an auto-save feature to keep players from finding an easy way out of crucial decision making. This may seem harsh to some, so keep this fact in mind when deciding what purchases you’ll make.

On the topic of harshness, The Swindle can be incredibly brutal at times. The hands-off approach taken by the developers when it comes to giving players help extends to the gameplay. Once you’ve selected a level to perform a heist, your airship will drop you outside of a building. It is then up to you to figure out how to infiltrate the structure undetected, take out the guards and other obstacles, and make your way out with as much money as you can. I died a handful of times, wasting a few days in the process, during my first play, as I was simply just trying to figure out how to play the game. While I usually enjoy it when games take a less-is-more approach to hand-holding, I couldn’t help but think that some kind of tutorial would have been beneficial here.

Each level you play is randomly generated, which can be both a good and bad thing. On one hand, it means that no two levels will ever play the same, but on the other, it means that the difficulty between any two levels can be inconsistent. You may play one level that is overly easy, with little resistance to your thievery, while the next will be loaded with traps, obstacles and difficulties that require skillful maneuvering to complete. One misstep can lead to you being discovered, alerting enemies to your presence, which calls the police force in a matter of minutes to stop you. Since you character is incredibly fragile to begin with (one hit will do you in), going completely undetected is ideal. It is unfortunate then, that the game will sometimes give you levels in which this is next to impossible, and in the rare occasion, you’ll find yourself in a place where the level offers you no way out of a predicament. The developers saw fit, in this case, to arm players with a self-destruct option on the pause menu. This is a good way to get out of the level, but as it kills your current character (thus, ending the bonus multiplier you may have accrued), it can be incredibly frustrating.

Other than the spiking difficulty, the other complaint I had about The Swindle is in regards to occasional frame rate drops. While the game runs smoothly most of the time, I experienced several times where the frame rate would suddenly slow, almost to a halt, and then quickly speed back up. This would almost always cause a missed jump or an unintended action, many times resulting in my character’s untimely death. In a game that requires a lot of precision-based movement, frame rate drops are inexcusable, no matter how infrequently they occur.

When the game is performing at optimal speed, however, it is wonderfully stylized and animated. There’s a certain charm to the characters that fill the grimy, steamy buildings of London, and it’s a credit to the artists’ work that I often felt badly upon seeing one of my many characters bite the dust. The atmosphere surrounding these characters provides the game with an unnerving tension, which fits the gameplay perfectly, and the music and sounds in the background, while not anything overly special, do a good job of conveying the themes of steam and thievery.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with The Swindle. While the random levels were a point of frustration, and the occasional frame rate drops maddening, the gameplay is solid and provides players with an interesting challenge in a wonderful setting. If you can get past its brutal challenge, you’ll find a rewarding experience, even if it can be an exhausting one.