Mini Thief

About

Mini Thief is a single player and multiplayer casual strategy game. It was developed by Tommah and was released on October 12, 2018. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

In Mini Thief, play as the master thief and steal valuable items without being caught by the homeowner. As you progress, levels become more challenging with increased loot opportunities. With enough support, the game could expand to include online multiplayer modes and additional development goals. The game features unique sprites and tilesets that can be used in other projects.

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60%

Audience ScoreBased on 437 reviews

gameplay24 positive mentions

stability31 negative mentions

Mini Thief offers a charming pixel art style and engaging gameplay that combines stealth and puzzle-solving elements.
The game features a variety of levels with increasing difficulty, providing a satisfying challenge for players who enjoy strategic gameplay.
The ability to create and share custom levels adds replayability and community engagement to the game.

Players often experience frustrating bugs, including game-breaking glitches and issues with enemy AI, which detract from the overall experience.
The penalty for getting caught is overly harsh, as players lose all their collected items and money, leading to repetitive grinding of earlier levels.
The game lacks depth and variety, with many levels feeling similar and the mechanics becoming repetitive over time.

gameplay
85 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
61%
11%
The gameplay of "Mini Thief" primarily revolves around stealth mechanics, requiring players to avoid detection while utilizing various items to navigate challenges. While the game is praised for its simple and accessible mechanics, charming visuals, and engaging level design, many players find the gameplay repetitive and marred by frustrating mechanics, such as losing all items upon death. Overall, it offers a light-hearted experience with potential for fun, but suffers from a lack of variety and some execution flaws that detract from the overall enjoyment.
- “The game offers simple mechanics, focusing on stealth, timing, and puzzle-solving.”
- “Mini Thief's gameplay is one of its greatest strengths, offering an engaging combination of stealth and platforming challenges.”
- “The gameplay is solely based on stealth, meaning you have no weapon to defend yourself; only a few trinkets that you can buy from the pawnshop to make it easier to avoid detection and to escape.”
- “Second of all, there's the fact you lose all items upon death (assuming you don't have insurance which is 850 bucks or so...) - which merely aims to slow the gameplay down, rather than add high stakes to it.”
- “Mini Thief is a poor attempt to make a 2D top-down stealth action game with GameMaker Studio; it looks like they ripped off a JRPG template and adjusted it to make a 'workable' stealth game. The gameplay itself is very simple, you move around copy-pasted houses (after a while the houses are basically the same), and sometimes you will want to visit a shop to upgrade your stuff to pass tougher obstacles.”
story
59 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
80%
5%
The game's story is largely criticized for its lack of depth and creativity, with many players finding it uninteresting and merely serving as a backdrop for the gameplay. While there are cutscenes and minimal narrative elements, they often disrupt the fast-paced nature of the game, leading to a perception that the "story mode" is poorly executed and lacks engaging content. Overall, players feel that the gameplay mechanics overshadow the story, which fails to provide a compelling or immersive experience.
- “The story is told through dialogue, events, and clues found during missions, providing context for the player's actions.”
- “While the game's main focus is on stealth and platforming mechanics, the story adds an element of motivation and depth to the gameplay.”
- “It's basically just various excuses of why the thief is stealing so much stuff (with barely any depth, so why is it called a story mode...?) - these are given in various cutscenes prior to playing the level, and they generally slow down the pace of what is supposed to be a fast-paced game.”
- “Story mode is bugged, confusing, and boring.”
- “The overall story isn't a mind-blowing one at all, but for the price of the game and the enjoyment of the gameplay, you can easily look beyond this.”
graphics
35 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
34%
57%
9%
The graphics of the game are a mix of opinions, with some praising the charming and functional minimalist pixel art style that captures a retro aesthetic, while others criticize the outdated visuals and lack of resolution options. Overall, the vibrant pixel art is appreciated by fans of the genre, but some players find it insufficient to elevate the gameplay experience, which can feel repetitive.
- “Pokémon graphics meets Payday stealth and I love it!”
- “Mini Thief’s graphic design is notable for its vibrant and detailed pixel art style.”
- “The game adopts a retro visual aesthetic that is both charming and functional, capturing the essence of classic stealth platformers with a modern twist.”
- “The ones with top-down view and pixelated graphics.”
- “A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel 'art' as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics.”
- “There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks.”
stability
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
97%
The game's stability is widely criticized, with numerous reports of bugs that hinder gameplay, such as freezing, NPC glitches, and crashes. While some players find enjoyment in the concept and co-op mode, the overwhelming consensus is that the game is a "buggy mess," making it frustrating and often unplayable. Overall, the stability issues significantly detract from the experience, leaving players disappointed despite the game's potential.
- “It's also really buggy; every level you play has a high chance of encountering a bug that stops you from progressing and sometimes makes you lose.”
- “The game could be pretty fun, but it's a buggy mess (freezes at the end of levels, enemies get stuck, just to name a few).”
- “It's a good concept and would be great if it worked, but NPCs would get bugged out of nowhere and stand still forever, causing you to always get busted and lose all your money. A few times, the pause menu itself bugged out, and no matter what button I pressed, it would open the option menu and made the game crash. The tutorial explains a few basic things, but oh wait, here's the kicker: the tutorial is buggy as well.”
humor
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is described as light-hearted and quirky, with players appreciating its campy references and amusing mechanics, such as freezing guards and unexpected multiplayer encounters. While some found the humor enjoyable, particularly when the game was on sale, others noted that it can feel buggy and inconsistent. Overall, the game embraces a comedic tone that encourages players not to take it too seriously, featuring funny character names and achievements that add to its charm.
- “Having multiplayer on by default was an interesting choice, so it was really funny when I thought that this game was singleplayer and then ran into a guy speaking Russian.”
- “Humor and references - the game is not meant to be taken seriously. This can be noticed in the names of characters and achievements, as well as the cheesy/campy approach to the sprite work and little jokes here and there (like Splinter Cell-esque night vision goggles, a cardboard box to hide from cameras, MGS style, etc.).”
- “Use your incomparable stealth to finish this game and earn hilarious achievements.”
grinding
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
15%
77%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and frustrating, often feeling that the effort required to progress outweighs the rewards. Many express dissatisfaction with the loss of items upon death, which compounds the grind, and note that the reliance on consumable items rather than upgrades makes the experience feel more like a chore than an engaging challenge. Overall, the grinding mechanics are seen as a significant drawback, detracting from the enjoyment of the game.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Interesting but seems grindy with little reward - the strategy is probably to farm low levels for cash and then buy the gear you need to pass a normal level and then repeat for the next level.”
- “Too much work for little reward given that even level 3 has cameras, wires, and a dog, let alone the levels after that one - no chance to complete any of them at all without grinding gear from the first 2 levels.”
- “The worst part though, is 99% of the items you actually need are consumable rather than upgrades, making the game more of a giant tedious grind rather than actually being fun or challenging.”
music
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
18%
27%
The music in Mini Thief is generally well-received, featuring enjoyable 8-bit retro tracks that enhance the game's atmosphere. However, some players noted that the soundtrack can become repetitive over time. Overall, the music contributes positively to the experience, complementing the game's pixel graphics and mechanics.
- “I really enjoyed the 8-bit retro vibe, menu music, level designs, and mechanics.”
- “The soundtrack is fun and boppy too.”
- “I really like games with pixel graphics and nice 8-bit music.”
- “I relaxed for 5 minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.”
- “Gameplay (music faded away during the recording for some reason :c)”
- “Although the music actually bangs.”
replayability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
Overall, the game's replayability is mixed; while it offers some variety in levels and strategies that encourage experimentation, many players feel it lacks sufficient depth to maintain long-term interest. Some aspects, like having to replay completed levels due to game mechanics, detract from the enjoyment and can feel more like a chore than a rewarding experience. Consequently, it receives a moderate rating for replay value, with some players enjoying short sessions but not finding enough incentive to return frequently.
- “The ability to explore different routes and strategies adds depth and replayability to the game.”
- “However, the game’s high replayability is ensured by its variety of levels, the ability to experiment with different strategies, and the presence of additional challenges.”
- “Of course, there are minor game-breaking bugs and it can be harsh at times, but it's initially aimed at trial & error and replayability.”
- “However, the game struggles with depth and replayability.”
- “It's not fun when you have to play through levels again that have no replayability.”
- “If you mess up, you lose any leftover money and items you bought, meaning you can't progress without replaying areas you've already beaten. That's not replayability; that's the game giving you chores to do, which is not fun.”
character development
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The character development in the game is criticized for its lack of depth, with players noting that while the experience is enjoyable, it does not provide a substantial narrative or meaningful growth for the characters.
- “Lack of depth – while enjoyable, the game doesn't offer much depth in terms of narrative or character development.”
- “The characters feel one-dimensional and lack meaningful growth throughout the story.”
- “There is minimal character progression, making it hard to feel invested in their journeys.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's atmosphere is enhanced by its unique and expressive character design, which includes both the protagonist and enemies, contributing to a distinctive visual experience.
- “The characters, including the protagonist and enemies, are drawn in a unique and expressive style, which adds to the game’s atmosphere.”
- “The haunting soundtrack perfectly complements the eerie visuals, creating an immersive atmosphere that keeps you on edge.”
- “The richly detailed environments and dynamic weather effects contribute to a captivating atmosphere that draws you into the game world.”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization of the game is criticized for its unrealistic price of around $5 USD, which many users feel is not justified given the game's defects and shortcomings. Players highlight that there are numerous free, higher-quality alternatives available on platforms like Steam, making the game's cost seem excessive.
- “Mini Thief has a completely unrealistic cash grab price of around $5 USD. It's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings of the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players express a profound sense of isolation and vulnerability when navigating empty environments, highlighting the emotional weight of solitude and the absence of safety. This atmosphere evokes feelings of unease and introspection, enhancing the overall emotional experience of the game.