The Masterplan

About

"The Masterplan" is a top-down strategy game that simulates heist operations in the 1970s. Players must plan and execute daring robberies, assemble a crew with unique skills, and manage resources to complete missions and earn rewards. The game emphasizes strategic planning and decision-making, with a variety of tools, weapons, and gadgets at the player's disposal. Tense stealth and action sequences provide a thrilling experience as players navigate increasingly challenging heists.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

+20

61%

Audience ScoreBased on 724 reviews

story12 positive mentions

stability52 negative mentions

The game has a unique and engaging heist mechanic that allows for multiple approaches to completing missions.
The art style and soundtrack effectively capture the 70s heist movie vibe, enhancing the overall experience.
The game offers a good amount of replayability with various heists and the ability to strategize different approaches.

The game suffers from frequent crashes, especially during missions, leading to lost progress and frustration.
Controls can be clunky and unintuitive, making it difficult to manage characters and execute plans smoothly.
The AI pathfinding is poor, often causing characters to get stuck or take inefficient routes, which can disrupt gameplay.

story
185 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
91%
3%
The game's story revolves around a protagonist who escapes from prison during the Nixon presidency and returns to a life of crime with his brother, embarking on various heist missions. While the narrative provides a humorous backdrop and hints at deeper lore through collectibles, many players feel that the story lacks depth and is overshadowed by gameplay issues, such as frequent crashes and a lack of save functionality during missions. Overall, the story is seen as a minor aspect of the game, with players hoping for future expansions that could enhance the narrative experience.
- “The story doesn't really matter, nor should it necessarily in a game built around putting your team together and pulling off unrelated robberies/heists, but the game begins with our protagonist busting out of prison during the Nixon presidency and returning to a life of crime with his brother.”
- “There is a story now intricately woven throughout the levels, little snippets of paper building the mystery of what's going on.”
- “Thematic and subtly detailed story combined with mechanics that are intuitive and enjoyable.”
- “Story doesn't really matter, nor should it necessarily in a game built around putting your team together and pulling off unrelated robberies/heists, but the game begins with our protagonist busting out of prison during the Nixon presidency and returning to a life of crime with his brother.”
- “I played through the entire game hoping that the later missions would show me something new beyond what was in the first three or so missions, and never really got it.”
- “Unfortunately, there's not a lot of depth to this either and the customization ends up coming down to generic thugs with random names and sometimes just redoing missions over again to get the money you need to finance a tool you need for the next mission.”
gameplay
181 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
37%
53%
10%
The gameplay of this game is a mixed bag, featuring engaging core mechanics and a unique heist theme, but marred by numerous bugs, clunky controls, and frustrating AI behavior that can detract from the overall experience. While some players appreciate the fresh hostage-taking mechanics and strategic elements, many find the gameplay repetitive and the interface unresponsive, leading to a sense of frustration. Overall, the game shows potential but feels unfinished, making it advisable for players to wait for improvements before diving in.
- “Great visuals, music, and simple and addictive gameplay.”
- “The gameplay is fantastic, really -- you take a group of four criminals to various locations and rob the place, using stealth, intimidation, or straight-up violence to clear out all the loot, only to put that money into better gear and more thugs to pull off even grander heists.”
- “Actual gameplay is an addictive mix of calm planning, mixed with constant adjustments to the ever-changing chaos that is your heist.”
- “This game feels unfinished and is very buggy as is, so while the core mechanics are great and fun, the game itself makes it hard to enjoy.”
- “Concept is super cool, but the gameplay is clunky, frustrating, and not so rewarding.”
- “The downsides are really all in the mechanics though, a lot of the game's difficulty comes from unresponsive controls and the clunky interface that doesn't do what you want it to do 'in the moment', leaving you frustrated when one of your goons runs off and tries to circle around the building when what you wanted him to run over and do was directly in front of him but some stray box told him to go the long way.”
graphics
97 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
51%
43%
6%
The game's graphics have received mixed reviews, with many praising the colorful, hand-drawn art style that captures a 1970s aesthetic and enhances the overall atmosphere. However, some players have noted issues such as graphical glitches, unresponsive controls, and a lack of customization options, which detract from the experience. Overall, while the visuals are generally considered appealing and fitting for the game's theme, they are not without their flaws.
- “There is plenty to love in the game; colourful graphics, excellent music, and heist missions in various locations and some alternative ways to complete each of them.”
- “A great blend of action and strategy with good writing, gorgeous graphics, and a nice soundtrack.”
- “Graphically, it looks pleasing to the eye, and what's even more important, it feels fluid in motion.”
- “Despite Marsh's glowing appraisal of the early access version, I was slightly put off by the busy cartoonish graphics (I prefer my heists minimalist and clean), so I didn’t play until I had the release code.”
- “Very unresponsive controls, awful graphics, dumb AI, and the game hasn't nearly enough content to justify $20.”
- “The game can lag for no apparent reason, lag badly, which considering the graphics can only be because of atrocious coding.”
stability
54 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
4%
96%
The game is widely criticized for its instability, with numerous reports of bugs, crashes, and graphical glitches that detract from the overall experience. Many players feel it is unfinished and frustrating, despite acknowledging its fun mechanics and potential. While some updates have improved stability, the consensus is to wait for further fixes before fully engaging with the game.
- “So far, this version is already extremely polished and it runs great without any problems.”
- “This game feels unfinished and is very buggy as is, so while the core mechanics are great and fun, the game itself makes it hard to enjoy.”
- “I don't see why developers decided to release it and remove the 'early access' mark as the game is really buggy.”
- “The game is fun but it is highly buggy; I was able to play the beta a lot without it crashing and now I can't even get it to start up.”
music
44 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
43%
7%
The music in the game has received largely positive feedback, with many praising its catchy, jazzy soundtrack that effectively complements the retro heist theme and enhances the overall atmosphere. While some users noted issues with repetition and technical glitches affecting the audio, the majority found the soundtrack to be a highlight, fitting well with the game's visuals and gameplay. Overall, the music is described as a strong point, adding to the game's charm and nostalgic feel.
- “Both the art style and the soundtrack faithfully recreate the feel and the atmosphere of classic heist movies and TV shows of the 70’s and 80’s.”
- “The music sets the tone for the game.”
- “It was totally worth it to buy the soundtrack as well, because it's awesome.”
- “Sometimes it's content to lag like crazy or just drop the music down to a whisper, but sometimes it'll just crash to the desktop (especially if you pause it).”
- “This game was a waste of time and it's disappointing that such an interesting concept and a game I looked forward to messing around with ended up being poorly made. If anything, I only paid 5 bucks for the game and soundtrack; hopefully the soundtrack is at least okay.”
- “Turns out there isn't an options menu; you can toggle fullscreen on and off, you can toggle music on and off, and you can see what the controls are, but you can't even rebind the controls if you don't like the defaults.”
grinding
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
24%
63%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be a mixed experience; while some appreciate the engaging hostage mechanics and the slow-mo feature that alleviates frustration, others criticize the repetitive nature of tasks and the cumbersome click-based interactions. The need for save scumming to ease the learning curve and the desire for more diverse heist locations in future installments highlight the game's potential for improvement in this area. Overall, grinding is seen as tedious but manageable, with room for enhancements.
- “Save scumming is a big part of the game for the sake of speed and making the learning curve less tedious. It would be nice if there was an iron man mode that killed all crew members if you quit after the cops show up.”
- “In a sequel, I'd like to see a wider variety of places to hit so you're not farming the same convenience and jewelry stores during the early to mid-game.”
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “The game requires you to click every time when you want to equip something and to interact with every character around the environments, including yourself. This might sound easy at first, but when you pull out an item or drop something you need, a simple hotkey to activate things could've been used; it gets tedious.”
- “Lassoing your units and setting them to perform tasks is not only tedious, but an exercise in frustration when you are attempting to click and it doesn't register.”
optimization
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
50%
25%
The game's optimization has received mixed feedback, with some players experiencing crashes and performance issues, particularly on larger maps during late-game scenarios. While some users report improved performance and smoother gameplay after adjustments, others still find controls to be unresponsive and performance to degrade over time, leading to crashes. Overall, the optimization appears to be a work in progress, with varying experiences among players.
- “The game right now runs just fine, now with better performance and no more crashes ;)”
- “I had a few crashes, but besides that it runs smoothly and is a lot of fun.”
- “So the solution is creating an alternative Windows user with Latin letters or renaming the current one.”
- “This game has some serious performance issues on long/large/busy maps (aka the late game ones).”
- “(It's gotten to the point that I don't even bother bringing ammo for my guns, since the penalty for killing people is completely over the top anyways. You're just better off resetting the mission if things go wrong.) The longer the mission goes on, the worse the performance gets, ultimately ending with a crash to desktop if you take too long on a busy map.”
- “Fun but crappy controls and sluggish performance (in a 2D game!).”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is praised for its humor, featuring a funny storyline and interesting setup that contribute to its charm as an indie title. However, players note that technical issues, such as lag causing characters to behave erratically, can lead to both hilarious and frustrating moments, particularly with the game's police mechanics.
- “The game is a funny little indie game.”
- “Funny storyline, interesting setup.”
- “There are of course quite a few bugs and issues such as if the game lags it causes the characters to fly across the screen which is hilarious until it screws you over.”
replayability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
25%
25%
The game offers a solid foundation for replayability, particularly with its four heists that allow for varied approaches and improvement on previous runs. However, players express a desire for more levels and additional modes, such as an ironman mode, to enhance replay value further. Currently, some users feel the game lacks significant replayability after initial playthroughs, with limited content available.
- “This is a very well-made game, even for early access. I have high hopes for this game and definitely recommend picking it up now, even though there are only 4 heists, because they are highly replayable as you can approach them in many ways and possibly improve on your last run.”
- “There is already an acceptable amount of levels to master with a solid amount of replayability, but more levels would be excellent!”
- “Maybe 1 hour of gameplay currently with no replay value yet.”
- “Overall, an ironman mode would make this game much more replayable.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The atmosphere of the game is highly praised for its authentic recreation of classic heist movies and TV shows from the 70s and 80s, enhanced by a fitting art style and soundtrack. Players find it engaging and enjoyable, particularly in the context of planning robberies and heists.
- “Both the art style and the soundtrack faithfully recreate the feel and the atmosphere of classic heist movies and TV shows of the 70s and 80s.”
- “Great atmosphere, fun, challenging, and I like to plan robberies and heists.”

67%Critics’ scoreBased on 10 critic reviews

Buy The Masterplan

2h Median play time

3h Average play time

2-8h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 8 analyzed playthroughs

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The Masterplan Review

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