Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking

THIS IS NOT A GAME! I think it's important that anyone planning to buy this understands this concept right away. You are not going to 'play' with this. It's a museum, an archive, hopefully one that will grow and get more polished in the future if the idea catches. It's a sort of anthology of ideas used in games - mostly videogames - to cope with simulating lockpicking. It does what it's supposed to do.

I respect the work that was done to collect, catalogue, retro-engineer & introduce all these lock-picking game mechanisms, hence why I'm happy to be able to give the developer a few bucks & encourage them in this line of work. However, the museography itself could use some polish, both in content and style, before the experience could be called a true museum. I'll follow closely the following works of the creator, but this experience is a bit too much of a draft as of today for me to recommend it to people who don't already have a solid baggage in game design & game history.

It's a great idea that's marred by subpar implementation. While it purports to replicate the mechanics of the games that it studies, it instead implements a simplified version of the inputs used, creating versions that abandon the polished details of the original mechanics: Oblivion's tumblers in the museum will always stick, the high-skill higher-risk method to rapidly pick locks in Thief 3: Deadly Shadows is notable by its absence, and the Hilsfar locks use a fraction of the number of picks in the original, which dramatically alters the difficulty involved. Notably absent were the two different lock types from Betrayal At Krondor. I'd give the research and analysis an A+, it's just that the examples themselves batted a .000 for feeling like the originals.

Enjoyed going through this! Really highlights how varied lockpicking has been in games. Feels like an important piece of software for archival purposes. I also learned that I never want to play Hillsfar.

If you're a game designer looking to get a primer on the various ways lockpicking minigames have been implemented in gaming history, this is pretty much ideal. Would love to see more of these! I particularly appreciated the developer talking smack about Tom Clancy and the POS director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

This is honestly pretty interesting, I'm excited to see what the next museum is going to be! I think the interface works for what it needs to do, although it is a little frustrating sometimes with controls that aren't meant for keyboard/mouse. Still, this is a great example of a game development tool that's fun to use! (Also P.S. would you mind adding an option to turn the walking sounds off? They're too loud and jarring, but I still want to hear the other noises. Thanks, Mwah!)

Идея интересная, реализация - нутакое...

No hate to the devs, but this game has issues. Some could have been fixed, some other stem from what I feel is disingenuousness. - The game is more than barebone. No soundtrack (even a small ambiant one), almost no graphic options (even for something as simple as V-sync), and the general feeling to be in front of a Unity asset... I get it, this game is aimed to gamedevs. But if you sell it at 8€, just do the bare minimum in term of polish. Please. - The infamous hidden achiement: I get it, the Steam refund policy ***** when it comes to short games like this one. But making an achievement only to circumvent it is at best pretty cheap, and at worst predatory (I'm no scientist and I won't be able to write and extensive argument, but there are links between the need to complete arbitrary sets of tasks and some disorders/mental illnesses). - Honestly, and it comes from a pretty anti-GG person: the way you talked about Kingdom Come Delivrance was a low blow, and felt performative. You should know a single person didn't make this game, and insisting so much on its lead designer opinions -even if they're terrible- puzzles me, especially when some other games in your selection don't receive the same treatment (you feature a lot of games made by Chris Avellone...). To be clear: if you also criticized these games, I would have had no problem. But this focus on KC:D feels pretty performative to me. I wish I liked this game: the idea is great, and the team behind it seems to really love their subject. I just wish they polished more what they had, and had a different mindset. I still will not refund it, because I want to support their effort, and prove them they don't need a garbage achievement to stay afloat. :)

The title of this "game" really tells you everything you need to know: It isn't really a game so much as a museum of mechanics. The creators do an excellent job of reproducing a range of lockpicking minigames from tabletop Dungeons and Dragons all the way up to 2021 video games. The commentary and insight into the social, historical, and gameplay context of these mechanics gives the project its reason to be and are well-written and concise. While the Museum is targeted at game developers, I found it a fun experience despite being no such thing. In short, don't go into this expecting a game. Pay attention to the title and go into it expecting an interactive museum.

Fantastic idea executed really well. Feels a little rough around the edges (only a single developer) but a massive amount of stuff to learn in a very short period of time. Hoping for more!