Turning Over a New Thief

In board gaming, publisher Restoration Games has carved out a particular niche: they secure the rights to classic games of decades past, update them for the modern audience, and re-release them. Their upcoming update of Dark Tower is one that several people I know have their eye on. But recently, I got to play one of their previous releases, Stop Thief!

I actually wasn't aware of the original game on which this was based, but I was all set to write about how derivative I felt the game was of a more widely known game called Scotland Yard... until some quick research showed me that the first Stop Thief (no exclamation point) was released four years before Scotland Yard.

In its new incarnation, Stop Thief! pits the players collectively against a burglar controlled by a smartphone app. The villain moves around invisibly on a game board, making footsteps inside or outside, smashing windows, and stealing items. Each of these actions makes its own distinct sound, and the players deduce from the sounds of multiple consecutive moves where on the board the thief is currently located. Their job, to find that thief a specific number of times before it can steal all the money remaining in your bank.

The gadgetry here is somewhat appealing, though it must have been more impressive in 1979; the original game came with an electronic device that made the sounds and allowed players to input search coordinates. The game that came later, Scotland Yard, was essentially the same thing minus the gadget, plus the idea to cast a player as the criminal in a "1 vs. many" game format. Both games scratch pretty much the same itch, so even though I'd never played Stop Thief, Stop Thief! had a warm nostalgic feeling to it.

But, as with some entertainment from one's youth, it's not as good as you remember. Stop Thief! is arguably not so much a board game as a puzzle. The more players you have, all tracking the different possible locations where the burglar could be hiding on the board, the more "solvable" that puzzle is. Everyone gets the cooperative thrill of winning together, but at the co-op game risk of not everyone really contributing to the process. There are a couple of decisions to be made at least, thanks to a card-based movement system that gives each player a special ability, and asks you to balance big movement turns with little ones. Still, if you're used to more intricate cooperative games (like, say, Pandemic), Stop Thief! feels pretty limited by comparison.

There is a competitive option for the game that I'd be willing to try -- there's still one thief to track, and the information about where he's hiding is (mostly) public knowledge, but players get credit for tracking and capturing him individually. There might be more interest in that... or you might feel more at the whim of randomness when the thief moves toward an opponent and away from you. Hard to say without trying it.

Either way, Stop Thief! isn't a bad experience. It just shows the signs of being 40 years outdated by board gaming innovation, even if work was done here to spruce it up. Fans of the original, or of Scotland Yard, might enjoy (re)visiting it. Other gamers likely won't be so enamored. I'd give it a perhaps charitable B-.