The Heist - iPhone - *CONTAINS SPOILERS*

In case you missed it in the title this post contains spoilers for the game, so you should probably only read it if you  a) aren't going to care, b) aren't going to play the game or c) get some perverse satisfaction from being angry that there were spoilers in something you read...

The Heist gives you 4 types of puzzle to solve:

• remove the block by sliding tiles
• Sudoku
• Remove control move blocks around to get them onto squares
• Link point 1 to point 2 (like pipes)

Each of the puzzles has 4 levels of difficulty, each of level of difficulty has 4 puzzles. So all in all you're sort of paying for 64 puzzles.  Which perhaps isn't very much, but that's only part of the appeal of the game. 

They premise of The Heist is that you are helping a woman break into a bank vault.  On the main screen is a picture of said vault with some security measures.  There's an XP bar at the bottom and as you complete puzzles that goes up.  When you've done a set quota of them you break one level of security, and the graphics change a bit, which is all quite pretty and amusing (and this level of bank security explains a great deal about the whole banking crash we've been through.)

The puzzles aren't that difficult in the main (which is good because I'm not very good at them) but keep you gently challenged - it was my ideal elevator / waiting for the kettle game. You don't have to do them all, which means you can focus on the elements you're better at if you want to just progress on in the story

What defines the game though is the clever gimick.  Here comes those spoilers I mentioned.  Did you get that?  Spoilers ahead....

When you start a new game your phone rings, and when you answer it a woman talks to you and asks you to aid her in the heist, and gives you some strict instructions about how to get through the vault to victory.  You can put her on speaker phone and there's a picture of her in  your contacts and everything.  Brilliant.  If you're not expecting it it comes as a surprise and a welcome one.  It's quirky and a great gimmick and a bit of exposition to the 'story' of The Heist.  After that she 'calls you' after each level and a couple of times during the event and at the end she factimes you.  Brilliant.

On top of  all that there's a prize.  It's a downloadable puzzle game from Steam, which is a nice touch.

It's a very clever way of spicing a simple game up and the people over at Macheist (it's worth taking a look at their website too, as it contains lots of nice bits and bobs) deserve a little round of applause.  I'll certainly be downloading the next game, mostly because I want to see where the story goes next!