Info about Spirited Thief:

Official game description:
  
**Spirited Thief** is a tactical turn-based heist simulator with a twist: take your time to scout ahead and plan your heist as your ghostly friend, then use your knowledge to break in and break out with pricey loot.  
Another job gone wrong... Elaj - unlucky thief with a few magic tricks upon his sleeves - and Trin - his partner-in-crime who happens to be an intangible spirit - are on the verge of being kicked out of the ruthless Thieves Guild!  
Determined to prove themselves to the guild, and make some sweet steals in the process, Elaj and Trin must work together to infiltrate heavily protected vaults, mysterious crypts, and more. With the occasional help of allies, what secrets, treasures, and troubles will the pair get their hands on?  
**Scout** undetected as Trin, the spirit. Explore, plan, and locate secret passages and treasures without the burden of a physical body.  
*   Steal as Elaj, the thief. Loot as much as you can without giving the guards time to react.  
*   Outsmart enemies, sneak through locked doors, and break down magical barriers. No door can stop you.  
*   With turn-based gameplay, get in and get out before the guards become aware of your presence. You’ve only got so long, so use your turns wisely.
*   Infiltrate wealthy castles, dark dungeons, and occult lairs under the guidance of the infamous thieves' guild.  
*   Upgrade your skills with new and exciting abilities in exchange for your ill-gotten gains.  
*   Study your briefings so you know what you’re getting into and what to look out for. Will you take it slow and steady to find all the secrets, or is a smash-and-grab more up your street?

Release date: 19 Sep, 2023

Categories: Turn-based Strategy, Stealth Gameplay, Puzzle Solving, Single-player Story, Character Progression, Heist Simulation, Two-Phase Gameplay


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging & Unique Gameplay (weight 0.98): The game is consistently praised for its engaging and unique turn-based stealth gameplay, offering a fresh experience in the genre. Players find it addictive and well-designed, with a good balance of tactical depth and accessibility.
- Customizable Difficulty & Replayability (weight 0.31): The game offers extensive and customizable difficulty settings, allowing players to tailor the challenge to their preferences. This includes options for both casual and expert players, enhancing replayability and accessibility.
- Satisfying Heist Planning (weight 0.2): Players enjoy the core loop of planning and executing heists, emphasizing the satisfaction of outsmarting guards and successfully stealing treasures. The game effectively captures the feeling of being a master thief.
- Intriguing & Coherent Story (weight 0.11): The game's story is well-assembled, coherent, and intriguing, drawing players in with its mysterious elements and character interactions. While not overly complex, it effectively motivates players to continue exploring.
- Effective Scouting & Looting Phases (weight 0.1): The unique mechanic of splitting gameplay into separate scouting and looting phases is highly effective. This design choice enhances strategic planning and reduces stress by allowing players to gather information without immediate punishment.
- Unique Dual-Character System (weight 0.07): The dual-character system, with its distinct roles and harmonious interplay, is a highlight. The amusing banter between the characters adds charm and depth to their dynamic.
- Appealing Art Style (weight 0.07): The game's art style, particularly the pixel art and character designs, is highly praised for being visually appealing, exquisite, and cute, contributing positively to the overall aesthetic.
- Excellent Music & Atmosphere (weight 0.07): The music is consistently highlighted as excellent, enhancing the game's atmosphere and complementing the overall vibe, contributing to a pleasant player experience.
- High Attention to Detail (weight 0.04): The game shows a high level of attention to detail, indicating that it is a passion project from the developers, which is evident in its execution.
- Accessible Main Objectives (weight 0.04): While the game offers depth, the main objectives are not overly complex, making it accessible for players to complete the core missions without excessive difficulty.
- Effective Tutorial & Demo (weight 0.04): The integrated tutorial effectively teaches game mechanics, and the availability of a demo is a positive feature, allowing players to try the game before purchasing.
- Promising Start (weight 0.04): Players are impressed with the game's initial offerings and are looking forward to future content or continued enjoyment, indicating a strong first impression.

Common complaints:
- High, Unpredictable Difficulty (weight 0.3): The game's difficulty, particularly in later levels and during the final battle, is often cited as frustrating due to unpredictable AI, high luck components, and demanding trial-and-error gameplay. This leads to frequent restarts and a mentally taxing experience.
- Numerous Quality-of-Life Issues (weight 0.28): The game has numerous quality-of-life issues, including annoying floor-flipping elements, misleading UI icons, menu selection problems, and a lack of automatic muting in the background. Other issues include progress not being fully retained after restarts, useless control assistance skills, and a time-consuming scouting phase.
- Lacking Polish and Value (weight 0.2): Several reviews mention that the game feels overpriced for its content and lacks overall polish and replayability. Some players also found the story uninteresting and the game inferior to similar titles like Invisible Inc., leading to a general lack of engagement.
- Unclear Mechanics/Puzzles (weight 0.09): Some puzzles and game mechanics, such as certain cryptic puzzles, the mage's spells, and the ghost's teleportation, are not clearly explained or intuitive. This forces players into repeated attempts to understand how they work.
- Lack of Procedural Generation (weight 0.06): Players expressed a desire for more action-oriented gameplay and noted the absence of random or procedurally generated maps, which limits replayability and variety.
- Occasional Crashes and Bugs (weight 0.06): The game experiences occasional crashes, particularly when performing specific actions like knocking out characters. While some bugs remain, the developer is reportedly committed to fixing them.
- Broken Stealth Fantasy (weight 0.02): The shift from a stealth-focused experience to one involving combat, specifically killing guards, broke the immersion and fantasy for some players who expected a pure stealth game.
- Generic Puzzle Design (weight 0.02): The game's puzzles, such as finding keys, pulling levers, and looting chests, are perceived as generic and overused concepts in gaming, lacking originality.
- Repetitive Story Dialogue (weight 0.02): The story's dialogue, particularly from guards, is described as repetitive and uninteresting, featuring complaints about their jobs and odd character placements.

Gameplay feedback:
- Turn-based stealth puzzle (weight 0.52): The game is a turn-based stealth and puzzle game, often compared to Invisible Inc. It features a unique two-phase gameplay loop: scouting with a ghost and then infiltrating with a thief to steal loot and avoid detection.
- Two-phase gameplay (weight 0.41): The core gameplay loop is divided into two distinct phases: a scouting phase where players control a ghost (Trin) to explore the map, gather information, and plan, followed by a looting phase where players control a thief (Elaj) to execute the plan, steal treasures, and avoid guards.
- Varied level design & replayability (weight 0.4): The game features handcrafted levels with increasing complexity and new gameplay elements introduced frequently. It offers multiple ways to complete objectives, bonus challenges, and a rich custom difficulty system, enhancing replayability.
- Story-driven narrative (weight 0.21): The game features a linear, story-driven narrative centered around the thief Elaj and his ghost companion Trin. The plot involves character development, relationships, and progression through the Thieves' Guild's targets.
- Rewind function (weight 0.17): The game includes a 'Rewind' function that allows players to undo mistakes and retry turns. This feature can be adjusted in difficulty settings, offering limited or infinite uses, which impacts the challenge.
- Character skills & upgrades (weight 0.16): Characters possess various skills, including limited 'kill' skills and infinite 'control' skills with cooldowns. Players can purchase additional skills with in-game gold, offering diverse strategies for dealing with guards and obstacles.
- Dynamic enemy behavior (weight 0.1): Enemies have different alert states (alert, enraged) that affect their behavior and search patterns. A 'threat level' system acts as a ticking clock, increasing with turns or detection, and causing more enemies to awaken.
- Pixel art & turn-based (weight 0.07): The game utilizes a cartoon-style pixel art aesthetic and features turn-based gameplay, which encourages thoughtful planning and strategic approaches to its puzzle-like levels.
- Map scanning & overview (weight 0.07): Players can scan the entire map before starting a mission and zoom out for a better overview. This allows for thorough reconnaissance and strategic planning, and maps can be replayed for perfect scores.
- Scouting phase risks (weight 0.06): During the scouting phase, if the ghost is spotted by enemies, all explored vision for that turn is lost, and the ghost is teleported back to the starting area, adding a risk element to reconnaissance.
- Enemy vision mechanics (weight 0.05): Enemies in the game lack turning vision, only seeing 90 degrees in front. However, actively searching enemies perform a wider 270-degree sweep at their destination, requiring players to understand their vision mechanics.
- Skippable cutscenes (weight 0.05): The game includes cutscenes before and after each mission, which can be skipped by the player, offering control over the pacing of the narrative elements.

Performance notes:
- Poor performance and optimization (weight 0): Players frequently mention that the game's performance is poor, with issues like low frame rates, stuttering, and crashes, making the game difficult to play. This is a consistent and specific technical issue.
- Outdated graphics (weight 0): Some players express disappointment with the game's graphics, finding them outdated or not meeting modern standards. This impacts the visual appeal and overall presentation of the game.

Recommendations:
- Highly Recommended Game (weight 0.27): The game is highly recommended, especially for fans of turn-based tactics, stealth, and puzzle-solving genres. It's seen as a good choice for both casual play and strategic thinking, deserving more visibility.
- Similar to Invisible Inc. (weight 0.07): The game is recommended for players who enjoyed similar titles like Invisible Inc. or Tactical Breach Wizards, indicating a comparable gameplay style and appeal.
- Cautious Stealth Recommendation (weight 0.02): The recommendation is cautious, suggesting the game is primarily for those who are dedicated fans of stealth games, implying it might not appeal to a broader audience.
- Needs Walkthrough for Levels (weight 0.02): A player is delaying finishing the game, waiting for a walkthrough to assist with more challenging levels, suggesting some levels might be overly difficult or confusing without external guidance.
- Avoid Third-Party Purchases (weight 0.01): A reviewer strongly advises against buying game balance from third-party platforms. This point shows signs of review bombing, as it is irrelevant to the game itself.

Other player notes:
- Early Access, Future Content (weight 0.09): The game is in early access, and players anticipate future updates to expand content and improve features like voice acting. This suggests a desire for more depth and polish as development continues.
- Story Review Function Needed (weight 0.02): Players desire a story review function to re-watch narrative elements without starting a new save. This would improve accessibility and convenience for experiencing the game's lore.
- Well-Designed Progression (weight 0.02): The game's overall structure and progression system are well-received, indicating a solid foundation for gameplay. This positive feedback highlights effective design choices in how the game unfolds.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.5): Players felt satisfied due to the game's well-designed and unique gameplay mechanics, particularly the stealth and strategic depth. The engaging level design, attention to detail, and overall polished experience contributed significantly to this positive emotion, often highlighted by the successful completion of challenging levels and the feeling of being a master thief.
- Frustration (weight 0.09): Frustration stemmed from quality of life issues, increasing complexity in later levels, and the repetitive trial-and-error gameplay without adequate progress retention. Unclear mechanics, cryptic puzzles, and game-crashing bugs also contributed to player annoyance and a perceived poor design.
- Excitement (weight 0.06): Excitement was generated by the discovery of a high-quality game with unique gameplay and a captivating story. Players also expressed excitement about the game's future potential and the adrenaline-inducing aspects of its narrative.
- Disappointment (weight 0.05): Disappointment arose when the game did not meet players' expectations, often due to a perceived lack of procedural generation, an uninteresting story, or simply not enjoying the overall gameplay experience. Inability to play the game also caused significant disappointment.
- Joy (weight 0.05): Joy was experienced through the enjoyment of the game's mechanics, the satisfaction of perfecting levels, and the appreciation for the game's art, music, and story. The overall fun and enjoyable experience contributed to this emotion.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.05): Players found enjoyment in the game's various gameplay activities and its overarching theme. The general positive overall experience was a key factor.
- Appreciation (weight 0.05): Appreciation was directed towards the developers' efforts, the unique take on the genre, and the adjustable difficulty. The game's demo also played a role in fostering this positive sentiment.
- Engagement (weight 0.04): Engagement was driven by the addictive gameplay, the introduction of new mechanics, and a compelling story. Varied gameplay, customization options, and strategic choices also contributed to keeping players engaged.
- Challenge (weight 0.03): The game's challenge was appreciated, particularly through its puzzles, stealth mechanics, optional objectives, and hidden secrets. The difficulty of achieving perfect runs also contributed to this feeling.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from unclear explanations regarding game mechanics, making it difficult for players to understand how certain aspects of the game functioned.
- Sadness (weight 0.01): Sadness was expressed due to unreasonable save points and a broader concern about the perceived decline of the stealth genre.
- Bafflement (weight 0.01): Players expressed bafflement over the surprisingly low number of reviews for the game, given its perceived quality.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0.01): Mild disappointment occurred when the game did not perfectly align with players' specific hopes or expectations, even if it was still a good game.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance was caused by specific game design choices and perceived limitations within the gameplay.
- Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration was directed towards the developers' responsiveness in addressing bug reports, indicating a positive view of their support.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement was derived from the engaging and entertaining character interactions within the game.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Anticipation was generated by the prospect of new mechanics and the unfolding story, indicating excitement for future content or progression.
- Confidence (weight 0.01): Confidence was expressed regarding the overall quality of the game, suggesting a strong belief in its value.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger was caused by a perceived low quality of the game combined with a high price, leading to a feeling of being overcharged for an unsatisfactory product. This point shows signs of review bombing.
- Immersion (weight 0.01): Immersion was achieved through the game's compelling atmosphere and engaging story, drawing players deeply into the game world.}