Thieves' Gambit: The Curse of the Black Cat

Rating: 3/5 As mentioned in the blurb, you are the world's second greatest thief, intent on stealing the most unlucky, well-portected and coveted diamond: The Black Cat. This is an honest addition to the Choice of Games catalogue following such works as the Heroes Rise Trilogy and Choice of the Deathless. I admit I didn't find this quite as compelling or engrossing as some of the others but it certainly did have its moments. Unlike other Choice Of Games' titles where you begin at the bottom and work up, Thieves' Gambit has you start off as the 'World's Second Greatest Thief', a position that's kind of hard to swallow considering the number of times your character will screw up through no fault of your own. The story is decent enough, just a bit short and lacking in substance in some parts. On my first playthrough the whole thing ended up as 149 pages of various length (in comparison Choice of the Deathless averages to about 290). Story length, however, shouldn't really matter if you...

Thieves' Gambit: The Curse of the Black Cat A Choose Your Own Adventure [CYOA] done by Choice of Games. Basically you're a second-best jewel theif and are stealing the unluckiest diamond. I felt it had some serious potential to branch of more then it did, but it left me feeling a bit disappointed. It was rather abrupt, random and short but overall, I enjoyed it. Outside of getting all the achievements, there is no replaying it, or going back to it. The story scenes were actually pretty good, first playthrough it took until the end to figure anything out with who was on your side and not. There were some choices of romancing the same sex, but it fell short of fleshing anything out. I recommend it based on the fact it's a cheap, short story and it was worth what I paid for.

To be entirely honest, Thieves' Gambit is significantly shorter and much less complex than most of Choice of Games' other titles. There are only two "morality stats", neither of which you get many chances to really explore or play out. Even while reading each whole page of text thoroughly, I managed to complete one run in little under an hour. Mechanically, it's nothing to write home about, with only the most basic of CYOA features. However, Thieves' Gambit succeeds spectacularly in being more enjoyable than a large majority of the other CoG games on Steam primarily due to its unique premise, and the way that it absolutely and lavishly indulges in it. In case you couldn't tell from the name and the description, Thieves' Gambit is a CYOA about being a classic "Master Thief" type character - You recruit your crew, case the joint, launch the heist, and get away from the boys in blue, your ill-begotten trophy securely in your hands. The game gleefully throws every Master Thief/Heist-genre...

A decent presentation from Choice of Games. I am a fan of their products and buy anything they put up on Steam. This particular story, which I won't give away any details on, is rather short compared to some of their other offerings, and it feels somewhat singular and lacking in flexibility with little in the way of options or replayability. That all said, the writing is solid, entertaining, and flows well. It had my attention, and I finished it in one sitting. If you're curious, it certainly deserves a look, and for the price, you just can't beat it for a short but satisfying ride.

This time in a Choose Your Own Adventure game by [i]Choice of Games[/i], you play as the world's second-best jewel thief planning a heist of the most dangerous diamond ever known. Travel the world while you slowly gather your team together, one by one -- old friends, old lovers, and perhaps even old enemies. Do some spywork, inflitrate the mansion in which the diamond is kept, flirt with your team members, evade your police inspector nemesis... This story contains every heist/spy trope in the book, including car chase scenes, sexy clothing, and lots and lots of charisma. And it's downright [i]fun[/i]. [h1][b]The Good[/b][/h1] + Action! Guns! Chase scenes! Riches beyond your imagination! + Scheming rival who steals all your targets away from under your nose + Option to stab your team in the back if you want to [h1][b]The Bad[/b][/h1] - At 100,000 words, it's significantly shorter than other games in the CoG lineup - Due to its large use of heist/thief genre tropes, the story is very...

One of my absolute favorite Choice games, not super long but doesn't feel unfinished or too short, either- well-paced and fun. If you like heists, you'll like this.

I had a long rambling, review written for this game, as I did not enjoy this at all. But... I will keep this short and sweet. Thieves' Gambit is [i]longwinded[/i]. Not in a good way, either, mind you. It rambles nearly as much as I do, and barely anything happens, even as the climax is upon you. Everything feels stilted, drawn out for maximum word count, and lifeless. I figure this is more a cash grab than an actual story that the author had been wanting to write. I do not recommend this game, at all. Try something else from the COG library. Like Heroes Rise, Choice of Robots, Choice of the Deathless, etcetc.

This had great potential, but it kinda falls flat. The Good: -You have two antagonists: a rival who is better than you and a police who is always one step ahead of you. -I liked the history of the black cat diamond, made my skin crawl. The Bad: -Not enough stressful decisions. There are two that I vividly recall, but the rest are pretty meh. -Too many characters. You can recruit up to 5 members on your team and each one makes the job that much easier. However two of them have no purpose or specialization. And with such a short story I'm not really sure what my role in this was, besides assembling the team. The story and action would have benefitted greatly by limiting your team size to 3 recruitables. All this being said I do want to play again and try out some different options. The game is the right price, but there are much better ones out there.

Considering the absurdly low price, this is worth getting. Don't go into it expecting a typical Steam game-- it's a short story, with a few places to make Choose-your-own-Adventure sort of choices. Except that it's a short story, so most choices are just for flavor, or to get one of the Achievements, and there is very little deviation in the alternate branches. If you like completing games, then this is for you, as I myself was able to get all Achievements in one day. Important consideration: there is no replayability after the first day; once you've gotten all the Achievements and seen all the alternate endings, then that's that. I don't mind this, since I went into it understanding that it was a short story more than a game and I enjoyed it on its own merits as a homage to "It takes a Thief!" and other 60's Heist and Caper movies. Mild spoiler: If it's not an Achievement to dance/romance them, then it's not an in-game option either. Whether this is a positive or negative fo...

Slept and started an affair with my archnemesis, then betrayed my whole team. Still a better love story than Twilight/10