This free lockpicking puzzler you can play in your browser is unexpectedly one of the most thrilling games I've encountered this year

I love lockpicking minigames, especially when representatively they're as far away from the act of lockpicking as possible. While I admire the elegance of Bethesda's bobby-pin/screwdriver system seen in Fallout 4, I'm much more interested in the weirder solutions like Splinter Cell's baffling pin-flicking system, or Gothic Remake's absurdly elaborate sliding puzzle system.

I love how developers have tried so many ways to represent the act of lockpicking, and that despite this nobody has 'solved' the problem of virtual lockpicking yet (though Bethesda has arguably come closest). Inevitably, then, I was drawn to the idea of a game that is all about lockpicking. But I never expected that it could be as imaginative and thrilling as Lockpicks-11.

An entry for Ludum Dare 57, Lockpicks-11 places you in the role of an unnamed thief in the middle of a heist. Yet rather than being a fully fledged burglary simulator like Thief, Lockpicks-11 distils the act of larceny to a linear sequence of locked doors.

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What makes Lockpicks-11 interesting is that every lock is wildly different. Some are based upon recognisable locking mechanisms, like inputting a four digit code, or aligning symbols via a tumbler system. Others are more out there, like replicating a sequence of musical notes, or navigating a 2D maze to collect objects.

Lockpicks-11 - Puzzle your way through the collection of lockpicking minigames! - YouTube

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The order of these puzzles is randomised each time you play, and Lockpicks-11 provides minimal context to how each puzzle works, so you have to figure it out for yourself. On top of that, your thief is being chased by the world's slowest security guard, and if he catches you before you unlock a door, it's game over.

This combination of elements—the puzzles, the randomisation, the lack of context, and the timed element—makes Lockpicks-11 shockingly tense. The maze puzzle, for example, randomises the controls for navigating the maze, and in my last run I was seconds from being caught before I snatched the last collectible and my knotted fingers prised open the lock.

For a game built in 72 hours by a team of two, it's a mightily impressive creation. If you fancy giving Lockpicks-11 yourself, you can play it in your browser. If you're a lockpicking aficionado like myself, I'd also recommend you check out The Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking, a digital exhibit that explores the history and evolution of these security-busting minigames.

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