Where can I get Burglar!?

Burglar! is available on z2 as well as playable in browser via Archive.org.
You can also explore the world yourself on the Museum of ZZT Public Beta.

Burglar!

Burglar! I'm not yelling about it, I'm just writing the exclamation point included in the title. Burglar!! Wow! What a game!

MadTom was a very prominent ZZTer in the mid-2000s and it was the release of Burglar! which brought him into the spotlight. There are ZZT worlds which are good, and there are some which are great, but there are just a tiny few which truly excel at creating something unique. Burglar! comes up a lot when asking ZZTers who were around after its release what their favorite ZZT games were, and for very good reason. Burglar! is easily one of the most innovative and fun to play ZZT worlds ever released.

Before I get everybody too excited, it's definitely not perfect. It has issues that make it less accessible than it could stand to be, and one scene in particular has aged very poorly when playing it in 2017. There are definitely moments where you can tell it was written by a fifteen year old, but the game overall is still strong enough that it can easily hold its own when compared to games outside of the confines of ZZT.

It takes some time, and can be punishing if you aren't liberal with making multiple saves, but whether or not you've grown up playing ZZT, you should absolutely try the game out for yourself.

With all that being said, let's begin!

Burglar! begins with a solid looking title screen consisting of the game's title and a drawing of (what I assume to be) Luke Steel, the game's protagonist who just so happens to be a burglar. Luke casually flips the coin in his hand playing a nice little ASCII animation of it rising and spinning in the air before it lands once again on his finger.

I just now realized that he's not wearing a black mask over his eyes, but sunglasses. Luke is just that cool.

In addition, the title screen also has a short song looping. MadTom was one of the dedicated few who came to grips with ZZT's crude musical capabilities and produced a lot of great music for his games as well as for others (perhaps most notably, the soundtrack used in Zenith Nadir's Frost series). The music here is a bit cheerful for the game's tone, but it sounds nice and is worth a listen and a good excuse to check out the coin animation as well:

One last point of interest is the [ FILE ONE ] in the corner. ZZT's limited board size (roughly 20 kilobytes) and world size (300 or so) meant that larger, more complex games would be split across several files. Burglar is maybe 50 boards in total, but broken into two pieces to ensure ZZT doesn't run the risk of crashing during play.

Upon pressing P to play, the player is taken to an interactive menu with an unmasked Luke pointing a gun at the menu itself. The menu comes off as more of a formality if anything. A large number of ZZT worlds start off on menus rather than jumping straight into the game. The about section contains a list of MadTom's previous ZZT releases, the forthcoming says that he's got more in the works but won't name specifics, and the credits is mostly just the usual list of titles all credited to MadTom other than the beta testers.

It also includes shoutouts in the form of IRC logs. This one here is the best of them.

The game begins proper with Luke walking along the street, though he'll be interrupted with the game's introduction very quickly.

Right away there's a lot to take in. The conceit of the game is a little strange. You're a hired burglar? The city's whole network of criminals is based around this front company and you'll be paid to steal stuff. Not on the level of bank robberies or anything, but somebody out there is paying Luke very good money to go to a specific address, and take a VCR.

Burglar!'s writing takes on a lot of ego-building for Luke. It'll often come off as teenage power fantasy, to be this cool collected badass who has no fear of danger and is irresistible to women. The framing of everything isn't the most compelling, but the actions the player gets to take are how the game hooks you.

Like the scroll says, Luke will have an inventory of equipment to help in his burglaries, and that failures are an instant game over. MadTom suggests saving only when it's safe, and not during burglaries, but in practice that would become very frustrating to do rather than make new saves constantly. It's a bit too easy to lose progress, but I'll get to that when it's more relevant.

On the streets is a sleeping man who looks just like Luke, and a "psycho dude" whose watch can be stolen. Luke is shameless and never shows any doubts or has any morals getting in the way of making a quick buck. Again, it's a power fantasy kind of game, and frankly I don't want to imagine a young teen trying to make the game into a drama over the ethics of theft. Luke's a burglar. You're playing as Luke. Go burgle.

The front lobby contains a guard, and the player can see into the next room with a few more people. MadTom added a bit of visual flair with the abstract background rather than opting to have the rest of the room match the brown walls or just have it floating in a black void. This is a simple visual flourish, but throughout the game MadTom will make the most of the space provided. To get into the building, Luke needs to first get past a security guard.

Power fantasy. There are no consequences for this, and flashing the card for the business lets the player in just the same.

Aside from the injured guard, there's a bit to explore here.

The first chair I looked at to see if the chairs had a message had 20 dollars on it. Lucky me.

The eastern passage is blocked and serves as the location the player will end their nights in. There's an event every burgling evening.

If you want to hit on the receptionist, you'll have to save it for the party.

Teenage boys are so very very good at writing believable flirtatious dialog.

Lastly of interest is a map of the building. I'm kind of lying about this because the building is very straightforward. It's pretty unnecessary and doesn't mention the night club to the east as well.

The boss gives his spiel and explains how the job works. Steal from a few places each night, then payment.

The briefing and equipment rooms are to the west and are where the player will be given some important information and have to make some even more important decisions based on that information.

Interacting with the very large computer brings up the relevant information on the first outing for the night. Simple stuff, an empty house with a basic security system. Nothing the sunglasses at night wearing badass Luke Steel can't handle.

The equipment room offers a selection of useful tools Luke can bring with him onto each burglary, but only three of them can be carried. So let's take a look from left to right of the eight available options.

1. A pistol with 20 bullets
2. A grappling hook with 50 feet of rope
3. A flash pellet to temporarily blind somebody
4. A sticky goo adhesive that dries almost instantly
5. A Pokémon card somebody left on the rack
6. A pair of pliers
7. A set of lockpicks
8. An electromagnetic disruptor to break small alarm systems

So what would you take? Check the briefing again if you're unsure.

Did you choose the lock picks, disruptor, and gun? If so, congrats, you can rob the house and get some optional items.

Did your selection not include both the lock picks and disruptor? Whoops! You're destined to fail and will be unable to proceed with the game. Reload your save now. The all or nothing approach to Burglar! is what prevented me from enjoying it when it was a new release, but though it's got some very punishing design it is at least something that can be worked around. MadTom was at least kind enough to include the correct equipment choices in the game's text file.

There are some other weird quality of life issues here as well. If you pick up three items and go to another one it tells you that you're carrying too much already, which is fine, but it doesn't pop up the description of the item so you won't even know what you're missing.

More of a pain is the fact that despite the objects for each item not disappearing once picked up, you can't touch them again and opt to put them back down. If you're trying to play without using the provided solutions, it's critical to make a save before picking any equipment.

Once everything's been taken, the player can talk to the person in blue who will open the door to progress to the first mission.

And now onto the meat of the game. Missions are presented as single boards like this one where it's up to the player to figure out how to get inside and take everything that could be of value.

First thing to do is activate your disruptor to disable the home's alarm. You can trip it if you move more than a few tiles into the home where the tiny blinking red dots on brown are. They can be tough to see sometimes which is fitting I suppose.

The front door is locked as well, but can be picked by standing next to it and using the lock picks.

With that, the player is in the home.

The VCR is quickly recovered and reveals an exit passage to return to Baglarr and Sons to drop off the goods. Of course, there's still more to swipe.

It's important to realize that your tools don't disappear once they've been used. Luke can keep on picking any locks.

The first mission contains more than just a pair of earrings and a VCR, though they were all I could get. The TV was too big to carry, and the garage door was dead-bolted preventing access.

What this mission does well though, is tying everything together. The player can shoot the lock off the garage door (but only after closing the front door to help muffle the noise!) and then load the TV into the car, hotwire it, and drive away.

The optional items are probably handled best in this mission. Most missions unfortunately require all three items to be able to complete them, which leaves no room for error and mostly turns collecting items to steal into a matter of finding out how to get the player next to them to snag them. Still, it's a nice introduction to the game and how it works. The first mission is more of a tutorial if anything where the only danger comes from the player's lack of foresight.

Back at Baglarr's, the player can now interact with the bursar to pawn off their stolen goods and make some more cash. The earrings sell for $100, the TV $500, and the Mitsubishi Lancer, $5,000. The VCR, and all future target items are never mentioned again, presumably going to the boss, who has a client who asked for this specific VCR to be stolen in the year 2001. (Here's a Best Buy ad from 2002 that sells DVD players for $60-180. Perhaps a DVR would've been a more valuable item to use instead.)

In addition to selling stolen goods to the bursar, the player can also purchase flashlight batteries represented by torches. This is essential (and the game even tells you as much) that many missions will be dark. I opted to purchase ten of them which was plenty. There's no need for money for anything else so it's quite easy to afford them as needed.

Entering the briefing and equipment rooms gives the player a chance to hear about their next mission and pick up a new set of items to bring with them. Again the briefing offers hints towards the correct set of items: Lockpicks, Pokémon cards, and pliers. The pliers are the guesswork of this operation, and while "kids exist" doesn't scream "bring Pokémon cards", knowing that the item is available as a choice, it would sound like this is the situation where it could actually be useful.

Like the computer said, the apartment complex is dark. The only thing visible is ironically, the hidden exit passage for when the mission is completed.

Almost immediately, Luke is put into danger as janitorial staff approaches singing We Ain't Got a Barrel of Money

Foddah's a rough town.

MadTom opted to implement anti-cheating mechanisms by having the same object that calls the #endgame command also #change basically everything on the board into empties. You're doing the game's missions without dying or you're not doing them at all.

The solution is to race pretty quickly towards a supply closet and don a disguise. The timing is so tight that if the player wastes any time they probably won't get to the closet before being killed, especially if they opt to try to rush through the apartment door, so a death here is almost unavoidable for a new player. It's so early on into the mission that it doesn't really feel very punishing at least, and the only other thing in the room is the closet so it's not much of a challenge to get right the second time.

With the cleaning woman out of the way, Luke can safely take the time to pick the apartment's lock.

I don't get very far before one of the kids wakes up and needs to be kept quiet.

There's another time limit again, with the kid talking more and more until eventually the parents do wake up. It's much more forgiving than the previous one however, giving the player ample time to head to the kids' room.

The yellow smiley face child needs to be placated.

This is not done by talking to him.

Luke Steel, Pick-pocket, Burglar, and Pokémon Angel

This is enough to let Luke keep on burglin', and there's some more items to check out in the kids' bedroom.

Kids with their own computer! Lucky them.

There's also a diary for one of the kids. I won't post it here because it's just some of that classic early 2000s humor of "Ha ha I'm implying a ZZTer a pedophile, but you know I'm just kidding. This is very funny". So let's just move along.

The requested wallet can be found resting on the kitchen counter. Again these target items are weird. $333 to steal a VCR and another $333 to steal a wallet. Of course, like the first mission there's more that can be acquired.

Firstly is a tv that's been mounted onto the wall. This is where the pliers come in. Shortly after grabbing it, the mother of the house wakes up to get a glass of water and Luke is forced to quickly hide himself.

Unfortunately, the game is very picky about hiding. If the player is anywhere other than next to the arm of the sofa in front of the television, they'll be spotted and instantly lose. I tried hiding in the bathroom where there's no line of sight, but it wasn't good enough.

With everything taken that I could grab, I headed through the passage to return to Baglarr and Son's. The hidden passages in the rooms themselves is a bit strange versus just leaving the way the player came in. It would've been simple enough to not allow the player to exit without the requested item rather than suddenly walk into walls to get out.

I had a better haul this time. I completely forgot to screencap picking up the paintings, those were hanging on the walls outside the apartment. They sell for $300, the old computer for $100, and the regular old tv for $50. I'm not sure why they were described as rich exactly.

Onward to the third and final mission for the night! Do you know what items you'll need? This time the answer is grappling hook, flash pellet, and the disruptor. The disruptor and grappling hook are reasonably hinted at, but there isn't really anything to imply the need for the flash pellet.

Things are a little different this time by virtue of not being a home this time. More importantly is that it's also the first mission which begins outside the building without any interior shown.

One issue that does come up with Burglar is demonstrated here. It's pretty obvious that the player will need to grapple up to that ledge, but it isn't made clear where they need to stand to be able to actually get Luke to use his rope.

Once used successfully, an object moves upward and creates a rope made out of brown fake walls (by first putting a torch to get brown) that the player can then climb their way up. It's a cute effect that's used in a lot of ZZT games.

As simple as ZZT's graphics are, MadTom does a great job here making it feel like the player is balancing on a small ledge outside of the building.

Creeping across the ledge, Luke opens the window from the outside, and then it happens.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa! This is so good! This is so good! THE ROOF DISAPPEARS! This just caught me completely off guard. I fully expected a little passage to show up and to proceed to an interior board, but this is still the same one. Not only does the roof disappear, but the interior of the room uses STK graphics as well. The object responsible for this is changing various colored invisible walls which have light gray backgrounds into torches and forests to get the browns and dark greens necessary. The walkable tiles are gray on gray line walls. Objects in the room quickly change to visible characters. The effect is pulled off so well and really shows the kind of tricks MadTom has up his sleeve.

Oh, that degree sign was an active security system and I instantly die for walking into its view before using the disruptor.

There's not actually a whole lot to do in the office. A drawer contains the wedding ring, a xerox machine is too big to take with you, and a Pentium 2 computer that can be taken.

Of course, the big prize is some secret accountant crack.

On the way out however, there's a witness. Having known to use the flash pellet I proceeded to head towards them.

Except in this case you need to use the flash pellet when not aligned.

The flashbang does indeed flash, causing all the empties on the top half of the board to become white for a second. This is enough to buy Luke the time he needs to escape back to Baglarr's. Interestingly, this puzzle does have a second solution, where the sticky adhesive can be thrown at the witness to make them stuck and unable to run to the police.

Small haul tonight.

The coke goes for a grand, and the Pentium 2 for $400. Lastly is the new option to get paid for successfully finishing all three of the night's jobs.

With all the work done, Luke's just in time for the night's party.

Oh my playthrough as mentioned before I didn't pick up the Mitsubishi in the first mission so this total really caught me off guard. I do like the completionist aspect, but it's a bit flawed with the fact that the player has to spend money on torches to reasonably do the second mission, and that the score isn't reset on future nights. So come night two the player will be told how many points they could have earned on the second night, but their score will also have their night one points included in it making it difficult to tell how well they did on night two.

But for now, it's time to party.

Again the game reminds us it's been written by a teenager. I want a burglar's jacket.

The club has a few tables, a small stage, a large dance floor, and a bar.

MadTom does something pretty unique here. Somebody at one of the tables invites you to join them, and a passage becomes visible afterwards, but the player isn't forced to sit down just yet. They can instead explore the club at their leisure.

The receptionist Luke flirted with earlier can be found at one of the tables. She's sitting with her very intimidating boyfriend. Luke wisely decides that chasing after her would be a very poor move on his part.

Most of the club's denizens are there for decoration, a few people dancing, some already quite drunk. (One of which will give Luke $20 if you answer his drunken ramblings a certain way.) The boss is sitting at the counter but says he'll talk to Luke later.

After some time has passed, one of the other burglars walks over to the sound system.

AND THEN EVERYBODY STOOD UP AND CLAPPED.

There's one last person the player can get a good conversation with, and that's a man known as "Pique Poquet".

It's interesting how friendly this conversation is because the pickpocketing tournament is a major part of the second half of the game with Pique being treated like he's a huge jackass.

Having gotten everything out the club available, Luke should make his way to the table now.

Our conversation with this trio adds some more characters into Burglar!'s world. Frank's having a rough time, James made some nice cash, and Rita lucked into a free car. There's a prompt about whether or not the player will talk about hotwiring, but it only adds one extra line to the conversation and the player's choice has no effect on how things play out in the future.

The boss gives Luke his assignment for tomorrow night, but it's going to require a partner. Fortunately Luke's just made a few new friends at the table he can ask to tag along.

Frank will turn down your offer, thinking he shouldn't go with you while the boss is accusing him of cooking the books. Rita and James are fair game though. I opted to go with Rita thinking there might be a split in the game's story and I totally wanted to get on her good side and steal cars with her later. Alas, that never happens, and the partner chosen only changes some dialog.

Once your partner's been selected, Luke excuses himself to retire for the night and heads for home.

And with that, the game's first night is complete!

Once again the player is placed on the streets to enter Baglarr and Son's, and once again the player can kick the guard in the balls. Before finding out Luke's plans for the night, he'll need to speak with the receptionist again.

Burglar! didn't really have much of a plot going on the first night, but there's much more story that will be coming up now that the game's premise is firmly established and now that there are supporting characters. Frank was just met last night and Luke is already attached to him and convinced he wouldn't steal any cash from the business. Luke's very trusting for how little he's interacted with Frank, but it mores things along.

The partner chosen at the party last night will be waiting for Luke in the briefing area. Talking to Rita brings up the fact that she's shaken and has clearly been crying earlier.

Even Rita admits she has a slight doubt at Frank's innocence due to their money troubles. The conversation with James is similar, and brings up that he's 55 years old, and only hasn't retired because he's still the best in the business.

Regardless of which partner is selected, the briefing is the same for the game's fourth mission:

Luke is always the main operative in each possible scenario. The only difference is how the partner acts as a decoy and what item they opt to bring with them. Rita takes the flash pellet and James will bring along a gun.

The other three items are once again left to the player's choice, but the second set of missions has a tweaked selection of items. The new list includes the following tools:

1. A pistol with 20 bullets
2. A laser pointer
3. A grappling hook with 50 feet of rope
4. A flash pellet to temporarily blind somebody
5. A hologram generator to create a fake Luke!
6. A sticky goo adhesive that dries almost instantly
7. A stethoscope
8. A screwdriver
9. A pair of pliers
10. A set of lockpicks
11. An electromagnetic disruptor to break small alarm systems

This time, the correct choices are the screwdriver, the pliers, and the lockpicks. I think this is the most well hinted at set. For mission four, it's more about paying attention to the fact that the disruptor won't work on a large security system, and from there the correct three items are much more obvious.

Of course, that didn't stop me from taking the disruptor the first time. With an earlier save loaded I selected the proper equipment this time.

The entire mission is on a time limit with how long your partner can distract the guards.

Our non-canon James distraction goes a little something like this (edited to remove some movement commands and speed changing)

So James tricks the guards into doing some drinking with him to keep them all busy until being recognized from the hotel he mentioned getting a big score on the previous night.

Meanwhile, Rita...

Rita meanwhile... does some sex work? I'm assuming she actually does this and not just knock the guard who goes with her out since there's no plan to actually get rid of the guards, just keep them busy. Women with their sexy bodies that men can't resist. Am I right?

I crunched the numbers a bit, and the player does get some extra time to work when picking James as their partner, but there's ample time to finish it with Rita as well.

Of course, while all this is going on, Luke has to perform the burglary.

The screwdriver and pliers can be used to disable the alarm safely. Once this is done the player pretty much can do as they please.

The western cubicles have a computer to steal, and two envelopes full of cash. I worked an office job for a few years and don't recall anybody leaving hundreds of dollars lying on their desks.

The only other office that can be accessed is this one. The door is locked and it's where the lockpicks become mandatory.

The boss's office has a gold fountain pen, along with another envelope of cash. Once its been taken, the player does actually have to leave through the entrance they came in.

The lack of communication between the two is weird, but as long as Rita isn't caught while the player's on the screen she'll get away just fine. It's very quantum in that way.

Perhaps one day Luke will steal a modern 2001 Pentium 4, but today is not that day. The pen goes for $200, and the Pentium for $800, though since the mission was shared, all the money is cut in half for Rita's share (this applies to the cash envelopes picked up as well). Luke's an honest criminal.

This is the closest Luke ever comes to being called out on being a jerk for no reason.

Next up is mission five.

Perfect Luke is also an expert safecracker. This mission's items are the stethoscope, the lockpicks, and the screwdriver. Again, not the disruptor, though that's what I took over the screwdriver. At least this time the mission can still be completed as the screwdriver is only needed for some bonus cash.

The bookstore plays differently from most other missions. The alarms here can't be destroyed with any items. You can see them in red on the side walls near the entrance, and also on the bookstore's back wall. They change character at fixed intervals and need to be moved past when they're not actively looking at Luke.

The timing is pretty tight, but with saves on demand it's easy to just move through each beam one at a time. Aside from that, Luke can just head directly to the safe behind the counter. This is obviously a time for the stethoscope.

In a very cool sequence*, MadTom uses the various click sound effects ZZT offers as types of drums and actually has to identify which of the tones was different! It's a really cool safecracking mechanic and one of the more innovative puzzles Burglar! offers the player.

*Unfortunately this is an audio based puzzle, and for some people with hearing issues, they're kind of screwed (at least it's easy to edit the game and find the solution). Good puzzle: Yes. Accessible puzzle: No.

Of course, even with good ears, playing the game in Dosbox makes for the occasional audio hiccup which makes it a bit difficult to get through in general. An option to to spin the dial again before entering the number would be a welcome addition. Perhaps with a wrong choice alerting the police and putting the rest of the mission on a time limit to add some urgency to getting it right rather than the implemented failure causing a game over.

That's all there is to the mission that's required, but there are some optional valuables to loot.

The cash register requires the screwdriver to access via just unscrewing the drawer and dumping the money out of it, but if the player is willing to cross several more alarms, they can browse the shelves and find some valuable books. All sorts of titles are available, including:

• Bathing for Beginners - A. Perve
• 'Ere, Tyson, Where's Me Ear? - E. Holyfield
• The Lord of the flies II 'What They Did With Piggy's Body' - W. Golding
• Obvious Pseudonyms: Volume I - Pinky Wa Wa Beetrooty Sodapoop
• Obvious Pseudonyms: Volume II - Jimothy Ratatatata Tawhoomph
• Small, Smelly Places You Can Visit - M. Iser
• Why Praying Mantises Eat Their Young [A guide for distressed parents] - K. Nabul
• Holy Bible - Printed 1787
• ZZTAE for Beginners - CyQ
• Fun With Puppies - Issue #3 'Experiments in Aerodynamics' - O. Drea
• Guinness Book of Almost-But-Not-Quite-Broken-Thanks-For-Trying Records. - A. Gimp
• The Lord of the Rings Box Set, 1965 [Autographed by both J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson!] - J.R.R. Tolkien
• A Brief History of COWS - Boonob
• The Adventures of Asterix #37 'Asterix and the Erectile Dysfunction' - Goscinny & Uderzo
• WHY I.R. IS HATING IDIUT WEASEL!!! - I.R. Baboon
• Fun with Toothpicks - Issue #45 'Pagan Rituals Issue' - I. Vanknow
• Oooh! That Scwewy Wabbit! - E. Fudd
• Masturbation Boy - ISSUE #24 'A boner too far!' - H. Euheuh
• John Candy's Big Book of Brassieres [For the well-endowed man.] - J. Candy
• I Didn't Really Walk on the Moon! I Just Fell Over a lot! [History of a government cover-up] - N. Armstrong
• The Catcher in the Rye II - Holden does Chicago! - A. Moron
• Cat Pancake and Other Household Recipes for Use With a Wringer - C. Ball
• Daddy Drinks Because You Cry - B. Sharp
• Speak Ebonics in Thirty Minutes, Yo! - W. Sup
• ZZT and How it Wrecked My Life Forever - C. Marchionne
• Things I Have found in the Sewers - S. Pelunker
• Hot Women and Computers - Compatible? - A. Nerd
• Universe Man - Issue #1 INTRODUCING UNIVERSE MAN!
• Chicks I Have Screwed - A. Liar
• Seventeen Ways to Eat Piez - zamros

The player can take the Bible and the Lord of the Rings box set. They can also read the Universe Man theme song which seems like a not-quite accurate transcription of some of the lyrics of the They Might Be Giants song "Particle Man".

Back at the base Luke sells his 200 year old bible for $500. He then sells his Lord of the Rings books for twice that! I love this game's economy. Again, a Pentium 2 sold for $400 to compare with the good book.

The final mission for the second night is to take a necklace from a home with a single sleeping occupant. Oddly, this mission only requires two items, the third of which you take will have zero impact. Just get the hologram and the lockpicks and you're good to go.

The house is pretty nice looking. The excuse of the parents being out for the evening is a bit odd given that that it's just a single bedroom. The door is of course locked, and easily picked.

Above the fireplace are some gold ornaments to take.

Luke can steal the fancy silverware.

But refuses to go in the kitchen where there'd presumably be more? Instead the only place left for Luke to go is into enemy territory, the two rooms which have occupants.

The woman wakes up and begins calling to her sleeping boyfriend. If Luke takes to long to do something she'll walk into the living room and he'll be caught. The solution to this is AWFUL.

This upcoming scene contains some sexual assault!

If you'd prefer to move past all this, Click this link to scroll to the next event after it's all said and done and we can move on to more pleasant things.

Here's the title screen again. Just you know, so we can look at that for a moment.

So yeah, the solution to this is to open up her door and pretend that you're her boyfriend!

That just happened! I'm more shocked than I was about that disappearing roof effect from earlier.

So uh, the good thing about that scene is that the art is very nice? But it's a LITTLE BIT SPOILED BY THE CONTEXT.

There's a lot to take in here. Burglar! has stellar reviews, and not one of them mentions this scene. It's a good example on how the discussion of sex in video games has changed over the last decade. This scene apparently didn't bat an eye in a community of teenage boys, but it's mind blowing to see today.

MadTom was very much known within the community as somebody who was a bit prissy, and so to see content like this from him is genuinely unexpected. I'm sure the justification back then was the "well it's not like Luke's _attacking_ her". It's just like the also super gross scene in Revenge of the Nerds.

Most ZZT sexuality is crude humor, probably most notably in Draco's Teen Priest series which has a few sex scenes, but (at least I hope my memory is correct) those were always consensual! But Luke Steel is a power fantasy and that means he has to get with beautiful women at all times.

Today this scene is a huge blight on what's otherwise, excusably flawed with its portrayals of women. There's dumb horny teenage boy writing his cool black eyed sunglasses wearing protagonist who women can't help be attracted to, and then there's very much a crossed line here.

It's gross. It's bad. It's very unexpected (and I am certain MadTom would be mortified to see it again). The good news is that there's nothing else like this for the rest of the game, and it just returns to it's usual banter of Luke saying something and winking and the women giggling.

Let's move on from this.

Here's one of the books from earlier!

In the bedroom, Luke can find the necklace that was requested.

Unfortunately for him, after opening the door to make an exit the boyfriend begins to wake up.

This is a good example of not knowing where you need to be to use an item. If the boyfriend catches up to Luke, he'll be beaten and the game will end. The hologram can be used from anywhere, but it takes a second before the game will acknowledge that it can be used to solve this puzzle.

The hologram activates and produces, well, a dark blue rectangle. It's supposed to look like the player, but a #put object will use the default character for objects which is 0 and thus invisible. Close enough though.

Form there Luke can walk on out the door and head back to base.

The ornaments sell for $2300.

The night is still young, and Luke has time to kill before the party starts.

This information is useless to me since I still have however much money from night one!

Now the stakes are getting really high as Luke sneaks into the boss's office. The paintings on the wall are apparently all of famous criminals as well as one of the boss himself. There's nothing suspicious about them, but the desk drawers are certain to have some clues.

The big reveal comes in. Soon after taking the evidence, Luke hears footsteps outside...

It's honestly a little tense. This is not a place Luke should be right now, and if he's caught here it won't be jail, it'll be his head.

The only other item of interest is the boss's safe.

This can't be done until its alarm is disabled. There's a screwdriver in the other drawer which can be used to remove the panel to a fusebox and then disable the power to the room.

Just like at the bookstore, the player needs to solve an audio puzzle to crack the safe's combination which is kind of strange since it's supposed to be electronic, but I guess that only means the alarm in this case.

But he's rudely interrupted by the boss and Frank trying to get his job back. In order to not get caught Luke will have to hide behind the chair.

The boss shivs Frank and leaves him bleeding on the floor. Once he's gone the player can safely check on Frank.

Luke actually gets picked up by player and carries him out of the office.

And the first file comes to a close with a lot of questions to answer!

The second file has a matching title screen and main menu. Most ZZT games split into multiple parts like this would create a simple password that needed to be entered to play the other files, but Burglar! just lets you jump right in. It makes a lot of sense with ZZT having an editor making it trivial to get into any game that tries to restrict the player. Even with a password you're still using the honor system.

And so the boss is verified as the culprit, framing Frank to let himself get away with his embezzlement scheme. The art here is nice, with the checkered floor, and the complex pose of two characters holding hands. I can't help but see the envelope Luke's holding as an iPhone though. He's definitely taking a selfie.

With the party over, the group opts to expose the boss at the awards ceremony for the pickpocketing contest the next day.

I'm with Pique on this one. I do not believe Luke's claims one bit.

The next section of the game is a timed sequence lasting about 5 minutes where Luke has to pickpocket and absurd number of people in order to show up Pique.

I'm really conflicted on how I feel about this sequence because it's very impressive, very tedious, and very difficult. It's an excellent idea, but the execution is a bit flawed. There are four boards full of people to rob, but in order to succeed you'll have to get nearly all of them.

The first street is full of vendors at stalls, a couple on a bench, and some people walking down the road. If the walking people leave the screen Luke will miss his chance.

In addition, you can't just touch them to pickpocket them. You'll have to get behind them if they're moving or distract them if they aren't. This gives you a limited window in which they're vulnerable.

You can distract them with Saturday Night Live hits.

Convince people to start walking so you can get behind them.

Or just find people who are oblivious.

There's a kissing booth where you can pay $5 to get a chance to grab some cash.

There's a guy selling porn.

But the cops are more interested in attacking him than arresting you. If you're really fast you can get $200 from the cop's wallet.

Dick's Diner offers more marks. Here people will be getting their orders and then leaving the building offering Luke his chance.

Luke can then pull out his chair, knocking Dick to the floor and making him vulnerable.

There's a soda machine outside that can be used, obviously somebody will need a drink before they can be robbed.

Down the street are a few more stalls, a live band, some kids playing in the park, and a construction area with quite the crew.

MadTom was a huge fan of Led Zeppelin so I'm pretty sure this would work on him in real life.

One of the stalls is selling CDs, and Luke can make a request. If you ask for anything but Beethoven the vendor will have it right away, but if you choose Beethoven they'll turn around to dig through their wares.

You can even steal from the bassist.

The construction area is a red herring and the player can't actually get inside the circle. This is a shame because it's full of ZZTers. Tseng by the sandwich, MadTom up top in white, Zenith Nadir in green, and I don't recognize the others by sight so who knows who else is there. (I want to say the purple one is Draco but don't trust me on that.)

The last place to explore is a music shop. Everybody distracted and browsing can be taken from indiscriminately.

I knew it!

Oh, he's diabetic. He had $410 on him.

Back outside it's time to solve some more puzzles. According to the stats on the right, I've got 36 pockets picked, 88 second left, and 7544 dollars stolen. The obvious marks are pretty much all taken, and everything still left is behind a puzzle of some sort. It's not enough to win the contest currently.

Free hat from the street performer.

There's a broom by the homeless man on the first street board which can be used to sweep up the crud by the couple sitting on a bench. Once it's been cleared Luke can snag the wallet.

In the music shop, somebody's playing the piano. Touching him only makes him brag about how good he is.

But if you happen to hit some notes on the other half of the piano itself, then you can get the money.

The hat can be used to blind one of the punks at the concert, causing them to storm off and be vulnerable.

There's some lemonade in the restaurant that can be spilled for two more successful thefts.

My last mark was the previously mentioned Dick whose chair needs to be pulled out. Once time runs out on any board, a player clone is placed in front of a duplicator with a passage behind it. This serves as an automatic warp to the passage's destination once the duplicator activates bringing the pick pocketing contest to an end.

Actually playing through the contest, there are a lot of ups and downs. Getting moving targets in time is a challenge, and the puzzles are pretty fun and simple. It's a little bit drawn out though, and you'll likely find yourself trying to pick the last few stragglers around with a bunch of time left on the clock.

MadTom suggests not saving at all during the contest as it's necessary to win it to proceed with the game. This is bad advice, and Burglar! is much better enjoyed with frequent saves under new names. It would be very frustrating to have to start it over from the start from a single slip-up getting Luke caught.

The requirements are also a bit higher than I'd like. In order to win the contest you need to pick at least 40 pockets out of a possible 50. This leaves very little room for error with many pockets being missable. There's also the cash mechanic, where you're supposed to be proving to Pique that you can break his record, and though the game tracks how much you took, Pique is never mentioned again regardless of whether or not you beat his record for cash taken.

If you perform particularly poorly the judge will insult Luke and Luke will get mad and consider kicking him in the balls. That's Luke's thing I guess.

It's on now. The final mission of Burglar! is to steal from the police themselves. Burglar! has been a lot of fun to play up to this point, and this final sequence is very well done.

This is it. Don't get scared now.

True to his word, the boss really does give you a complete inventory. Every single tool is at Luke's disposable for this impossible mission, including another Pokémon card. Being smart with all these items is Luke's only chance.

The mission begins outside the police department where several officers are already on alert from the bomb threat that was placed on the building. One of the trees is climbable via fake walls.

I figured the laser pointer might make for a decent way to distract the cops, but to no avail. The solution here is a bit more blatant.

The gunfire needs to be investigated and most of the cops are told to check it out, leaving only one behind, which gives Luke some opportunity to walk towards the building without immediately being spotted and killed.

Luke doesn't get much time to react once spotted, but a well timed flash bang will blind the remaining officer and give Luke a few more seconds.

Tension is not often something ZZT can make somebody feel, but this whole sequences does an excellent job of keeping the player on the edge of their seat. It's about as heart-racing as ZZT can get.

Luke, who has been nothing but confident this entire game is now genuinely worried and fearing for his life. He looks like he's trying to not have a panic attack right now.

The next board places the player in the vents, with almost nothing visible. Approaching the grate ahead...

Pulls off that wonderful technique seen in the game's third mission, with the next room becoming visible. The police station has fog of war. There's a single officer in the room, oblivious to Luke's position. There must be some way past him...

It is not to shoot in cold blood.

Instead the player needs to quietly choke him with the rope, and then smack him with the gun to knock him out. Luke's made it this far without killing anybody and he's not going to start now.

Casual homophobia :thumbsup:

I assumed we'd be stealing his uniform, but getting a silencer is a welcome addition. After crawling out of the grate there's only one exit from this room, right through the door.

Oops.

The stethoscope lets Luke get some insight to what's on the other side of the door this time.

Now with only one cop to face, Luke can barge in, but he'll need to be fast if he doesn't want the last officer to beat him on the draw.

Another non-lethal kill for Luke.

Yep. He's fine.

Because I have the worst possibly memory, when I head to the southern exit I just barge in again. At least this time I didn't get killed for it.

The chemical storage room contains a few phials with some chemicals including laughing gas, sleeping gas, invisible sleeping gas, and nerve gas. This is a weird thing to keep lying around behind an unlocked door. Only the invisible sleeping gas can be picked up which if you ask me goes against the principle of Checkov's nerve gas.

The last door is stethoscoped out and shown to be quiet before I open it.

There's nothing of interest in it, just the connection to the next board of the station.

There's a bucket by the player that can be picked up. There are some more cops up ahead, and a small closet full of things. It's up to Luke to figure out how to get past the next set of cops here.

Fortunately they are easily distracted and don't like looking to the right.

The broom closet contains a few things including a broom, some chlorine, some washing soda, and a grate that's welded to the wall.

Obviously the player needs to mix the chemicals in the bucket and get some hydrochloric acid.

This can mostly melt the grate.

And then Luke can use the broom to mess that grate up good.

With one more cop to get past in the bathroom, Luke can again knock somebody out, this time with the broom.

In the bathroom, the classic ZZT mirror effect is on full display and MadTom admits he had to do it! I love ZZT mirrors so much.

The chief of police is in the next room, Luke's goal is in sight and has one final officer to deal with.

Mission accomplished! But it's not over yet of course. Luke still needs to make it out of here alive.

The escape sequence is timed, with some nice objects counting down the time remaining for Luke to escape. He'll have to make it past several alarms like the ones seen in the bookstore mission from earlier.

Halfway through there's another hidden alarm that can't just be ran past.

To make it through, Luke needs to shine a beam of his own to trick the alarm into thinking it's still active? It's kind of weird, but after getting past that and the last few alarms Luke is out safely.

A rough conversion of Smooth Criminal is played via PC speaker at this point.

Luke, scared witless and still convinced he's going to be arrested at any moment is relieved to find out that the police just don't care. I mean, I can get not pursing the stolen badge, but somebody broke into the police department and shot a cop. Next time Luke should bring a ski mask.

But he's safe in his apartment now. I love the speakers in the background here.

There's that teenage boy writing again.

And that's Burglar!! Burglar II, unfortunately never happened. Luke's story draws to a close.

Final Thoughts

Burglar! is easily one of the most well made ZZT worlds out there. It creates a style of gameplay unlike anything else out there for ZZT, and even outside of ZZT the number of games to compare it to are pretty slim (the Thief series would make the most sense). MadTom managed to create a game that plays very well with ZZT's limited mechanics in such a way that it feels like you're playing something more than a ZZT game. It's very difficult to make something in ZZT that doesn't feel like it had to be scaled back to work. Burglar! feels uncompromised. There's no exposed wiring where the game has to warn the player that if they aren't delicate things will break.

The coding is excellent, each location burgled feels different enough from the others and does a good job of keeping the player on their toes. Mission 2 with the child calling for his mother and the mother getting a drink work particularly well at making sure that the player never feels safe committing their crimes.

The second file of the game does even better. The pick pocketing sequence draws on a little bit too long, but gives a sense of an open and busy world. There's a lot of life in the streets and overall it's a lot of fun to go through the sequence. It's hampered by its strict requirements, but as a playground of people to try and con it's very fun to play.

Then there's the police station finale. It is very difficult to create tension in a ZZT game. Everything is smiling and there's usually very little feedback on the situation through gameplay. Writing works for this, but then you're simply telling the player how to feel and breaking the flow of gameplay. The police robbery is genuinely intense to play, sticks to brief snips of exposition, and uses the fade-ins of new rooms to create a sense of unease. You don't know what you'll be up against next, and there's no fumbling with torches and limited views of what the player can currently see. I feel like making the police station require torches would've significantly reduced its impact. The room by room exploration does a much better job of restricting the player's vision of the entire board and allows them to see things at the end of a hallway that would be out of a torch's limited range.

There are still some issues, but most of them can be mitigated with frequent saves or are more suggestions for improvement than problems with the game as it is. Selecting equipment for missions is very punishing for wrong choices, and often prevents them from being beatable. The game does an adequate job of hinting at them, and is kind enough to explicitly list them in the game's text file so it's not as bad as it could be. Burglar!'s equipment feels like it would have been better if there were alternate solutions for its puzzles, with different items being accessible depending on what was brought along. Lockpicks probably should've just been an innate item the player always has as they're mandatory to complete five of the game's six missions where equipment is chosen.

One aspect where ZZT's limitations do sneak up on the player is in how little there actually is to steal! This is an issue with ZZT's 10 flag limit and at any time 3 are used for equipment, and one for the ?+i inventory engine to use said equipment. This leaves 6 more, but the game also has to track which mission the player is currently on, and flags also get used for tracking states like hiding behind furniture. This all comes from the fact that the items manually need to be sold to the bursar after each mission. The 4th mission done with a partner gets around this by having envelopes of cash that just immediately give money, and I think immediately receiving the cash could've meant more to take. Barjesse's Nightmare used a crude way of compressing flags in groups of four which could've also been used here as well to track what's been stolen without wasting one flag per item.

Then there's the 6th mission which wound up needed a content warning. That part is pretty uh, bad.

In the end though, Burglar feels incredibly cohesive, and well made. It's one of the more professional feeling ZZT worlds out there barring its writing. Its strengths lie in its variety. Burglarizing, pickpocketing, and safecracking all come into play throughout the game. It would've been easy to make a game about robbing homes where you just dodge alarms and pick up items, and something like that would've felt like what you'd expect from a ZZT game just called Burglar!, but MadTom really went above and beyond and created an experience that is truly memorable and easily makes it one of ZZT"s finest.