Thief (arcade game)


Thief is a 1981 arcade video game that is extremely similar to Pac-Man.
The player operates a car being pursued by several blue police cars, in a maze that is supposed to represent city streets. There are eight mazes in all, which change every level in a set order, then repeat starting with the ninth screen. The ninth through sixteenth levels are identical to the first through eighth, except the cars all move faster and the dollar signs don't last as long. After that, the game loops back to Level 9, even identifying it as such. Mazes can have up to three side tunnels that the cars can use to go from one side of the screen to the other, but a few have no tunnels at all.

Gameplay

Each maze is littered with dollar bills which the player collects by running over them. There are also several golden dollar signs placed throughout the mazes ; hitting one of these causes the police cars to temporarily turn red. While the police cars are red the player can crash into them and score extra points ; if contact with the police cars occurs at any other time the player loses a life. When all the dollar bills on one screen have been collected, the player advances to the next level.
As the player clears screens, he receives a new title. There are sixteen titles in all:
Thief was notable for using tape-recorded sounds masquerading as police radio communications as part of its sound effects, which ran in a continuous loop while the game was played. Contrary to claims on various websites, this is not actual police chatter, and this becomes more and more apparent as the chatter goes on, as the voices ham it up more and more, as well as directly taunt the player. Similar tape loops were used in some of Pacific Novelty's other games: NATO Defense and Shark Attack.