Jewel Thief

Jewel Thief

Windows 3 - Screenshot

Developer Paul Ligeski Publisher Paul Ligeski, ServantWare Published 1991-10-08 Platforms Windows 3 Genres Active puzzle, Puzzle, Single-screen Distribution Shareware

Jewel Thief is an action game developed by Paul Ligeski and self-published in 1991 for Windows 3 as shareware. It was later republished by ServantWare and included in the first version of FunPack, but removed from subsequent releases. The game was programmed in Microsoft C.

The game's plot is that the National Museum's jewel collection has been stolen, and it's your job to steal the jewels back. Each stage has a different jewel and guard from whom you must steal. You do this by using the mouse to move your "thief" around the screen to pick up the jewels while avoiding the guards who bounce around the screen. Getting hit by a guard costs you a life, so does leaving the play area.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	Mid 1990s

I first saw this game after borrowing FunPack from a middle school friend. It took me a while to understand why I kept dying, but after reading the rules I was able to get pretty good at it. I played several dozen times before I finally got good enough to beat it.

One thing I noticed about this game, if you slow it down significantly in an emulator, you will notice that several of the backgrounds aren't bitmaps, but are actually drawn using 2D vector primitives.

Review

3	4	3	1	3

Best Version: Windows 3

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• I like how each stage has a new gem and guard, and how every other stage has a new and interesting background.
• Making the player the mouse cursor was a pretty clever idea, something I hadn't seen in gaming prior to this point. I also like how the developer took advantage of the Windows user interface (the cursor leaving the form) to make a game mechanic.

Bad

• The sprites flicker pretty badly and the xor drawing makes it a little difficult to keep track of the guards.
• The playable area is already pretty small, but, because the game doesn't scale with higher screen resolutions, the game becomes even harder to play with larger DPIs.
• Some of the "guards" become a bit ridiculous: toy soldiers, rain drops, etc. This makes it seem like the story was tacked-on.
• The preachy ending is lame.

Ugly

• The game has very little depth. The mechanics remain the same from the first stage to the last, you're just repeating the first stage with an ever growing difficulty.
• The game lacks multimedia. There isn't any sound or music, and the graphics are dated. The SNES was already out before this game was released.

Media

Screenshots

• 

  The game's completely believable backstory.

• 

  Instructions.

• 

  Hints.

• 

  Starting a new game.

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  Garnet stage.

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  Ruby stage.

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  Gold stage.

Graphic Sheets

• 

  Jewels.

Videos

Review, Lazy Game Reviews.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no strong women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	No female characters talk.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	All characters are white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Download

This archive contains three versions of the game. Version 1.0 is the original release, 1.3 adds a difficulty setting, and 1.4 adds a setting to not kill you when you leave the window.

• Download (Info) - Versions 1.0, 1.3, and 1.4.

Links