Osta Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure

Unplayable

the game does not render properly on higher end graphic cards, leaving many of the menues unusable and missing, breaking the game beyond playablility.

the one puzzle I was able to play was kind of fun though... too bad I'll miss the whole of the rest of the game.

CAUTION: This game does NOT run properly on many new systems!

I cant get it to run, as many others complaining about it in the discussion forums!

YOU ARE ABOUT TO PURCHASE A BROKEN GAME.

This is not a game for everybody, but I LOVED it. As other reviewers are saying, it won't hold your hand--the puzzles are pretty darn difficult and usually don't explain themselves. But that's the appeal for me. It's like I really get to be a detective in some movie or something, and I have nothing but my wits to go on. The downside to the difficulty is, of course, you WILL get frustrated from time to time--pretty often, in fact, so if you don't like scratching your head too much, this isn't your game. But the difficulty of the puzzles and having to figure out even what you have to do to figure them out means that you get a huge rush from solving them. Not joking, the satisfaction of solving these things is great, makes ya feel like an extra-special clever lil cupcake. Beating the game made me feel like a genius.

I do want to point out, someof the puzzles require you to give up on the room you're working through, try another route, then come back when you've gained a clue or insight from somewhere later in the game. If you have to come back to a puzzle, it doesn't mean you've failed, and you're probably doing what you're actually supposed to by saving it for later.

The problems I did have were mostly interface ones: when you do get a verbal clue from your character, it is only ever said once, and there's no way of it being logged in a Notes menu or anything, so if you go AFK for a minute at the wrong time or don't have your sound turned on, you can miss the hint completely. The hints usually aren't going to be crucial to solving a given puzzle, though. Also, I wished it was easier to move around the house; because the game is a point-and-click, you walk down hallways by clicking your mouse in the direction you want to go, and the screen changes to the part of the room you're in as you move. There is a map in your menu that gets marked off when you solve the puzzle in that room, and I wanted to be able to "fast-travel" or something similar by clicking on the room I wanted to go to, instead of having to go through the whole house one scene-frame at a time. It IS a point-and-click from the early-2000s, though, so not a lot to be expected there.

Overall, I loved the game, and when I was done, I went and bought another whole package of point-and-click puzzlers from the same company, I liked it so much!

Extremely buggy on modern operating systems.

Unfortunately, I cannot get this game to run on a modern system, and it doesn't seem like I'm the only one with this problem.

This game plays just fine on my machine. Don't know why other have had so many problems.

Short play through, the puzzles are clever, the story interesting. The ending has a bit to be desired but other than that, solid puzzle game. Wanting more of these!

System Specs:
Windows: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (64-bit) Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Memory (RAM): 12280 MB
CPU Info: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
Display Adapters: ATI FirePro V8750 (FireGL)
Monitors: 1x; Acer X243W |
Screen Resolution: 1920 X 1200 - 32 bit
Motherboard *: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6X58D PREMIUM

First the game launched and played completely normal in Windows 8.1, but after several Windows Update, the game getting buggy like a lot of people have already state. While the bug is there, I still have to give this game a thumb up due to it amazing puzzles and the feel it brought to me.

First of all - yeah, when I first started this game on my Win7 it had a twitchy picture and was virtually unplayable. My solution was to run it in windowed mode (via config file). Not a perfect way, but I've hardly seen any downsides.
Apart from that - don't get it wrong. It is a puzzle-puzzle game. It's short, it has next to nonexistent plot (which at the ending seems not only nearly nonexistent, but unnecessary as well). All in all - guys, it's not Myst, ok? It's a collection of assorted puzzles in a comfy environment. It will be a mistake to see it as anything but.
And so, the cornerstone of the game - puzzles. Puzzles are mostly really good. Some are quite inventive, some do a sort of unexpected play on widely known puzzle (like a famous pipeline puzzle with restricted movements, for instances) But, well, at the same time couple of puzzles are really dumb, while others just require decent amount of mix-and-match, which is not that fun. And of course, it can't be unmentioned - The confederate Cipher wheel WAS NOT used this way. It's a vanilla Caesar cipher in game! Come on, son! The whole point of cipher wheel is to scramble the letter statistics. Why can't you've used the proper codeword instead?! Oh, and a 6 moving pins puzzle is WAY too easy for it's own idea.
That said, other puzzles are fairly decent and inventive, though I've actually managed to solve 2 or 3 of them by semi-random clicking.
So there you have it, it's a compendium of puzzles set in a nicely drawn decor. Some are genuinely good, some are fairly stupid, some are unnecessary hard (that damn broken lock!). So pick it up on a sale cheap, go have your grey matter for a swing for an evening or two, but be cautious whether you'd manage to run it properly on a modern system.

If anybody else had trouble to start up this game like me then here is what i did to fix it.

1) If steam remains stuck in preparing to launch. Make sure the game is installed on the same hard drive as steam. Usually the C drive.

2) If the game flickers. Go to your steamapps/common folder then safecracker2. In config AND STEAM_config files change bFullScreen=1 TO bFullScreen=0 and save.

3) I also had the game freeze on a black screen. To resolve this in my case i went to Nvidia control panel, manage 3d settings. Safecracker2 then manually turn Antialiasing mode to off. That solved all my issues and yes it was worth it.

I love games that put your brain to the test and Safecracker certainly did that!
The puzzles were varied enough to keep the whole experience interesting. It was nice having a subtle story behind it too, as it gave it more meaning. I would recommend this game to those who enjoy solving puzzles and feel rewarded when they finally crack a safe.

Took around 6 hours to complete and i found having a pen and paper handy helped :)

All your puzzles from regular point & click adventure games with almost none of the story to slow you down. Make of that what you will.

Oh puzzles how you annoy me so, but I keep coming back because you also intrigue me.

I have not beat this game so my opinion is subject to change however the premise of this game is quite nice and both hilarious at the same time. The idea a rich guy retired and went into making ridiculous puzzles to hide his fortune is quite interesting and funny.

That being said this game makes me rage quit a lot, maybe I am not good at puzzles but I generally find myself stomped on puzzles trying to figure them out. Till i recently tried taking a picture and pasting it into gimp to put trials for example of what i tried and what failed in different colors. It felt really cool planning out the path to complete the puzzle in some instances and gratifying when it worked.

The game links puzzles together in some instances where you get parts for completing some puzzles and had to piece them together to complete others to go into the rooms. I really liked how the system worked basically the locks on doors were only accessed through solving the puzzles around you and limited your freedom of movement but the more you solved puzzles and opened doors the more pathways you had to return to places you came back from.

I would defintly recommend this game to people who like puzzles and jotting down notes trying to work out what paths didn't work out or not to deduce where to go to beat it!


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=269577246

Probably the most fun I've ever had at five frames per second. Beautiful game with a variety of puzzles. However, be sure to bring your own soundtrack; this game does not have one of its own.

Interesting, to say the least. Safecracker is a Point-n-Click style adventure game with a first-person perspective and 3D environment. You play as a professional safecracker hired to find the long-lost will of some guy who owns an oil rig. This game was released in late 2006 and the graphics are pretty stellar for it's time. Clean, sharp textures and smooth lighting. However, this isn't saying much as the majority of the game takes place inside an old Victorian manor. The puzzles are very interesting and require a wide variety of logic and situational awareness. My only complaint is the somewhat steep learning curve for some of the puzzles. I've also heard that this game isn't optimized for ♥♥♥♥, so keep that in mind if you're considering buying.

OVERALL RATING: 6.5/10

Despite being old, it's worth its current value. Not-over-complicated puzzles with logical solutions make this game a very enjoyable experience minimizing frustration moments. It features nice pre-rendered old-school 360º scenes coupled with somewhat suitable music. It's not too long, with about 30 totally different puzzles to solve and about 5 hours of gameplay.

Due to its age, it doesn't come without technical problems:
Resolution is fixed to 1024x768 which will stretch on wide-screen monitors.
On some installations, the game flickers constantly making it unplayable. This seems to be related to FPS and nVidia adapters. I have no problems on AMD. Either way, the solution is to go windowed mode, which is covered in the forums.

In short, tacking into account its release date and current price, a very recommendable product.

Another pleasant surprise in a bargain. I thought it would be a safe cracking simulation game, but in fact it is a nice collection of puzzles with pleasant graphics, a plot, and a British accented narrator. Similar concept as in The 7th Guest, only absolutely not spooky and without cinematics or lenghty animations in the puzzles. The graphics are pre-rendered, with a 360-degrees free look system which worked surprisingly well for me. The game is not without humour, solutions to puzzles are sometimes so unpredictable. None are sadistically difficult, but some require pen and paper to work them out. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys well designed puzzles. Although it is for Windows only, I play it on a Macbook Pro using Crossover.

Great puzzle game. If you're looking for something quite challenge your brain then this game served you right. It has many kinds of puzzles so you will not bored definitely. The story is nearly nothing but the main story of this game is not based on story, it's just based on awesome puzzles in game.

Ridiculous screen flickering makes it unplayable for me. No graphics settings at all in the options.

In this point and click game, you move from room to room unlocking safes and solving more puzzles to get more clues (and pieces of other puzzles) to solve more puzzles until you finally solve them all and say "oh good, I solved all the puzzles.'

For the first time in aaaaaaages I found myself using a sheet of paper to solve puzzles in a video game. This was a pleasant surprise - I found myself noting things I'd never need, as well as making notes that really helped me solve puzzles without having to backtrack to look at something again. Don't be fooled - the game does give you some clues you can take with you, but some things have to be carried in your memory only. My memory is awful, so I used paper. I am only writing this review so that I don't buy this game again by mistake. That's how bad my memory is.

Do you like solving puzzles? This game has some neat puzzles, and I don't think a single answer annoyed me, which is rare.

Do you hate sliding tile puzzles? I do! But this game only has 1, and you can cheat (like I did. I have no shame. I hate sliding puzzles).

The game is linear in the sense that you will need to solve some puzzles before you can solve others, but it is also not linear in that you don't need to unlock a clue before you can solve a puzzle. I solved one early puzzle by writing a simple script. Later I found a clue that was useless to me at that point, because I'd already solved the puzzle. The game didn't make me wait until I'd found the clue, which was great. It's awful to play a game like this and know that even if you're entering the right code, it won't work because you didn't pick up a porcelain pig with the number 7 scratched on its ♥♥♥.

There are no porcelain pigs in this game. Porcelain pigs are not playable characters. If you like pigs this might still be the game for you, but don't go into this expecting pigs. There are 100% more pigs in this review than there are in the game.


For the first time in aaaaaaages I found myself using a sheet of paper to solve puzzles in a video game. This was a pleasant surprise - I found myself noting things I'd never need, as well as making notes that really helped me solve puzzles without having to backtrack to look at something again. Don't be fooled - the game does give you some clues you can take with you, but some things have to be carried in your memory only. My memory is awful, so I used paper. I am only writing this review so that I don't buy this game again by mistake. That's how bad my memory is.

The game is kind of short, but it's stable enough that you can tab in and out, so you can play it when you're supposed to be working and then tab out to pull up notepad++ or whatever it is you use at work. I don't know - I've probably never even seen you before, so how would I know what you use. Maybe you are unemployed. Maybe you made a ton of money lawyering and retired ridiculously early to rule an Internet Space Empire and have a cute dog. It's all good here, we're just talking about a little game about solving puzzles. I'm not judging you. I'm judging this game, and it is pretty good. Is it $5 good? Yeah, it's worth the price of a sandwich. Even if its a sandwich you have to cram resistors in before you can eat it.

The game might be a bit of a puzzle to get started. That happened to me but I edited my config files. If you have a problem making this run, go to your Steam directory and go to /steamapps/common/Safecracker2 and open config.ini and STEAM_config.ini and change bFullScreen=1 to bFullScreen=0 in both of them. If you have notepad++ you can do it there.

The ending is a bit bland and I don't think I will be replaying to get all the different endings. It might be my imagination but at the end the narrator seemed to start talking as fast as the people at the end of financial product advertisements where they cram in all the stuff about how you will probably go bankrupt and lose your house and the respect of all but the lowest of bums. This actually made the ending better, especially as I looked away for a moment because my printer started working.

That's the biggest mystery. WHY DID MY PRINTER START WORKING.

I'll tell you why. At the end, the game says "do you want to print the will?" and I said "Yes, sure," thinking I'd be able to read it on the screen. Of course it really tried to print the will, and I stopped it by hammering the big red x button until the printer stopped making noise.

If you are the kind of person who is married and likes to play games at night while your spouse is sleeping in the same room and you have a loud printer and you are likely to just click in the affirmative on a button that says "DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A NUCLEAR-DETONATION LEVEL OF NOISE RIGHT NOW?" then this might not be the game for you.

It's not bedtime yet so I got away with this. I'm wondering if I should print the will, though. I don't have that recent a save file. If I don't print the will, I will miss out on the game's REAL final puzzle. If I do print the will it will all be white text on black and it will cost me an extra $30 to have played this game. It's like the cat in the box but all the outcomes are bad, like if you were allergic to cats but also terrified of cat corpses.

I liked playing this game, it was a pretty good time for $2.50. If you want a pretty good time and you have $2.50 then I HEAR YOUR MOM MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP YOU OUT.

Escape the Room style game done right. Great puzzles, zero replay.
Really well done graphics, the puzzles were fun and challenging without being random guessing BS, the narration was well done and exactly as present as it ought to be. It was a little short, but that's fine.
All in all, I really liked it, and now it's too bad I can't play it again until I forget how to solve the puzzles.

quite short but enjoyable once you fix the flickering problem (I went into my Steam folder and changed compatibility to windows xp) some of the puzzles will test your intelligence but mainly a good wee distraction for an hour