Thief (arcade game)

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Thief

Developer(s)	Pacific Novelty
Publisher(s)	Pacific Novelty
Release date(s)	1981
Genre(s)	Retro/Puzzle
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s)	Arcade
Input	Joystick
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade display	Raster, standard resolution, horizontal

Thief is a 1981 arcade video game which 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. The screen is littered with dollar bills which the player collects by running over them. There are also several (usually four, but sometimes five) golden dollar signs placed throughout the mazes (the equivalent of Pac-Man's energizers); 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 (100 for the first, 500 for the second, 1000 for the third, and 2000 for the fourth); 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. There are about nine different board layouts, and the golden dollar signs are in different places on each stage. Some mazes have side tunnels, but most do not.

Thief was notable for using tape-recorded sounds (on an actual tape player in the machine) masquerading as police radio communications as part of its sound effects (in addition to game-generated sound effects), which ran in a continuous loop while the game was played. Contrary to claims on various websites (for example, Killer List of Video Games), 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.