The Heist Review

Every so often an app game appears, seemingly from nowhere, and delivers a near perfect nugget of fun. Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Drop7 and, now, The Heist.

The Heist opens abruptly with a view of a fortified vault safe guarded by electrified steel bars and CCTV cameras scanning for intruders. At the bottom of the screen are four arcane symbols that represent the four types of puzzles that need to be solved in order to break down the vault’s defences and claim the secret prize hidden behind the wall of steel.

One challenges you to place coloured symbols on a grid so that you never get the same symbol twice horizontally or vertically. Another has you shifting around wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes to make a path for a small circuit board.

Then there’s a wire-themed take on the classic sliding block puzzle where you need to link connections together by lining up the pieces in the correct order. Finally, and best of all, is a remake of fiendish Sokoban, where you use a tiny robot to push blocks into their rightful place without getting trapped or ending up unable to move blocks in the right direction.

These are timeless, if familiar, puzzles, but the smooth ascent from the unchallenging to the daunting, the classy visuals and the atmosphere of espionage make The Heist more than a just a collection of neat challenges.

On top of that is the promise of a prize (a real one, no less) at the end to keep you hooked until you’ve conquered all 60 puzzles packed into this 59p gem.

And what is this prize you ask? Well, we’re afraid that’s classified.