We interrupt this game review to bring you this special news bulletin. Police are on the lookout for a burglar that's been stealing gold coins all across the city. Police describe the robber as small, green, slimy, and capable of turning your world upside down to get what he wants. He's Swindler, and he's climbin' in your sewers and grabbin' all your coins in this tricky gravity-based navigation game from Nitrome.
You take the role of the notorious Swindler, a green blob that can dangle himself from a fixed point. Your task is to reach the treasure chest at the 
end of each level (possibly grabbing some star swag along the way). You can use the [down] and [up] arrow keys to lengthen and shorten your dangle appendage, but you can generally only dangle straight down. To get around corners, you can use the [left] and [right] keys to rotate everything around you, allowing you to exploit gravity to take you through new passages. In later levels, you might be required to carry an object to aid your heist; use the [space] bar to pick it up and drop it.
As you progress through the many rooms to be plundered, new enemies and traps, such as floating slimes that can bump you against walls and jumping slimes that can absorb you with one touch. These enemies might be a bit too powerful, such as the orange spiky blocks that provide a free sample of insta-death with a single touch, whether by Swindler himself or his dangling rope. However, perhaps these strict requirements are there to emphasize that this is somewhat of a stealth game at heart, where planning and patience are required to perpetrate the perfect payday. Dangle with caution, because danger lurks around every corner for the world's slyest slimeball!
Absorb you with one touch? Like an Abzorbaloff? :)
I want to like it, I really do, but it feels really clumsy.
Fantastic mechanics! very original and fun. A little too unforgiving, maybe :P
Agree w/Diego - would be more absorbing to use my second life and continue on from whence i was absorbed
Like most Nitrome games I really want to like it, but there is something that drives me away after 1 or 2 levels.
I was enjoying it up to the second bomb level. I only tried once to get the bomb past the fans - I could feel the rage building even before I got to the first fans. I wish it would just have trickier and trickier puzzles, and not also require more and more dexterity.
Nice concept, but after the second level I decided I didn't want to have to deal with avoiding that pair of instant death balls three times in a row.
For the second bomb level,
I just dropped the bomb past the fans and rotated the stage so it would blow the barrier up.
I think it's a pretty good game. I'll probably give up a few more levels in though, since it's a Nitrome game.
Winner! 375 :)
Like others I would have passed after a few levels, but since it got Physics Game of the Year... I just kept telling myself "be a gamer, like you once were"... plenty of puzzling challenges (level 23 wow) and yes demanding -- but fun and a well-deserved award!
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