Thief

Thief - In Thief the player must collect all the gold in a level while avoiding monks who try to catch the player. After collecting all the gold, the player must climb to the gate on the top to reach the next level.

There are 50 levels in the game which progressively challenge players' problem-solving abilities or reaction times. Levels feature a multi-story, brick/stone platform, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand poles that offer multiple ways to travel throughout. The player can dig holes into bricks to temporarily trap monks and may safely walk atop trapped monks. Over time, the holes will regenerate into bricks, A trapped monk who cannot escape a hole before it fills is consumed, immediately respawning in a random location at the top of the level. Bricks may also contain trapdoors, through which the player and monks will fall, and drak-green stone, through which the player cannot dig. Notably, the player can only dig a hole to the sides, and not directly underneath himself. This poses an important strategy: when digging through a wall that's N blocks high, the player must first dig a gap that's at least N wide to be able to dig through it, as the number of spaces will shrink with one each layer, and the player needs at least one free adjacent space to be able to dig.

The player starts with 3 lives; each level completion awards an extra life. When a monk catch the player, one life is lost and the current level restarts. The player can fall from arbitrary heights without injury but cannot jump, and players can trap themselves in pits from which the only escape is to abort the level, costing a life, and begin again.