SNAP Review – HEIST: One Team, One Mission

Heist is a cooperative electronic game for 2-4 players, designed by Rob Daviau, Bob Driscoll, and Don Ullman. It’s published by Megableu and University Games. Can your team pull off the perfect heist?

Elliot and Anitra will tell you all about Heist in about 5 minutes. Listen or read on below.

Heist is essentially a plastic safe with a button on each side and a specially-formed top that hides a compartment holding twelve tiny “gold bars”.

There are eight other plastic pieces that get passed among players: gloves, goggles, laptop, headset, explosives, drill, map, and flashlight.

You can have up to four players; one must be the “Money Man”, but the rest can choose from “Explosives Expert”, “Hacker” or “Lookout”. Each role is assigned to one side of the safe. The Money Man also takes charge of the pile of cardboard money.

How to Play

Scatter the eight plastic tools around your play area. Then select roles (by pushing the button on the appropriate side of the safe) and a difficulty level. Once the game starts, the “boss” will start issuing instructions, telling team members to take items, trade items, give items, or use items; eg. “Hacker, take the explosives” or “Pass the flashlight to the Lookout”.

If the boss says something like: “Use the gloves”, then the person who currently has that item needs to press the button on their side of the safe.

Interspersed with the other instructions, the boss will issue statements like “take 1 million dollars” or “take 3 million dollars”. If you can complete the mission without making any mistakes, you’ll get 50 million dollars! As long as you don’t make too many mistakes, the safe will open and all the gold bars will fall out.

Impressions

Elliot thinks Heist is a lot of fun. It’s kind of surprising how fun it is to simply try to listen carefully and follow the instructions quickly. There are five levels of difficulty, and the higher levels go very fast. However, even the slow, introductory “Level One” speeds up at the halfway point.

Anitra was skeptical of a game that requires a talking electronic toy. However, you couldn’t really do this game without the electronics. The voice of the “boss” (Rob Daviau) isn’t annoying, although the beeping that marks time remaining could get a little annoying to anyone who isn’t playing. Thankfully, the whole game plays in about five minutes.

“I think it’s super-fun. The top pops up with the lid still on, and then gold falls out.”

Elliot

Our older kids said that Heist is fun, but they don’t really enjoy playing with a certain younger brother who doesn’t do as great at listening and doesn’t have a fast enough reaction time. The box says 7+, and we’d say that’s about right. Younger kids CAN play, but we’d stick with lower levels for them.

Downsides

There are a few drawbacks we noticed to Heist: It is an electronic toy that requires batteries. The beeping can get annoying. The design of the lifting lid and falling gold bars is really clever, but the power button is on the bottom of the safe. Even our oldest kids tend to flip the safe over to turn the game on. When they do, everything falls out and has to be re-set before play can start.

Overall, Heist has been surprisingly fun, and a good way to challenge ourselves to work quickly and quietly so we can continue to hear the instructions.

Find Heist: One Team, One Mission for $20-30 on Amazon or ask for it at your local toy store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Heist: One Team, One Mission, for this review from University Games.

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SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?