History Videogame / safecracker

* SchmuckBait: There's a long ornate strand of cloth hanging from the library ceiling that says "PULL", and a small sign next to it saying "please do not pull". Your reward for ignoring that sign is an abrupt slide to the basement, with a bump to your head for good measure. At least someone had the courtesy to put a welcome mat at the end of the chute.

* ExactTimeToFailure: Your HUD contains a real-time clock, starting at 7:30 PM, and you are both timed on the 12 hours needed to complete your mission, and in the beginning, you have to get into the house in less than 10 minutes, or else a police patrol due to pass by will arrest you for breaking and entering.

* CreatorCameo: Some of the DayDream employees appear in paintings around the house, and at the end of the game, you can watch a home movie filmed by one of the developers, who thanks you for finishing the game, and has the other team members greet you in their studio.

* TheKeyIsBehindTheLock: One fragment of the code to the elevator is permanently locked inside a medicine cabinet, but the upshot means that you can simply place the other parts in front of it from your inventory to read the whole thing. Or you can just [[CuttingTheKnot brute-force the code]] if you only have 3 pieces.

* EnterSolutionHere: Naturally, these are games about safes. The first game's final 3 safes make use of codes you've pieced together from the previous safes, and a few in the second actually need to be activated by external keycards, first.

** ThreePlusFiveMakeFour: The method to turn on the fountain in the mansion's indoor garden. You also have to find one of the pump's pistons to access the puzzle.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Mastermind}}'': One of the more bizarre safes involves a device that analyzes the button tones from a nearby phone, and flashes lights based on which ones are correct.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Mastermind}}'': One of the more bizarre safes involves a device that analyzes the button tones on a nearby phone, and flashes lights based on which are correct.

Safecracker is the title of two point and click puzzle games. The first was released in 1997, published by Dreamcatcher Entertainment and developed by Swedish software developers [=DayDream=] Software, who later developed a harder, but similar game, ''Traitor's Gate''.
A SpiritualSuccessor was released under the same name in 2006 by The Adventure Company and Kheops Studio, with the tagline, "The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure"

** ThreePlusFiveMakeFour: The method to turn on the fountain in the mansion's indoor garden. You also have to find one of the pump's pistons to access the puzzle.

The second puts you in the shoes of an expert safecracker, hired to find the will of Duncan W. Adams, a recently deceased oil conglomerate CEO who had a serious passion for designing safes just as strange as Crabb & Sons'.

* {{Klotski}}: One of the last puzzles in the game, using a magnet to move blocks around under a pane of glass. One of them contains a key that has to be slid out from behind the glass.
* ThreePlusFiveMakeFour: The method to turn on the fountain in the mansion's indoor garden. You also have to find one of the pump's pistons to access the puzzle.

* {{Klotski}}: One of the last puzzles in the game, using a magnet to move blocks around under a pane of glass. One of them contains a key that has to be slid out from behind the glass.

* SoundingItOut: Your character will read various documents aloud, and usually contemplate something related to a puzzle you're on, as a subtle form of hints.

* LightAndMirrorsPuzzle: After you've solved a puzzle that generates a laser beam, you have to flip two ceiling-mounted mirrors to bounce the beam to a sensor attached to a globe, which opens it.

* BaitAndSwitch: The game and its manual lead you to believe that the F-9-12 safe in Jerry Crabb's office is the ultimate goal, especially with the fact that it houses ''an entire corner of the room''. But when you finally get the thing open, instead of your job contract, there's only a chess piece inside. [[spoiler: This is for a nearby chessboard that unlocks access to a hidden room on the first floor, and your job contract is actually in an even bigger safe down there.]]

* EmptyRoomPsych: A heavy-looking metal door turns out to hide nothing more than the laundry room, which your character at first laughs off as one of Mr. Adam's practical jokes. Subverted in that this room [[spoiler: contains a trapdoor to the house's attic.]]

* MultipleEndings: When you finally get the will, your last puzzle is to decide which member of the family best deserves Mr. Adam's fortune.

** [[spoiler: If you choose Elizabeth as Mr. Adam's heir, she [[AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted spends his entire fortune]] of ''billions of dollars'' in a matter of months.]]

* MultipleEndings: When you finally get the will, your last puzzle is to [[spoiler:decide which member of the family best deserves Mr. Adam's fortune.

** Or you can TakeAThirdOption and ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall let yourself be the heir.]]'' ]]

** [[spoiler: If you choose Elizabeth as Mr. Adam's heir, she [[AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted spends his entire fortune of ''billions of dollars'' in a matter of months]].]]

** Or you can TakeAThirdOption and ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall let yourself be the heir.]]'']]

* AFoolAndHerNewMoneyAreSoonParted: [[spoiler:If you choose Elizabeth as Mr. Adam's heir, she spends his entire fortune of ''billions of dollars'' in a matter of months.]]

* MultipleEndings: When you finally get the will, your last puzzle is to [[spoiler:decide which member of the family best deserves Mr. Adam's fortune. Or you can TakeAThirdOption and ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall let yourself be the heir.]]'']]

* EmptyRoomPsych: In the second game, a heavy-looking metal door turns out to hide nothing more than the laundry room, which your character at first laughs off as one of Mr. Adam's practical jokes. Subverted in that this room [[spoiler: contains a trapdoor to the house's attic.]]

* OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler:The person who hired you is a greedy descendant, whom you find later isn't to be trusted.]]

* EmptyRoomPsych: Subverted in both games.
** The first game and its manual lead you to believe that the F-9-12 safe in Jerry Crabb's office is the ultimate goal, especially with the fact that it houses ''an entire corner of the room''. But when you finally get the thing open, instead of your job contract, there's only a chess piece inside. [[spoiler: This is for a nearby chessboard that unlocks access to a hidden room on the first floor, and your job contract is actually in an even bigger safe down there.]]
** In the second game, a heavy-looking metal door turns out to hide nothing more than the laundry room, which your character at first laughs off as one of Mr. Adam's practical jokes. Subverted in that this room [[spoiler: contains a trapdoor to the house's attic.]]

* ConcealingCanvas: Averted in the first, played straight in the second.

* ConcealingCanvas: Played with in the dining room, where the painting covering a compartment is indeed a safe, but it and several other paintings are connected by wires that have to be rearranged in the right order before the one with the safe will open.

* CrazyPrepared: Crabb & Sons appears to be prepared for any corporate situation, to the point where they even have an office for their own ''psychologist''.
* CreatorCameo: Some of the DayDream employees appear in paintings around the house, and at the end of the game, you can watch a home movie of the company staff - filmed by one of them who thanks you for finishing the game.

* EmptyRoomPsych: A heavy-looking metal door turns out to hide nothing more than the laundry room, which your character laughs off as one of Mr. Adam's practical jokes. Subverted in that this room [[spoiler: contains a trapdoor to the house's attic.]]

** Another has a fully functional clone of ''VideoGame/{{Minesweeper}}'', on what seems to be an ''AppleMacintosh''.

* ShoutOut: One of the computers usable in the game contains [[GameWithinAGame 3 games]] that parody ''VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga'', ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'', and ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject Buried In Time''.

* LostForever: Make sure that you take everything from whatever safe you unlocked, and removed any keys you put in if they weren't yet used, because ''you will not get a second chance.''
* PornStash: A rather strange one at that. A white briefcase hidden in the security guard's office has a magazine called "Playsafe: Entertainment for Security Men", including "Sex and the Single Safe or Tickle My Combination" among other articles.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: The voice safe, mentioned in the company catalog, is by default usually unlocked by the owner saying their name. Naturally, T.J. Petherbridge has a dictaphone in his desk with a tape mentioning his name on it.
* [[UselessItem Useless Items]]: Not a lot, but they do take up a chunk of inventory space. Many of them are edible items, but only the apple and banana can be actually consumed - and you still carry around their remnants if you do eat them. There's also a key to Jerry Crabb's office that's broken along the shaft, and another, unmarked key that serves no purpose, although a statue in that office holds a large replica of it, for some reason.

!!The 2006 successor contains examples of:

* OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler: The person who hired you is a greedy descendant, whom you find later isn't to be trusted.]]

--> [[spoiler: '''Main Character:''' You have been entrusted with a colossal fortune. Use it well.]]
* PasswordSlotMachine: Repairing a keypad's circuit board somehow automatically enters the correct code after the display flickers on and off while cycling different numbers.
** There's also another broken lock that makes each button cycle through certain numbers, and the key to entering the right code - which is taped to the safe - lies in pushing certain buttons enough times until those numbers exactly appear in sequence to form the code.

--> '''Note from Duncan W. Adams''': "Not bad at all, but the worst is yet to come!"

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Possibly unintentional, but your character always seems to talk as if he knows you're there, playing alongside him.
--> '''Main Character:''' Let's search this floor, the will must be here somewhere!

* {{Klotski}}: One of the last puzzles in the game, using a magnet to move blocks around under a pane of glass.