Peaky Blinders: Mastermind, the first game to be based on the award-winning TV series, is a puzzle-adventure, developed by independent studio FuturLab. Taking place immediately before the events of the show’s first season, players join the Shelby family's criminal organisation as they discover a sinister plot to put Tommy out of business. Players must plan and enact strategies by taking direct control of key members of the Shelby family simultaneously over the same timeline, moving characters into position at exactly the right moment in order to navigate challenging scenarios...

In Peaky Blinders: Mastermind, players can take control of various members of the Peaky Blinders gang, with the ability to freely set and rewind each character's path in order to tune all of their actions for perfect coordination, tactically using characters and stealth to solve increasingly complex puzzles.

Help Tommy Shelby to rise to the position of leader of the Peaky Blinders in early 20th century Birmingham by using his prowess for planning to set up complex scenarios Control Tommy, Arthur, Polly and more on the ground as they pull off mission after mission.

Even if you've never seen an episode of Peaky Blinders there's much to enjoy here. Set before the first season of the show, you don't really need to know anything about the characters, as it's the puzzles that take centre stage here. Of course if you already familiar with the characters then obviously you're going to get a lot more enjoyment.

The designers have gone for a graphic novel feel to the cut sequences, with the playable levels placing you above the action looking down on your environment. This works well to give you an overall view of the playing area, something that's important because you'll need to be able to see as much of environment as possible in order to plan your strategy.

The game allows you to switch between various characters, as well as rewind time. This lets you enable two-character actions to progress further. So, for example, you can use one character to pull a lever that opens a door, rewind time and use another character to go through the door.

Each character has their own ability. So, for example, Tommy Shelby can persuade otherwise non playable characters to perform tasks (you then take control of them for a very short period of time); Ada can distract guards; Arthur can kick down weakened doors; and Finn can get to other parts of the map using crawl spaces that are too small for other characters.

In the early levels there's not much of a challenge, but then this is mainly as it's used as a subtle training environment. This give you a chance to explore the levels and become accustomed to the controls and each character's unique abilities. And as you progress you get more characters to control, which makes choosing the right character and order to try to tackle puzzles all the more important.

Overall, this is a fun and well designed puzzle based game, however there only appears to be 10 levels (and I blazed through the first 5 in an afternoon) so longevity could be an issue. Also, once finished it's highly unlikely you'll return to it in the near future as when you've cracked the puzzles there's no real incentive to go back and try to complete them again.

7

Darren Rea