I can’t tell you how many locks I’ve picked and safes I’ve cracked in video games. Thousands, most likely. However, picking a lock or unlocking a safe is generally performed by a simple little minigame that has little to do with how locks actually function.
Sophie’s Safecracking Simulator, on the other hand, not only allows you to break into safes but also teaches you how combination locks work. Even if you know what goes on inside a lock, this sim will turn you into an expert in levers, cams, wheel gates, pins, flies, and contact points, as well as the pleasant (though time-consuming) process of figuring out a lock’s combination and retrieving the goods inside.
Instead of staring at the lock straight on with a bobby pin and screwdriver like in the Fallout games, you may spin the camera around the lock-in 3D while fiddling with it, witnessing what occurs in real-time as you turn the dial. You begin with a lock with one wheel, progress to three wheels, and then practice on locks with varying wheel sizes. You’ll eventually have the chance to open your first safe and experiment with some exciting safe-cracking gadgets you’ve undoubtedly seen in movies.
You can x-ray the safe to get a good look at the wheels while you’re learning, but after you’ve got a handle on things, you can limit yourself to the spectrogram to get a visual representation of the sounds the lock is producing when you mess with it. And with enough repetition, you might be able to accomplish it with just the noises. A few more devices can be attached to the safe to guarantee exact twists as you come closer to breaking it.
Once you’ve mastered the technique, you may construct locks with random combinations and varying numbers of wheels to see how quickly you can breach them. I’m hoping that some speedrunners discover this sim since I believe it’d be fun to see aspiring master burglars compete to breach safes as rapidly as possible.
This is an extremely amazing and sleek sim with a nice tutorial that covers everything. Even better, Sophie’s Safecracking Simulator is only $2 on Itch.io (though that is the minimum fee, and you might consider investing a little more if you enjoy it). And it’s only one of several projects on Itch.io by developer Sophie Houlden.
