My first few hours in Thick as Thieves were a good time. It's a first-person stealth game with lean buttons and maps that look like they were hand-drawn by someone named "Fingers" who sold them to you from out of his overcoat. The setting mixes technology and magic, reinforced by guards with Scottish accents muttering about whether a given light is electric or fey. The map of Elway Manor's basement has a whole area that's just labeled with a question mark.

I clambered onto rooftops and through vents in the traditional style, being impressed that guards noticed when I snuffed out candles or left doors open. The first impression it gave was very much of an old school stealth game with a handful of new ideas—like ghost guards who glide through walls and into the sky on their patrol paths so you're never quite sure if you're safe. Helpfully, they still cough like living guards to let you know they're nearby.

Ignoring the friends list in your thieves den (used for starting co-op games) made Thick as Thieves almost feel like the new Thief game I wanted it to be. Hell, the electrogram you get contracts through is even set to 0451, the door code to get into Looking Glass Studios that became an easter egg in basically every immersive sim.

At first, I wasn't fussed that there are only two maps. The police station and Elway Manor are both multi-level buildings with multiple entrance points, and the second time I returned to them with new objectives I found different areas and approached problems from different angles. I upgraded to get a pickpocket fairy that can grab keys and flip switches at a distance, and an insult fairy that distracts guards. Like returning to Sapienza in Hitman, I enjoyed a growing sense of mastery over the space.

The worm in my gut turned thanks to the time limits. You've usually got 45 minutes (sometimes 30) before the magic door you need to find to escape appears, and then you've got eight minutes to get to wherever it's randomly popped up this time and get out before you fail the mission.

The intent is clear. Thick as Thieves wants to be a pacey stealth game rather than a methodical one—no manual saves here—and if I had infinite time I'd rinse these maps on my first visit and be less forgiving about the campaign just being a string of reasons to return to the same two buildings. The time limit also makes sense in co-op, where your buddy will want to know if he's got time to squeeze in one more level before putting the kids to bed.

But that eight-minute timer also begins when you complete any objective. If you've got a mission to steal three specific items in a level, the countdown begins when you pick up any of them. The first time that happened I didn't even know where the other two things I needed were, and only found one before booking it. When I returned to get the last, my objectives told me I needed to find all three again. Which I did, feeling a lot less inspired to creatively find alternate solutions this time—only to have the random magic escape door appear somewhere I couldn't reach.

I'm not sure if it was a bug or if there was an area I hadn't found behind a secret door, but that hand-drawn map I found delightfully vague at first was pointing me to an area on the far side of an exterior wall three storeys up, which I had no way of getting to. And when my time ran out, the thought of a third trip in a row back to Elway Manor really didn't appeal.

At some point in development, Thick as Thieves pivoted from being a PvPvE game to a singleplayer/co-op one, and I can only assume that change is how we ended up with an immersive sim that doesn't let you rebind keys and only has two maps. Otherside is calling it the first chapter of the game, but I wish they'd called it early access, because that's what it feels like.

On the other hand, it is only $5, and if the timer waited until you completed every step of your contract I'd probably be playing it still. At that price I might even have picked up a copy for a friend to drag them through a co-op session, though in its current state I'm not sure they'd thank me.