Dr. Hugo’s Factory for Making Robots might be the strangest factory on Earth. First off, the entire factory seems to employ only five people, and each of them seems to be responsible for making a single adorable robot. Dr. Hugo is hoping to get all the robots ready for the upcoming Christmas holiday, and is pushing his tiny crew to finish up with their tiny robots.

You will run each robot through a series of tests to familiarize yourself with their abilities, but the real adventure begins when the Hero convinces the other robots to go exploring. You’ll unlock a plot of sinister proportions as you explore the factory.

Puzzle Bots is a light-hearted adventure game that reminded me of The Lost Vikings in that each of the five robots has a unique skill that can be used to progress. Hero can pick up and throw objects, Kelvin can light things on fire, Ultrabot can push heavy objects, Ibi can swim, and Bomchelle can throw bombs. You’ll need to figure out how to utilize each of their skills to progress through the levels. For example, you might need Bomchelle to throw a bomb to open up a stream of water so Ibi can swim down to pull a lever, so Hero can take a key to unlock the door.

My main gripe with adventure games has always been the puzzles that rely on trial and error rather than logic and problem solving. There were only a couple of times that I found myself clicking all over the screen rather than applying logic. Most of the puzzles make sense immediately or will make sense after you figure out how they work. As long as you can program your brain to think like an adventure gamer, you’ll do fine. There is no, “Oh, I was supposed to use the fish on the door to get the key to drop from the ceiling,” moments. There were only one or two puzzles where I found myself clicking on the helpful hint button, and only one time when the hint didn’t help overcome my own lack of adventure game skills.

Lead designer, Erin Robinson, comes from the world of comics and it shows in the slightly offbeat and witty dialog. There are also numerous little jokes that are strewn about the background. The story is delightful and filled with just enough geeky romance to melt even the coldest heart.

I haven’t been this captivated by tiny robots since 1987′s *Batteries Not Included, and if that reference is too old or obscure for you, then you are reading the wrong article my friend. Even as a non-adventure gamer, I enjoyed myself immensely. If you are a fan of tiny robots, quirky light hearted humor, or adventure games, you should try Puzzle Bots. You can find the game on Steam or here if you want to enjoy one of my favorite indie games. Besides, who doesn’t like tiny robots?

This review is based on a copy provided to us by Wadjet Eye Games.

Tags: adventure games, independent games, PC, Puzzle Bots, Robots, Wadjet Eye Games

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 18th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Indie Games, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.