Puzzle Bots. It’s a puzzle. It has robots. Under any normal circumstances, this game should be giving PC owners a taste of cold, calculating steel. We should be thinking and battling with our manufactured artificially intelligent machines! We shall create great armies of super beings that will take over the world!

Well, prepare to have those brute thoughts quashed, dear readers – the robots just got cuddly.

Platform: PC
ESRB: E (Everyone)
Genre: Puzzle
Number of Players: 1
Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
Release Date: May 2010

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Puzzle Bots is an adventure puzzle game (that’s right – it is a genre that is not just populated by early Zelda titles!) that takes place in Dr. Hugo’s Factory for Making Robots. You control 5 different robots, and each of the robots that you “unlock” during the game will aid with a different ability in order to solve puzzles in the game. The title of this game is not deceptive at all. That is where the enjoyment begins.

Everything about this game screams simplicity. The animation consists of simple lines that are easy on the eye, and makes this game approachable from the beginning. The abilities are also quite rudimentary – one robot to lift something, another to tow things through water, another to use a flamethrower. In order to understand each robot’s unique abilities, you are permitted three introductory levels that act as your tutorials. Thankfully, these tutorials are integrated throughout the game, not just lumped at the beginning. As this is a PC game, it is not so much about learning the controls (it is point and click) – rather, learning about how you can use your robots’ abilities in different ways. The easy mechanics and atmosphere allow the developers to focus more on the creative use of the objects in the game, rather than the memorisation of controls and abilities.

The seamless, interwoven nature is also supported by the narrative. Sure, the unresolved romantic tension between Yuriko and Zander seems quite inconsequential to the continuation of the game itself. And it is quite irrelevant to the little robots that Viktor hates his job and will do anything to jeopardise himself. But these human moments provide an interlude as well as a nice context. It has allowed Wadjet Eye Games to create a game that laughs at itself, encouraging the player to have a little bit of a giggle too.

All of these elements contribute to the sense of progression. When you complete an objective, you know you are going to learn more about the story. You have a purpose, as do the little robots that you are guiding into the big bad world.

Many gamers would see these elements as threatening. The cute emotive personalities of humans and robots alike can seem rather sugar-coated. Equally, the amount of guidance and support (even the inclusion of a “hint” button! How blasphemous!) negates the many years of prior gaming experience of many entertainment enthusiasts. Real gamers should be able to figure these things out, right? Well, yes they should.

However, I ask this question of those critics who want challenge and brutal reminders of their expertise: Have you ever woken up one morning, and decided to start the day like you were four years old? When was the last time that you got out of bed without hitting the snooze button, counted the number of things that are blue, and truly enjoyed the bright day ahead?

If you haven’t, or can’t remember the last time that you did. then you need to get a copy of Puzzle Bots, and experience it. Now.

I think it is wonderful that Wadjet Eye is not taking the road of ruthless killing machines and extra kudos to them for saying to their audience, “We’re not sorry to disappoint you”. And I am not sorry either.

Review product was provided by Wadjet Eye Games, and does not affect the outcome of this review.