Few games are released today that work on all of the major mobile platforms. Robo was recently released and works on Palm, Windows Mobile Standard, Windows Mobile Professional, Symbian S60, S60 v3, UIQ and UIQ v3. I can think of few other developers that develop for all of these platforms and it is indeed refreshing to see. Anyway, on to the game itself…
Starting up
I completely ignored the tutorial and instructions (I am a man after all) and jumped straight into level 1. The controls are very simple- left, right, up, down to move and to push stones and the centre button to ‘look’ around the whole screen- pressing this enables the directional buttons to move the whole game map around. Within 2 minutes I was playing and enjoying this game a lot and knew it would be a keeper.
Game play
The idea of the game is to reach the exit on each level by blocking beams (that will kill Robo) which are diverted over the playing field by mirrors. You have to find the best path through to the exit and this is no way near as simple as it sounds. Even on level 3 I found myself struggling to think of the way out and have to face a further 73 which to be frank scares me a little 
The 76 levels are split over 4 worlds and Robo needs to tackle them in a variety of ways which could involve blocking lasers with stones, using bombs to explode laser cannons or even making them destroy each other. Again, this does not sound complex but it adds a huge amount of variation to how you make up the final solution for each level. At this time, and it is early days for me with Robo, I can see huge amounts of longevity in this game and will keep you updated as I progress through the levels.
Graphics and sounds
The graphics are superb in this game and the way the environments are rendered adds to a feeling of wanting to jump back in and play some more. Robo himself is particularly cute and the animations used for him are some of the best I have seen. The music is a nice touch as well and can be switched to mute whilst leaving the main game sound on. Personally I tend to turn music to mute and leave the standard sounds on so at least the option is available.
Conclusion
Robo is a game that takes parts of Sokoban, Traffic Jam and another game, which I cannot currently remember the title of, and merges them to create a stimulating puzzler that is hard to put down. As I said earlier, it is early days for me with this game but first impressions are extremely good. Considering the price, which unusually ranges from $4.40 to $12.85 depending on the platform you use, it is superb value for me and one which I can highly recommend.
Time to bring the next 73 levels on by which point I will probably be begging for an extra level pack to keep me playing even longer!
Available from http://smart.herocraft.com/robo.
