Tragedy strikes as a group of carefree robots frolic across the screen. In the midst of their robot games, one breaks through a (really unsafe looking) bridge spanning an near-bottomless abyss, never to be seen again. Sort of.
An engineer is able to bring the robot back online, but now it looks like the one I choose before starting the game. And it doesn’t remember how to do anything. Thus begins my adventure as a robot.
I’m instructed on how to access my one little mechanical leg, and asked to get from one side of the room to the other. It sounds like an easy task on paper but Robotry’s physics-based controls make my steps as wobbly as a newborn giraffe, and it’s possible I’ve never been more proud of myself for getting across a short length of screen. By arcing my solo limb in a wild circle around my center mass, I force my way to an escape tunnel.
Which leads me to another room that ends in another escape tunnel, and then another; each room growing more complicated and offering things like gems or hidden figures with microchips to collect. As I get farther, the game encourages me to learn new techniques, like using my sticky foot and momentum to hop over obstacles rather than rolling into it. This comes in handy when the game begins to introduces things like pools of acid and giant air-blowing industrial fans.
Then, when I think I finally have things down, they throw another leg at me. I control each limb with separate joysticks, making locomotion even more ridiculous than before. It’s hard not to laugh at how silly it all looks. The 2D platformer even gives you a chance to laugh at a partner, as the campaign mode has a co-op option. Or, if you really want to make things goofy, you can have multiple players controlling one leg of the same robot in co-op mode.
Robotry is coming to Xbox, Switch, and PC on October 26, if this purposely preposterous title sounds like your kind of fun.
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