Space Bob vs. The Replicons

Well, looks like we have another winner here. I've been totally addicted to this one since getting it, and from watching my friends list, I'm not the only one. Space Bob vs The Replicons is, well.... how do I describe this? Now, I said this already in a recent other review (of ADIOS Amigos), but this game reminds me of two things: Lunar Lander, and Solar Jetman, both put together. And yeah, it's sort of a similar concept to ADIOS as a result, but it takes that basic core concept and runs in a totally different direction with it... this is NOT a clone of that game. Here, you will control Bob (obviously) as he tries to make it home, hopping from planet to planet on his way to the jump gate that should get him out of this galactic hell. Better move fast though, the Replicons are out for blood, and the longer you take, the more aggressive the horde will get. You'll explore all sorts of places, go hunting for crystals and items, fight robot spiders, dodge lava geysers, and so on, all while your AI buddy Dave cheers you on and offers advice (which does a great job of helping you to learn the game). If you're good enough, you may also visit a Replicon base or two. Most of your time though will be spent on those planets. Each individual planet is it's own self-contained world (unlike ADIOS where numerous planets are present at once). These planets are enormous... there's LOTS of room for all sorts of shiny stuff that you're going to want. Interestingly, the planets themselves are all hand-crafted. Originally I thought this would mean too much repetition, but it's done right here. The CONTENTS of the planets is the procedural aspect. You may have seen this specific desert world before, but you'll have to approach it very differently than the last time, because this time it's spawned totally different things in totally different places. The experience with each world varies wildly from one run to the next, and I love that. Some planets will have extensive cave networks to explore, others will be mostly adventures on the surface. All of them are huge though. Fortunately the game has an absolutely superb camera system. You can zoom in and out at will, however far you want, and at any time you can go into scan mode, where you can freely move the camera wherever, allowing you to scout for resources and plan out how you want to approach the planet. Or IF you want to approach the planet. Of course, actually getting at those resources is the hard part. Bob is.... fragile. He's not some superhero or something. His space suit is rather delicate and easily damaged. Basically everything hurts him as a result. Did you just walk into a wall too hard? Yep, that's some damage for you. Pulling an item and it slides into you? Yep, that'll hurt too. The one major thing that DOESNT hurt Bob is fall damage. As the game explains, his boots are pretty awesome. It's the rest of his suit that's hard to deal with. What's more, Bob's movement is kinda floaty. This guy is an astronaut, dealing with planets that seem to have rather low gravity... Bob tends to move as if he's on the moon. That's the best way I can explain it. Now, dont get me wrong here: The game's controls are actually excellent. However, it takes some getting used to. After some practice though, you'll be pulling off lots of skillful jetpack maneuvers and stuff like that. Just getting around and navigating these worlds feels great. Same for your lander, really... the small ship that you take down to the planet. It's big, it's slow, it's heavy, and it's easily damaged (fortunately, like Bob, it has quite a bit of HP, but damage adds up fast). Piloting the lander is a rather careful and deliberate process. Fly carefully, dont waste fuel, and land properly.... you dont want to end up on your side or wedged in something... that's bad. ADIOS had these elements too, but it's dramatically more forgiving about it than Space Bob is. Not only will your lander get you down to the surface, it'll also be how you take items back to your big ship. Drag them up there, and drop them into the processing room to get resources and such out of them. Which brings me to what's possibly the game's most awesome mechanic: The grappling hook/rope/beam or whatever it is. I said Bob isnt a superhero, but on second thought, he's maybe a bit like Spiderman. This grappling gizmo can fire a line that extends to any length and can latch onto basically anything. Once set, you can manipulate it's length directly, pulling yourself up and such. But not just that. You can rope multiple objects together easily (you can have as many ropes present as you want, there's no limit to them and they dont break until you manually pop them), and then string the whole blob of objects along. Grab them with Bob and fly them with your jetpack back to the lander. Or use the grapple thing as a winch and have it do the heavy lifting for you. There's alot of creative ways to get things done with this (or you could just swing around like some sort of Space Tarzan if you want). It's a simple mechanic that the game really runs with, making it incredibly versatile and loads of fun to use. On the forum there's a video that the dev made showing many uses of this thing... check it out to see what I mean. On top of all of that, there's loads of content here. LOTS of different objects and hazards that you can find on each planet. Each object is worth different resources (did I mention the grapple thing can scan objects and tell you exactly what each contains?), as well as crafting elements, for you to power up your character and lander. Some objects have special functions. There's LOTS of stuff to find, though you absolutely wont know just what things are for when you first encounter them. It seems though that basically everything even has a use. Even pieces of exploded enemies are worth taking back... they're almost always useful crafting elements. You will run into some planets that are almost barren (but hey, nobody says you MUST explore each one... feel free to move on) but overall, your run will be filled with cool things to find. That is, if you dont die first. Space Bob is a brutal game. Not only is Bob easily damaged, but hazards are everywhere. As are the Replicons, evil robots that come in many forms, and exist purely to murder you. Combat is something that is hard to get used to. Expect some frustration with that at first. It's very skill-based however... the more practice you have, the more bots you'll be smashing. But beware, as there's never truly a safe moment. What will often get you killed is the physics... all these different objects interacting and such, and combined with your own inevitable screwups, this can lead to Yet Another Stupid Death in rather entertaining ways. It never feels frustrating though, or unfair. There's always a way out of any situation, and the whole "scan with the camera" feature means you're never going in unprepared. It's up to you, not the RNG, to get through this adventure alive. Not to say that the RNG wont play a part, though... of course it will. But I'm saying that RNG alone isnt going to kill you here. This is a pretty big game, with lots of content, excellent mechanics, loads of careful detail, and many viable tactics for approaching any given situation. Exploring, fighting, looting, building up your character with powerups, and finding secrets... it's all here. There's alot to learn, and it's a bit tough to get used to, but as a whole, Space Bob is absolutely fantastic.

TL;DR: Space Bob is a tribute to good ol' lunar lander, but with a few nice twists. Your goal is to harvest all kind of resources from the planet surface and transport them to your mother ship. The gameplay mostly revolves around solving various logistic problems: how to gather and transport heavy objects using your lander and grappling hooks. Anything that fits into mothership's dock can be salvaged. Anything. That also includes your enemies and a few other environmental hazards. It's really fun to spend time trying to figure out how to secure and transport stuff efficiently while managing your fuel and the other resources at the same time. Summing up, this is a really decent game with a lot of content. Even tho the gameplay loop is relatively simple (discover new planet, harvest, upgrade, survive) there is still a lot of other stuff the game has to offer. If you like physics based games, resource management and exploration this is the game for you.

This is such an awesome game. I felt so proud of myself dragging a fusion core to my refinery ship on my very first planet. It was so heavy, my ship could not handle it. Thankfully, the grappling gun is incredibly useful at gluing basically anything to any surface, it really comes in handy. It's not a difficult game by any means, but feats such as this really makes it shine to me. There are no cons, no clunkiness, nothing. It's perfect in the areas of what it is trying to achieve.

This is a great little game. Part No Man's Sky, part Gravitar, with rogue-like elements. I have a very soft spot for 2D sandbox games and this one really rings all my bells. It's slow-paced at times, but this complements the intense action and gives you a nice breather from the moment when you are zipping around neon caves killing bad guys. I thoroughly recommend this game.

I'm not typically moved to write reviews, because ultimately, who cares what I think? Enjoyment of any game is totally subjective, so the reviews around this one could well all read: "Worst game ever - refunded", but for what it's worth, here are my thoughts... Space Bob is an engaging, challenging, physics-based sandbox puzzle game that continues to reward your investment of time many tens of hours in. The controls may feel a tad unfamiliar at first, but persevere and you'll soon see your skills improving with every fight and salvage run. As you discover new resources, biomes and threats you'll develop strategies for dealing with them, particularly for recovering salvage from the deeper cave systems. There are many environmental hazards that can be perilous if not respected, especially when encountered in conjunction with the sudden appearance of Replicons. The Replicons themselves will pursue Bob if nearby and can be somewhat troublesome, but can be avoided with practice and rarely do their numbers prevent Bob from achieving his current goal. Bob's main focus will tend to be the efficient acquisition of fuel, energy and the materials required for his upgrades. How you collect these resources is where the game shines most - the grapple gun. The grapples it fires are effectively lengths of cable that can be used to connect Bob to things, those things to other things, and so on. Once connected, the length of each grapple can be extended or retracted to move Bob or those other things around, and this is tremendous fun. Dragging an enormous grapple-chain of salvaged resources back to the refinery ship with Bob's lander can be tricky, as the weight and inertia of the chained objects will drag the lander around if not sensibly balanced. Control of the lander can be improved by carrying less weight, better distribution of the weight and/or upgrading the lander's thrusters. I could go on, but TLDR is getting dangerously close, and one of the many joys of this game is in discovering these things for yourself. If the above hasn't already garnered your interest then this probably isn't your cup of tea, but for those of you still reading, I'll close with a few further thoughts... My time to date has been spent at Normal difficulty, in which resources are relatively plentiful and damage levels are not devastating. Once I've finished my current Survival run, I'm going to start another at the next highest difficulty, where resources are scarce and incoming damage is doubled. The game can be as relaxing or as hardcore as you want it to be. The graphics are noteworthy: friendly, robust and welcoming - Bob's universe is a pleasant place in which to spend time. And to enjoy those graphics, the game offers the widest range of zoom I think I've ever experienced in a 2D game. I often find myself zooming right out when flying and right in when exploring. Lastly, and for those of a certain generation, Space Bob will likely evoke memories of Thrust and Exile on the BBC Model B and Jetpac on the ZX Spectrum, but brought right up-to-date. Nostalgia was enough to get me playing, but Space Bob has kept me playing.

The premise of the game is cool enough, but the difficulty level is through the roof. Enjoyable if just a tad frustrating. It doesn't help that the controls seem unfamiliar at first and will take a lot of time to get used to - by which time I suspect that most players would have shrugged their shoulders and moved on to something else. Recommended only to roguelike diehards. 7/10

Very fun little game that I can't stop playing. You've got combat, spaceflight, crafting, some survival, and exploration all at your fingertips. I love exploring the caves, loading up my lander with as much stuff as it can possibly carry, and slowly making it back up to the refinery ship. [strike]Unloading can be a chore sometimes, but just that's part of bringing back too much loot.[/strike] [i]Update: I missed the part in the tutorial saying you can use down on the D-pad or X on the keyboard to manually disconnect the loot from your ship. This resolves my unloading problems. Thanks to the dev for helping me out there![/i] The story mode was a little too tough for me on my first game while learning the controls and all that. A few hours in the less stressful exploration mode got that all straightened out though. The dev seems very engaged with the community, so I have high hopes for this one improving while in early access. Highly recommended to anyone who likes space games.

I wish I enjoyed this as much as the others who reviewed this game, but I really didn't see any of the positive aspects of those reviews in my time playing the game. To start with, you'll have to remap some controls, because the dev put controls in seemingly random locations on the keyboard aside from basic movement. Then you are thrown into a tutorial with no urgency before starting a mission where you are told you pretty much have an hour to live, good luck. If that's not enough, you are meant to search planets for resources to keep your ship running/your guy alive, but by the 20 minute mark it's impossible to land on a planet without being overrun by spiders and wasps. Maybe I was very unlucky, or maybe I was just missing some crucial information but this game seems like it might need some more work before it's worth buying. I got it at a 75% discount and will still be returning it because I have no desire to play it in this state.

This game is the third game in the Lunar Lander series; 1. Lunar Lander (Arcade) 2. Solar Jetman (NES) 3. This game right here! (Props to the comments here that told me the name of Solar Jetman because I've been trying to remember that game's name FOREVER) I mean this in the form of Spiritual Successor. This game just nails the niche of the genre so well that it deserves to be known WAY MORE than it is... This game isn't exactly like the other two in the form of linear gameplay. This is 100% a roguelike game that you can enjoy countless times while not even gaining progression. I want to point out that I am TERRIBLE at this game. I can't seem to get the controls completely down. I crash into everything. I constantly grab the wrong objects. I can't aim to save my life. I switched to a controller to try to get better, and the zoom function is connected to a very vital control of aiming with the right joystick... and it kills me so often because of it. Even after saying that, I still love this game. This is a very rare form of discovery into grind that takes the troupe of "1 more try" to the extreme with each run potentially taking hours to complete. The only problem with this game is that you can stumble into planet after planet that doesn't help your progress because of the lack of resources (levels seem intentionally scarce or procedurally generated), and that doesn't feel fair in the slightest. Sure, you can grab landscapes like rocks/stalactites(stalagmites) and gain resources from it, and you can destroy/capture enemies for some as well, but it doesn't make up for the amount of resources used to gather them. It feels like rolling the dice when deciding on which new planet is a good idea. Yes, this is the reality even with the descriptions available for each planet. I know this jumbled mess of a review isn't normal for me, but that's because I don't have normal things to say about this game. I bought it on sale for like $4 or something like that, and I feel like I didn't spend enough to play this game. This game would definitely be on my list of "Top Hidden Gems on Steam"... I might actually make that just to showcase this wonderful game. Thanks for the great game with tons of replay value!

Loved lunar lander as a kid so this scratches a certain itch. The rest of it is okay. Got my money's worth out of it.

Playing with physics is way too addictive (distracting) !. The so called "go in and out" fast and easy landing, often end's up with no or almost none energy/fuel for "safe" trip to spaceship base for refill.

For me there was about a 15 death learning curve, before I got comfortable with the game. I still find it annoying at times. I would prefer my home base to not be deadly to me. You must be on your guard at all times, everywhere in this game. If you like discovering multiple novel ways to die, then this is the game for you. :-) I like flying the ship and exploring. I would prefer a bunny slope area in the game to try it out where you can't run into the bad guys - maybe two planets with minimal resources, and moderate hazardous environment. Supposedly there is a difficulty slider, but I have yet to find it - that may be available after you play through the entire game the first time - I'm only in Act 2.

A hidden gem. The game is an evolution of the old Lunar Lander arcade game, but fleshed out a bit more. The mechanics are easily grasped but hard to master, and the gathering and crafting systems are sufficiently rewarding, especially with having to learn to deal with gravity and correctly managing center of mass so your rocket doesn't constantly try to fall over. Enemy variety is fine for the length of the game and I found the sphere-based levels to be a nice gameplay touch. The dev is still adding features, albeit slowly (one man team I believe), and I definitely got my money's worth out of the game, and I like to support creative small devs. I easily recommend this as a unique and fun indie game.

Game seems to be a lot of fun so far. During my lunch break, I went through the entirety of the tutorial, and collected some resources from the following planet and managed a hyper-jump. Controls on XBone need a bit of work, mostly I'd like to see aiming on the right thumbstick, instead of sharing with movement. It would save having to lock feet as well, with the left trigger, which seems clunky. If it allows remap, that would be grand, and I'll update my review accordingly. Obviously this game is very important to the developer, and is definitely worth the money invested so far (bought on the first day). UPDATE: The dev has listened to feedback and added a complete save system, and has satisfactorily addressed some of the concerns I had with the tutorial.

The classic arcade game Gravitar meets the frenzied race against time of FTL with a side order of old-school platforming for a terse, tense game of finagling crystals via grappling hook through caves to your lander, which then has to carry the whole heavy mess back to your ship before the aliens kill you. A strict hour time limit and having a jetpack/grappling hook combo from the start makes for a very hard but fun game. Features adjustable difficulty and many ways to kill your own dumb self like explosively slamming the loot into your lander, or attempting to eject with the cockpit still down. Despite having a grappling hook and jetpack with separate energy bars, arguably two of the most useful things in video games ever, this game is hard as balls and demands you not be greedy whilst pulling energy crystals to the surface in a desperate race against time. Space Bob and his Space Suit are rather fragile. So is the lander. Not insta-death fragile, unless you select that difficulty, and the health bar for both is quite generous. But repairs eat up energy. and time spent fighting physics and gravity is time the aliens have to unleash robo-bugs to kill you! "He'll be lucky to survive an hour," poor guy didn't make it thirty minutes. Sorry, Bob.

Finally a great Game again to play for hours and not getting boring. I love the Mix of Freedom, Exploring and fighting. Collecting Materials from the Planets and Aliens to craft some Upgrades for your Pilot and your Shuttle to get better in this long fight against the big Alien Invasion. And the funny comments from the KI in your Suit is very amusing which brings me often to laughing. Another good point is the fact, that the Devs are communicating with the ppl, helping with probs, giving some tipps, btw. this game have a good tutorial, and some nice help for beginners in the forum incl. video. Reported bugs geting almost instantly feedback from dev and when its needed, fix is on the way. There are many updates till now, still making the game better and better. I love this Game and i can just say, give it a try.

EDIT(16.Jul.2018): This review has been revised after I recieved a refund for a purchased copy, and then recieved a free copy provided by the dev for a second look several months later. This discussed further at the end of the review. The short version is "the game is fine, and needs work." I think the dev's heart is in the right place, but he really needs to get out of his own way. For a lot of reasons I've just lost any enthusiasm I had for this game and it's community. It's probably not going to get more of my time beyond what I've put in. If I could give it a neutral review, a 'meh', I would, but I don't to keep the negative review because I don't want to discourage someone who may really enjoy it. The longer version is... longer. This game is the love child of the young(ish) hotness FTL and her much older boyfriend Solar Jetman. It has some randomization elements of the former and the core gameplay of the latter (Arrive at a planet, salvage material for power ups, defend salvage from enemies, move to the next planet, repeat). I <3 both these games, so for me, the pedigree of the game is amazing. At it's heart this is a side-scrolling physics game, and the primary tool is a two-ended rope that attaches to items and walls. It's an interesting physics mechanic and good conceit for the game. I feel that has been done before, but it's fresh enough here. And of all the places in the game for dev's heart, for lack of a better term, to shine through, it's the dialouge from Bob's lil A.I. buddy.... who's name I can't remember. Regardless! I don't know how he did it, but the little guy's personality *acutally* comes across as warm, sincere, concerned, and supportive. It's seriously one of my favorite parts of the game. It has to be mentioned that the dev has listened to and responded to several points of criticism. The lander used to handle like shit, it's fine now. There were some really frustrating edge situations like scrap falling INTO the lander, leading to it's invariable destruction. Some of that has been fixed. So whats the problem? I think the fundamental problem with the game comes down to a lack of information provided by the game, which leads to loads of frustration. Gathering multiple resources is important to succeed in the game, but for the most part you have *no* idea what resources you can expect on the next plane, so it's difficult if not impossible to make an informed decision about where to go next. If you're short on energy, you can't try to get to a planet with that might have more energy because you have no idea which planet that would be. It's a crap shoot, and it doesn't feel good. Now, FTL's systems were randomized as well, but it doesn't seem to suffer from the same 'bad feeling' for a couple reasons. A run in FTL feels *really* disposable, much more disposable than a run in Bob & the Replicons. In FTL, you can make progress, earn acheivements, etc in any game. A run through takes less time in FTL, and is much less repetive than a run in this game. Basically, FTL is a *true* rogue-lite [Edited to be rogue-liTe, instead of rogue-liKe]. I think the game can be improved, and I plan to briefly rejoin the community to discuss my ideas on how to solve the problems. However, I don't plan on staying long; like I said before, I'm pretty much -done- with the game. RE: My previous review I previously provided a negative review for a combination of reasons. I'm not going into the details, but the dev deleted several threads I started to give feedback and then accused me of being 'toxic' and intentionally disruptive. The threads were deleted *after* I had linked them in comments in my review. In response to the negative feedback, the dev accused me of trying to defame him. Since the dev deleted the threads, I had to no recourse to defend myself from his accusations. With that kind of response I had little faith in the future of the game, and with 3 hrs play time into the game I couldn't play any more and get a refund. I had no other course of action other than to review the game in the state I had played it and get a refund. Several months after this occured, I ran into the dev in twitch stream and reluctantly agreed to accept a free key and take a second look at the game. The result is this review. I really wish I felt like I didn't have to do this, but I've archived a copy of the previous review page on the wayback machine, available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180717025519/https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198008555896/recommended/780390/ I'd love to leave that in the past, but I've been burned too many times by too many devs. I've learned that I *have* to 'keep the receipts' when dealing with devs. I'm not going to get caught AGAIN without an independent record of what was said so group moderators/owners can fill in what they please. I don't expect that would happen here, AGAIN, but like I said, I simply won't take that chance anymore. In the spirit of new beginnings, I've also removed my comments discussing the previous situation below.

The dialogues (monilogue?) are nice. And the game is challenging. Whoever pot up the casual tag has a really weird sense of humor. Considering the difficulty is likely intentional, there are still three things that spoil the experience a little bit for me. 1. You can't run in one direction and shoot the other. You can't even walk in the opposite direction. The times I shit my lander while trying to run away from pursuing airborne replicons is way too high. 2. The way the refinery ship is designed makes the resources strike lander as they fall down the hatch, wasting more energy for repairs. And you can't drop the tether from the ship as far as I know so when they disconnect is more or less random. You will be picking up stuff hanging off the ship a lot. 3. Lander weapon is practically useless to the point where it doesn't really need to be there. It's hard to aim and low damage. As far as I know, same damage as default blaster. There also seems to be some sort of turret under the lander cabin which I am not sure what is supposed to do. Replicons use it on their dropships to anchor to the ground but so far I was unable to use it. Tl;Dr.: The game has some quirks that I would really like to change but in its current state is still addictive and fun. 7.5/10 from me.

Bought this on day one, found it on reddit. After spending a good part of an afternoon playing, I'm really impressed so far. Not so easy as the trailer makes it look. Completely addicting and well thought out game play. Save on exit would be nice and I hear that may be in the works? Completely worth the money spent. I am really hoping new additions to weapons, tools, and possible ships will come in the future. Even if not, right after writing this I'm going back to play some more, so that should tell you something!

Space Bob vs. The Replicons is by the same guy that created the legendary 6DOF title called Neon XSZ and from the minute you open the game several things are very apparent, you realise that Space Bob vs. The Replicons is very slick, colourful, enjoyable and that the creator (Paul) has coated his new baby in a rich covering of love - in other words Paul has poured his heart and soul into a very original and refreshing indie game which will appeal to gamers of all walks of life, young and old alike. I found the game (so far) to be incredibly enjoyable and it made me smile from ear to ear when even just dipping my space boots into the enticing environs of the game world. There is a ton of stuff to do and learn but I found the game mechanics/controls to grasp and it was not a major chore (as with some games) to get into. Controls are logical but I will point out that I have only just scratched the surface but on what I have seen so far, I will wholeheartedly recommend Space Bob to all my fellow spacefaring travellers. 9/10 and well worth the asking price. Neon XSZ was in EA for quite a time but it turned out to be mind blowing when it came to the final build. Paul updates his games on a very regular basis. Very true of Neon XSZ and also of Space Bob vs. The Replicons. Space Bob vs. The Replicons has a sound footing and it has only just been released. There is much to do, but to be fair, I love the dev's work and for me (and maybe loads of others out there), Space Bob ticks all the rights boxes for a game that is not overly complicated but FUN and that is what gaming is all about. Just pure fun!

After 60 hours in this game, and on the eve of its relase from beta, I feel comfortable posting a review for this game. Let me tell you about SpaceBob. This game does NOT hold your hand. Getting familiar with the controls will take some time. To learn how to effectively move not only your lander, but how to attach things to it will take 1 - 2 hours. If you see reviews will less than this amount of time, you are not getting an accurate account of the game. Gravity is your first nemesis. But one that is easily overcome. However, you will quickly find there are things out to get you (The Replicons). Starting easy, but getting tougher as you take longer and the closer you get to the jump gate. While there aren't really many "puzzles" in this game, there are definitely strategies that need to be figured out. Have a heavy load to bring back? You may need to upgrade your lander, take smaller loads, or figure a new strategy. With multiple parts to the game, the replayability is pretty good. Overall this is a great game with a VERY active developer. The graphis are 2D, but vey good. This game will even run on LOW end computers. I have encountered very few bugs in the game, and when they were found, they were squashed and updated almost instantly. I encourage you to pick up the game and give it a go! See you soon, Bob

Great little 2D game! If you like Lander games, playing with physics, exploring, resources gathering/management, crafting and some action… this is exactly your game. Primary skilfully gameplay with tactics and resource management. It’s really fun to fly a ship with one sided weight and momentum on a rope. With time you learn how to move and fix the resources on your ship and also to get it in the mothership. The enemies are diverse and need all a different way to kill or avoid (the spiders flip over your ship ^^) and the Boss fights are challenging. The freedom to rush it through or explore and kick ass the Replicons with different difficulty levels gives the game a great replay ability. Completely recommended and worth the price. Off topic: On any dev reading this… please do a game like this in 3d. THX

Who would've thought that a combination of No Man's Sky's sense of exploration, Just Cause's grapple hook and Lunar Lander's physics could make such an great experience! I have to hand it to this Developer, this is a very well made and thoroughly polished game.

This is a great game that I can pick up, play with my kids on my lap and have a good time. If you liked lunar lander back in the day, this is the game for you. Its hard, but not too hard. The first few hours are rough, but once you master the landing craft, its nothing but fun.

Unassuming little physics-based platformer, but actually very enjoyable and addictive.

I dont often review games but this one deserves it, not had this much fun and fear since first playing minecraft

Even on sale, I can't recommend yet. I like the simple concept of the game, but there are issues : -The save system might be broken on linux. As I finished act 1, the game froze and the progress was lost on relaunch. Quite boring when you just spent the past few hours trying to complete this act. -There is way too much offtime : flying is a mess and always forces you either to spam navigation keys for long minutes until you reach the ship. Even with less weight the navigation time is far too long and is not the core of the gameplay. It should be made shorter. -Flying vehicle weapon is trash, maybe make it at least auto-targeted missiles -Combats are impossible as you can only fire in front of you and your character is walking on soap.

Interesting idea, but constant dying for no reason isn't fun.

If you've ever wanted to tag along on those FTL away-team missions, this game is probably for you. Yes, it's good. However, it is [i]deceptively[/i] brutal. -- Probably go in knowing this. Even though it says "perma-death" in the description, the art design seems to imply a degree of softness. That isn't really the case. It's 2D and the physics play a massive role in resource gathering, fighting and navigation. Occasionally things and/or enemies will get 'stuck' to you and do repeated damage, and, despite the level 3 armor you've spent the last 2-3 hours acquiring, you will effectively melt. This is frustrating. But the physics are superb 99.8% of the time. The game simply has a great 'feel.' It is a game that presents problems without linear solutions. If you're largely bored by puzzle games but enjoy more open-ended creative problem solving scenarios, this game provides an excellent sandbox. There are often solutions that do not seem immediately apparent when you think you are doomed and/or stranded: grappling, proxy-flight of the ship, salvaging of enemies... there are a variety of variables to consider when expending resources. It is immensely satisfying to defy death with a bit of ingenuity. The cons are limited but here are a few: - Can't shoot/displace some poisonous plants... they're just 'not there,' physically. - Replicons appear pretty much immediately. you need them to acquire upgrades, so it's not really a problem. but it would be interesting if their presence/pacing was implemented differently. maybe i'm just slow. - Not much fauna. - Lots of great/physics interactions but rocket-blast/stream doesn't provide any thrust/push on surrounding items (maybe this was tried and found too be to tedious with all the tiny pieces laying about). - losing your upgrades after the first act makes the game a lot more of a grind than it previously was... i know this adds (at the very, very least) a couple hours to the play through but... not cool. Anyway, yea, very good. Price is a bit steep but it's clearly a labor of love.

Look, you can't beat the price. Also, it's genuinely fun.

This game needs way more polish for 20 bucks The tutorial system is obnoxious, having to sift through text that are 60% humor and 40% content while I'm like "I just want to play jesus" The controls are wonky, nothing feels right. Having to use E and Q to change lengths and swapping guns with c and f. I just feel myself getting frustrated as I play. Even getting around my own ship is annoyingly slow. Going to the upgrade room takes 30 seconds. I also don't like how you start off with everything and then upgrade the equipment you already have. Would have been cool if it was like Pikman where you gather your essentials from planets and it's really exciting. I'd have liked if the movement around the ship was like subnautica. Everything happening fast, no waisting your time. Even gathering minerals was feeling tedious having to slowly buzz through the maze to get to them. All in all this game has a ton of potential in the idea, just flying from planet to planet upgrading your stuff, trying to survive, with a cool physics and weight system. But I'm not happy with how it was executed.

Lunar Lander meets the FTL game. A good concept and a good modern take on Lunar Lander game mechanics. Where you have to tow collected resources back to a orbiting mother ship. Once collection is done navigate on FTL style jump map. To go to the next world. Finally racing the bad guys to the end level point on the map. Thumbs down because of mystery doors that block access. With no clue as why they even exist. Also the random placement of resources means it is possible to have several planets with no fuel in a row. Which means you automatically lose regardless of an actions taken. It is a random flip of a coin between a good strategy game or one that removes all player agency. The developer admitted that "game's challenge is somewhat based on RNG". Confirming that player skill can take a back seat over pure random chance. In terms of development it is a solid concept that well executed. However the randomness of it all is just not for me. The whole thing is spoiled by the random low chance that resources actually spawn at all. Which makes the whole thing nothing more that a roll of the dice. All skill elements are removed and play length is determined by luck. Total waste of time

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!! I hope the dev adds more content. Different Mats, Crafting items, etc...

Beautiful game. It's got a fun physics emulator and is generally just a good thing. It would be nice if it had a bit more campaign than it does, but it was definitely worth the buy.

Seemingly no save system/permadeath. Every time i died the game reset completely to just after the tutorial. Physics respond extremely poorly, and the way salvage is glued to your ship makes it a lot more irritating to control than fun. This is made worse by the heavily delayed controls; pressing left or right to roll the ship it will continue rolling for almost a second after you let go. You are also extremely prone to taking damage in astronaut mode, simply rubbing against the ground often deals damage, although upgrading to tier 2 armor did seem to solve this. Watch the grapple guide for a good idea of what the game is like, really have noting to add to it. Upgrade and resource system is extremely basic though. Recommend reading newer reviews after this one since there's a good chance these issues will be fixed later.

Your mission is reach the Jump Gate to escape. You begin abored a Refinery Ship (Mothership seems more fitting really) which displays your Storage Tanks of the three main resources required; Hyper Fuel: Used for Planet/Anomoly jumps. Energy: Used for Self healing, replenishing your stock for the use of tools/weapons & repairing your Lander Craft. Fuel: Used to refuel your Jetpack & Lander Craft. Other resources are required for Crafting. Easily figured out! Three screens give access to - A Galaxy Map: For planning jumps or routes. Crafting/Upgrading: for various things you have (except for the Grappling Hook ATM) & a Stats screen: Tracks score, etc. A seperate room with a medical facility keeps you healthy & refuels your Jetpack. A Docking Lift for your Lander Craft which highers & lowers accordingly. Lander repairs & refueling begin when fully lowered. A red siren alerts you when the lift lowering the Lander is obstructed in some way. Last but not least is the housed Refinery. Its red conveyor beam is in the lower part of the Mother... errr Refinery ship which pushes resources & objects left to be vacummed upwards for refining. ATM The main tools you [b]tediously[/b] use are a Grappling Hook & a jetpack. The weapon you have is a pistol. Its projectile depends on the upgrade level. I do hope more tools/equipment are considered being added. The Lander Craft. The LC is your primary way of getting around a Planet. Its fast, has a gun, (Of little use - only fires upwards) & is capable of lifting items attached to it by the Grappling Hook. The LC is remote controlled. Allowing seperate control while you are somewhere else!! The biggest drawback of The LC are the controls. Basically the controls are analog based which means players with controllers will have little problems. But for KB/Mouse players, without a doubt ATM its the most cumbersome Craft in terms of handling on a KB than any other Ive experienced. Its just to sensitive. Newbees will struggle. In saying that, with time and practice you will get better. Oh & one more thing, DONT lose your LC cus ATM no replacement is available!!! You can still continue but its a hard up hill struggle. UPDATE: [b]A save upon exiting & a continue upon restart as been added. See Forum for details. The Lander Craft controls have been improved.[/b] Summary: Space Bob shows a lot of potential & the Devs are very active. Ive absolutely hammered this game since purchase & loved every minute of it. Well worth the price - great value. Sweet simple graphics & for an EA game right now, the gameplay is amazing & addictive.

kinda fun, its annoying that the speed of objects have a cap thats kinda low (the player and your lander) even with upgraded thrusters it just means you can carry more things. the story mode is annoyingly repetetive with how you have to restart from the begining often, im not sure how many times exactly since i havnt finished it, but im on my 3rd start now. so far its pretty good though, would recomend, but not to much

[list] [*]CHALLENGING [*]SURVIVAL [*]ROGUE-LITE [*]HE'll BE LUCKY TO SURVIVE AN HOUR. Take note of the above list. It hits all the right buttons for me. It's got space, jetpacks, ships with Thrust-style mechanics, grappling, swinging and generally good old mechanics driven fun. If you take parts of Cosmochoria, Capsized and Retrobooster(underrated games) and mix them up and add in some new sparkles and charm, you get something close to Space Bob vs The Replicons. It's easily worth the small asking price and the dev keeps improving it. I've been following it since launch and I'm happy to have jumped in as early as I did. Get it now and watch it get better.

Gravity ☑ Lander ☑ Jetpack ☑ Grappling Hook ☑ Planets ☑ Warp ☑ Control ☑ Pain ☑ scratches that weird itch for lander control/gravity struggle but with [b]SO MUCH MORE[/b] [spoiler]SUFFERING![/spoiler] [spoiler]also the amazing grappling hook ❤️[/spoiler] [b]ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ[/b]

Awsome game, love the physics with everything, a well made game; recommend this game to whoever likes a game where you die and do it all over again! 10/10

Good grafics, very good music, fun to play. Challenging physics simulation. Space Bob vs. The Replicons is a great game! _____________________________________ Played again after some weeks and just want to add: It has the greatest in game music i ever heared!!!!

Edit: Developer is actively working on solving issues/bugs. Mechanics are fairly unique & the game is fun.

Ignore the recent negative review bombing. The mountain of crapware on Steam is trying to bury legitimately good indie games. This is a great game from a great developer. Look at the smooth vector polygon graphics - such a refreshing change from all the pixelated side scrolling games coming out on Steam nowadays.

Pros: Hard. Fun. Simple. Everything is physics driven. Be slow and steady (but not too slow--bad guys are coming) Labor of love from a single dev. Cons: Why did you spend 15 minutes making a giant snake of minerals and smack yourself you idiot lol

This game has a very minimal retro feel, but definitely has some originality, with some updated features that you wouldn't find in a retro game, such as crafting. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes a fairly chill game...not too much with timers and deadlines - you can play this at your own pace, but you have some action if needed, along with a few surprises like upgraded kit and weapons...very easy to get into and I don't feel like I have really fully explored it anywhere near what I want to!! Great game!

Artwork is fantastic, music amazing and sound effects are on point. This game is incredibly fun! It can go from chill to struggling to survive so fast it makes your heart pound. Collecting resources and bringing it back to your ship is the main goal and so rewarding. The planets are really fun to explore and there is so much variety. The situations you can find yourself in can be so silly it just makes you laugh and say "why did i do this to myself?". Getting out of those situations alive though is incredibly satisfying.

This was a lot more fun than I thought it would be! The sound effects and music really keep you engaged. The gameplay mechanics seem awkward at first but I was amazed at how quickly you pick them up and keep discovering neat tricks to pull of with your grappling hook and physics. Can't go wrong picking this up. Support our indie developers! This is a true Gem. Beautiful art and design. You can tell the developer put their heart and soul to perfect this game. Must play!

I have just bought this game and I will give it a thumbs up. I don't know if this game is still being developed but it sure is worth the 6 euros I paid for it while it is on sale. The controls are a bit wonky and pose an extra challenge. Mostly in the start, when Bob is very fragile in his normal space suit. Concept: Go to planets, get recourses, don't die, extract them in your mothership and leave after repeating this process multiple times. The recourses can be a bit heavy, but it's totally not bad. I mean, Bob's jetpack can barely carry 2 giant rocks, which is quite some mass. The enemies are fun because they give a sense of urgency: you can't stay on a planet for too long, or you need to use super much ammo. Some planets have RNG problems, as a negative review already stated. I find the fuel quartz to be too rare. Combine that with the low amount of starting fuel and you might run into some problems. What I do like is that there are different planet biomes with their own dangers. There is also 2 modes to play. Each mode can have your own preferred difficulty. The idea of this game: space, upgrades, resource management, careful movement and exploration, make this a good game for me. I recommend this game for a -50% sale, but you should also like the idea for the game to buy it.

I played this game because it had good reviews (and it was on sale). It is a nice arcade game. It was a very addictive game that kept me on playing and playing without stopping. The 2-D graphics of different planetary environments was psychedelically appealing, and the way the camera moved as you moved your astronaut (all 2-D) was cleverly automated. I enjoyed ways to efficiently move a bulk of resources from the caves or bottoms of the planet into the surface where my rocket could thrust them into my spaceship – using the grappler in creative ways, the logistic challenges of moving bulk kept me hooked for a while (but after a while you figure out all that can be done with the simple tool). As the robotic enemy Replicons kept on getting stronger, I had to act faster with more proficiency with navigating the astronaut around different planetary environments and building my assets (better gun, stronger armor, more powerful thrusters, etc); once I maxed out my asset capabilities with enough resource gathering, I became almost invincible and was able to get around at will without much fear of death. In the end, I didn’t learn anything new and felt no better from it playing it. No real physics as there are no extremities in gravity or environmental challenges (i.e. most planetoids were the same, some with more caves than others). There was some puzzle-solving when I encountered the mothership, but it was rather straightforward. It was just entertainment without any education. CONS: • Limited replayability (theme repeats itself often) PROS: • Entertaining to use the grappling tool in creative ways and move astronaut around near-zero gravity environments and watching an eye on various resources (energy, fuel). RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE GAME: • New themes like new enemies and planetary environment with more extreme (but realistic) conditions, i.e. gravity, atmospheric density, etc

Fun game, a bit more platform than I am used to, but I figured the premise was good enough to try, have two people in my household who love platform games. Very much had a blast playing it. Totally worth the money full price, easily, though I did get mine on sale.