So Not The Robots is essentially a stealth roguelike, where, rather than lurking through dungeon tunnels or planning turns, you're evading sentry bots, avoiding lasers, and myriad other hazards as you progress through procedurally generated floors. Your uni-wheeled robot can roll fast to quickly break line of sight of armed sentries or keep up with a moving laser grid, as well as crouch to hide behind obstacles and avoid other dangers. To complete a floor, your robot must devour a set amount of furniture per level to unlock the exit and there in lies the strategy. Removing furniture means less places to hide, less barriers to block lasers, and makes getting to the exit that much more challenging. You have limited health and your only course of action when seen is to run and hide.

Besides your natural hiding skills, you can collect a limited use ability, from going invisible (but motionless) to placing a block down which you can hide behind. You can only equip one ability at a time and they can be used once before having to recharge (by eating furniture) so they must be used tactically and at the most opportune moment. Multipliers, logs that gradually piece together the story behind the game, health packs can also be found throughout each level

Besides the procedurally generated campaign, there are also 20 challenge levels to test your skills, so there's something for the speed-run fan as well. In both the campaign and challenges, you earn more points for not being seen, for collecting multipliers, and speed among other factors.

Controls are smooth and responsive. WASD to move, mouse to move the camera, other keys to crouch, use your selected ability. Gameplay is a mix of fast paced planning and maneuvering and evasive sneaking around obstacles to avoid enemies: procedurally stealth with a dash of puzzle elements (as planning what furniture to remove or not remove will help your escape, especially since sentry patrols will change once you open new paths).

---
After playing a bit more:
- There are upgrades found throughout the levels, providing things from an extra inventory slot (so you can two abilities rather than just one) and a scanner to see what abilities are contained in a box

- Found some cool new abilities. Dig lets you remove a wall and Sprint give you a few seconds of boosted speed. Dig is especially cool because it lets you alter the layout of a level, opening up new paths for you (and sentries) to use

- You also get extra points for eating all furniture and taking no damage. Upon death, you rank up and can unlock permanent upgrades

- The variety of hazards continue to impress. From moving energy walls with openings to pass through (giving the game almost a puzzle platformer vibe) to damaging floor pads, the challenge is very high

I've only just started with this fabulous little gem, but already completely hooked. So without giving too much away (since the game developer clearly loves his secrets!), this is basically a tight stealth game, where you are zipping around randomly generated levels picking up 'loot' as you go.

The brilliant, brilliant twist is this: that loot is your cover, the only thing keeping you hidden from lasers, levitating skulls of death, and - as the levelling system has assured me - 'nastier things'. So that's twist #1. You have to pick up your 'loot' (AKA 'food', AKA 'furniture) very carefully, since any cover you yank is cover permanently deleted. Yikes! Yet to leave the level you will have to grab a certain amount of it.

Then it starts getting crazier. For one thing, new objectives get added. NOW you have to go through a series of ordered points, scattered randomly through the level. NOW you have to 'tag' every enemy on the map by getting close and using an item - scary stuff. Mysterious laptops provide a gateway to the game's cryptic story of business skullduggery and a strong feeling of conspiracy.

And, like my favorite kind of rogue-like (sometimes called rogue-lite, I believe), the game changes each time you play. But maybe it should be called rogue-heavy in this case, because the game doesn't get easier (through 'upgrades') so much as harder (new elements, new ENEMIES). Of course, you also get to unlock special challenges (pre-designed maps with tailored problems to solve) and special runs. Some of these provide more 'XP' to continue advancing; some are just for the glory.

All of this is to say that Not The Robots is a fantastic, fun, panicky stealth game, pure and simple. There are no weapons (at least, so far), there is limited cover, and there are plenty of lasers and drones to end your run with a foolhardy step. I'm a glutton for this kind of finely-crafted punishment...are you? ;)

Do you like roombas and hate your furniture than this is the game for you. Best furniture eating sim on the market.

If you've ever played the Ultimate Assassin series on Kong, and enjoyed it, you'll enjoy this too.

A stealth game with an interesting mechanic; you must eat your own cover (the furniture) to clear a level. Not all of it must go however, so planning ahead is key, and the patient are rewarded. Close calls are common, even at the early levels, and you will need to have both wit and reflexes in order to survive. Features some great abilities to choose from, such as invisibility, removing walls (which are otherwise inedible), placing immovable blocks, teleportation, sprinting, as well as some others. Using the abilities are risk however; in order to activate them again, you must recharge them by eating furniture, so you really want to use them when you need it most. The AI performs brilliantly, making me hate the sentry bots for their perceptibility, yet still feel fair, for they mess up occasionally.

The aesthetic is what really gets to me. It is obvious from the get-go that you have been dropped into some dystopian robot future. As I haven't completed the game yet, I don't know what our purpose is behind eating furniture, but throughout gameplay, the game drops subtle hints as to what might have happened, through the snippets of conversations (which are voice-acted quite well), logs, and advertisements of a dead civilization. It's subtle, it's dark, but most of all, it's creepy.

There were a few things that got on my nerves however. First off, the game has a leveling system, in which you gain experience each time you die, based on your performance in the previous playthrough. Every level grants you a permanent upgrade. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a list of my upgrades anywhere, or else I am just missing it entirely.

The tutorial is extremely short, which always gets on my nerves, even more so then extremely long tutorials. Granted, it is a simple game, so you shouldn't have many problems picking up the pieces that the tutorial failed to.

Lastly, it would have been nice if they included some tooltips or any information on the differences between campaign, challenges, and operations. Tooltips for other functions would have been nice as well, however they are somewhat self explanatory.

All in all, a good game, well worth the price as it stands now at $6. At $10, however, it might not be everyones cup o' tea, althoguh I personally would buy it again at that price.

The game is essentially a third person stealth roguelike with a pretty original twist: in order to proceed through the game the player must "eat" furniture otherwise used as cover to hide from enemies and other obstacles. The tension between needing to save furniture and wanting to chow down on everything as fast as possible gives the game an interesting strategic depth, and the procedurally generated levels look as if they get insanely complex in later stages. Great fun!