Robbery Bob: Man of Steal (a pun on man of steel, an epithet associated with Superman, and also known by the subtitle King of Sneak[2][3]) is a 2012 stealthaction game developed by Swedish[4] studio Level Eight and originally published by Chillingo. In the game, the player controls a robber named Bob and must sneak around houses to complete missions. The game was released for iOS on May 3, 2012, and has been met with a mixed reception for its gameplay and art quality.
Gameplay and release
Throughout 50 levels,[5] the player controls Bob, the titular player character, from a top-down perspective. Bob must sneak around houses and steal items without being caught.[6][7] Enemies, including police officers, dogs, and family members, will roam around the house.[7][8] Bob can put on disguises, hide, change the enemies' direction,[7] and make distractions.[8][9] The player can run, but it will lure enemies towards them.[9] The level ends once they are out of the house, and stars grade the player's performance based on speed and accuracy.[9] On May 3, 2012, Chillingo released Robbery Bob for iOS.[6][8]
The game has a "mixed or average" score on Metacritic.[10]
The gameplay was received poorly. In a TouchArcade review, Brendan Saricks felt that the game's sneaking mechanic went from "real strong" to "a repetitive room-by-room hunt".[7] Saricks compared Robbery Bob to the 2011 video game The Last Rocket, criticizing that the game mechanics did not go together and that the gameplay was luck-based.[7] James Nouch of Pocket Gamer thought the controls were "clumsy",[9] while AJ Dellinger of Gamezebo thought they were "pretty fluid".[5] Although he thought the dialogue was "cringeworthy", Dellinger found that the story was "intense", writing about the crimes Bob commits in the game.[5]
Robbery Bob's art style was met with criticism. Luke Larsen of Paste magazine described it as "tacky", presented through "cartoonish antics" and "forgettable characters".[8] Dellinger said the graphics mostly consisted of smoothed "pixels from the '90s", and he stated that the plants were "drawings from kindergarteners".[5]
A sequel, titled Robbery Bob 2: Double Trouble, was released on June 3, 2015.[12]TouchArcade rated it four out of five stars, with reviewer Chris Carter praising it for filling a niche for heist games and focusing on stealth over action while criticizing the story’s premise as "stupid" and the art design as "forgettable".[11]
