With so many Xbox Live Indie Games being released almost daily at this point, it’s easy to see why a few indie developers felt the need to band together to create what they considered to be a “cream of the crop” sort of event highlighting a bunch of great XBLIG games being released back in December (and a couple in January). Still, that doesn’t mean that any game not part of the event was bad. Case and point: Return All Robots!

The primary premise of Return All Robots! is fairly simple. You play as an intern who got stuck in a laboratory disaster where robots are turning evil and malfunctions are running rampant. This has caused a series of robots to go bad while a number of them have remained normal. The goal is to save the good ones while avoiding the bad ones.

Sounds pretty easy right? Actually, it can be quite difficult. Unfortunately, the robots aren’t functional in terms of AI. Basically meaning you have to control them with a small remote. The robots are then designed to face you wherever you go. Using this method you can control them and move them in a straight line towards the teleporter which will bring them out of harm’s way (those robots are expensive, after all).

Of course, having the evil robots thrown in each level just adds to the game’s challenging puzzles. You see, while directing robots all over the place, you’ll have to make sure that the evil robots never come in contact with you, the teleporter, or the normal robots. Should it happen even once you’ll lose the level and be forced to restart.

Overwhelmingly I enjoyed Return All Robots! for what it was: a simple, yet challenging, puzzle game that offered a high level of polish that I’m not entirely accustomed to in Xbox Live Indie Games. As such, I’d easily recommend this game to anybody out there looking for a unique, robot-inspired puzzler.

Return All Robots! is available right now via the Xbox Live Indie Games channel for 240 MS points ($3).

[Buy/Try, Space Whale Studios]

[This is not a review. This is a "first impressions" piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

Trailer