Robota: Lost Demo

Exploration is an important part of video games, especially in genres like RPG or adventure, where the surrounding world is vital to the overall atmosphere. Hence, if you feel constrained and you do not get a chance to see what the world has to offer for yourself, it can be difficult to get into the proper mood. In essence, that is why a game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl got the recognition it enjoys today, because it would have been impossible to create the same atmosphere if the levels were linear and they constrained the player to a few enclosed maps.

Robota: Lost is an exploration game with barely any story to it and just enough intrigue to get you mildly interested at the start of the adventure. However, there is not much substance holding the entire thing together, and the game becomes repetitive and boring after a while. Granted, this is merely a demonstration and an experiment, but since it was released with a name and the intention of posing as a game, it deserves the same kind of critique as every other game.

To begin with, you seem to be playing the role of an unknown person/robot, because the developers are not very accurate on that. As it happens, you find yourself on some sort of alien planet and you have no idea how you got there, which is a mighty convenient way to avoid complicated background stories and similar issues. After a few steps, you stumble into what appears to be an alien spacecraft, which lacks the necessary power cells to be operated. Naturally, you start exploring the surrounding area for batteries and so the journey begins.

Unfortunately, that is also where the journey ends, because what follows is by no means fun or adventurous in any way. What makes exploration so exciting is the plethora of interesting things and locations you get to admire along the way, but when everything out there is basically comprised of a few hills, indigo trees and the occasional puddle, things are pretty far from fun as they can possibly be.

Thankfully, as least the visual aspect is not at all bad, because the engine seems capable of pretty nice imagery and rendering large, open environments. Someone came up with the idea to cover all of this in a thick layer of grain, however, which kind of ruins the entire thing. While noise and grit is the right way to go in some cases, it is pretty difficult to see its purpose when the environment is but a succession of hills and forests, with a beautiful sunset going on at the same time.

In the end, Robota: Lost is not the kind of game you would recommend to your worst enemy, but that doesn’t mean it is devoid of good things entirely. In fact, with enough work and dedication, this can turn into something nice and fun, although the chances for that to happen are extremely slim.