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 it, the player controls a robber named Bob and must sneak around houses to complete missions. Robbery Bob was released for iOS on May 3, 2012, and has been met with a mixed reception for its gameplay and art quality.
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]
Plot
In prison, Bob meets a "Strange Dealer", who helps him out of jail. He requests Bob to return the favor by stealing items from different buildings, however Strange Dealer, traps Bob in one of the levels, and after Bob escapes the building, he calls the police to the strange dealers house and escapes form his slavery
Later, Bob is seen downtown, where he runs into a man named Biff. Bob is grabbed by Biff and is used to commit robberies for him. Bob enters into Biff's apartment and sees the police, before Biff fights the officers. Bob quickly steals everything he can and escapes.
Then, Bob travels to a desert to seek safety, but Dr. Thievius captures and forces him to steal components for various devices. However, in one of those robberies, he accidentally tells Bob of a secret exit; while all this happens, Dr. Thievius is begging him to come back and trying to blackmail him, and before Bob escapes, he activates the self-destruct system of the laboratory. He manages to escape, and the explosion blows Dr. Thievius into the air.
Robbery Bob has a "mixed or average" score on Metacritic.[10]
The gameplay was received poorly. In a TouchArcade review, Brendan Saricks felt that its 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.[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]
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