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Girls like Robots, published by Adult Swim is the most charming and entertaining seating
arrangement simulator on the App Store. Now before you all run away out of boredom, let's
clarify that. Yes the core mechanic of the game is to find the optimal seating arrangement
between a collection of colorful characters that either love or loathe each other, but
it's through the characters themselves, and how the game keeps unrolling new situations
that makes this a puzzle game that's certainly worth your time. Let's explore further.
The game starts with the premise of its name. There are girls, and they like robots. If
you drag a girl next to a robot, she will be ecstatic. The robot is certainly happy
enough with this arrangement, but if you surround the robot with girls, he will get scared.
Girls also don't like to be seated next to each other (as they don't want to share their
robots), and they definitely don't like being seated next to nerds (who love being seated
next to girls, don't mind robots, but don't really like each other). So what impact does
this all have on the game? Well each level has a happiness quota that needs to be met.
When a character is happy with their surroundings, they will be happy, and you'll get a better
score for the level, but if a character is just fine with the situation, or unhappy,
you'll probably have to tap the undo button and tackle the problem from another angle.
The early levels have the seating all mapped out, so you can be quite calculative in your
approach to which of the available characters you wish to seat where, but a lot of the levels
only open up possible seating arrangements once you've placed characters down. It's kind
of like a fog of war that only shows possible seating next to those already placed on the
board. These levels introduce more of a trial and error element to the game, and don't give
the same satisfaction as the earlier stages.
And for those of you worried about how far you can stretch the seating of three characters,
fear not for there are plenty more people to seat as the game continues, each with their
own likes and dislikes. And even though the characters themselves are square faces dragged
onto the game board, the art style, and the atmosphere paints a charming world with a
good sense of humour, and great tunes to boot!
Adult Swim always seems to create unique concepts that are fun to play, and Girls like Robots
is no exception. Puzzle fans, and those looking for a game with character will certainly get
your time and money's worth here. You might say that this game is quite good at putting
butts in seats. I wouldn't... but you might.