Robot Exploration Squad

I have a soft spot for the kind of game that arrives on Steam without fanfare, built by one person, priced like a cup of coffee, and somehow still has a personality. Robot Exploration Squad is exactly that kind of game. Jack Dolabany built this 2D Metroidvania solo, shipping it through Steam Greenlight in September 2015, and while it wears its budget on its sleeve, there is enough honest craft here to warrant your attention if the genre is your thing. The setup is simple: a rogue space station materializes out of nowhere, and you suit up in a robo exosuit to go poke around inside it. From there, the game behaves like a textbook Metroidvania. You explore an open map, hit walls you cannot pass yet, backtrack when you find a new upgrade, and gradually unlock more of the station. The progression loop leans on permanent upgrades - think movement abilities like a super jump and spike-traversal tools - and the map slowly unfolds in that satisfying accordion way the genre does best. Boss encounters punctuate the exploration, and the enemy variety is broader than you might expect from a one-person operation, with community members cataloguing creatures ranging from fish-headed drones to flying queens. Where the game honestly struggles is in the rough edges that solo development tends to leave behind. Navigation can tip into genuine confusion - players in the community have posted maps mid-run asking where to go next, which tells you the signposting does not always land. The save system also draws some frustration; reports from players suggest the game does not allow saving after the final encounter, which is the kind of small oversight that stings more than it should. And at an average playtime sitting around three to four hours, you are not getting a sprawling adventure. You are getting a short, sincere one. Speedrunners have cleared it in under an hour, which means the ceiling on replayability is low unless you are chasing the eight achievements or going for full item completion. What holds it together is the spirit of the thing. The trading card roster alone - Fish Head, Bee, Fish Blob, Queen Fly, Gargoyle, Shopkeep, Sneak, Gremlin - reads like the monster manual of someone who had a lot of fun designing weird creatures and did not want to stop. The handful of players who reviewed it on Steam are overwhelmingly positive, not because the game is technically accomplished, but because it delivers the Metroidvania itch at a price point that asks almost nothing of you. Controller support is present, which matters in a genre where d-pad precision counts. For what it is, the handcraft shows, and I mean that with genuine warmth rather than condescension. If you have cleared your Hollow Knights and your Axiom Verges and you are hunting for something genuinely obscure - the kind of game that gets three forum posts and a speedrun thread and nothing else - Robot Exploration Squad scratches that itch with a kind of guileless confidence that bigger productions sometimes lose. Go in expecting a short, slightly janky, solo-dev love letter to the genre, and you will leave satisfied.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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