Bots & Mods

[H1]A neon gem with rough circuitry. Great vibes, but glitchy streets[/H1] This one nearly became an instant favorite. A cozy crafting shop simulator drenched in neon grime, where you juggle gangs, corpos, and customer orders while tinkering robots behind the counter. The loop is familiar but satisfying: mine resources, craft parts, fulfill requests, upgrade your shop and bots, wander the city, repeat. Yes, tasks are repetitive, but there’s enough variety in mini-games and item creation to keep things engaging rather than numbing. The pixel art is charming, you can choose between two main characters, and the overall ambiance leans hard into a Cyberpunk 2077–style gangs-versus-corpos mood. The story won’t reinvent the genre, but it’s entertaining, and a handful of NPCs have enough personality to make the city feel lived in. Progression is well tuned too: upgrades are fairly priced, learning curves feel natural, and requests often require actual thinking to balance robot stats. With no real time limits on orders, the whole experience stays pleasantly relaxed, and the ability to farm resources efficiently means less tedious backtracking. A sensory-friendly option is also appreciated, even if a brightness setting is oddly missing. Where things stumble is in the technical cracks. I ran into multiple issues, especially in Act 2. Shop upgrades refused to unlock despite having more than enough currency, only working again after a reboot. A quest demanded Robo Reach Data that was never introduced, leaving me confused for a while until I discovered hackable posts hidden at [spoiler]the far edges of town[/spoiler]. Another quest required raising reputation with all gangs, but completing all their requests caused the demand boxes to stop refreshing entirely, effectively blocking progress. Restarting the game can unstick this, but it’s still an irritating workaround rather than a solution. Resource balance also wobbles. Iron is needed in massive quantities, yet doesn't spawn enough compared to other minerals, forcing frequent mining trips even when you’re swimming in everything else. Add a few odd moments where interaction prompts appear with no one around, and an Act 3 that leans so heavily into [spoiler]corpo presence draining the mood[/spoiler] outside the shop, and the rough edges become hard to ignore. Underneath all that, though, there’s a genuinely great crafting shop sim with strong balance, a compelling atmosphere, and a loop that’s easy to love. The bugs and soft-locks, especially in Act 2, get in the way of recommending it without hesitation, which is frustrating because the foundation is absolutely there. Since there is a way to work around the major issues, I still recommend grabbing this rough gem, but I strongly hope there will be patches soon to make the whole thing more enjoyable. [quote]For more reviews like this one, please check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45639970-Ele%2527s-Little-Recommendation-Corner/][b]Ele's Little Recommendation Corner[/b][/url]![/quote] [quote]For reviews covering all types of indies, recent and old, don't hesitate to drop by [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/][b]IndieGems[/b][/url]![/quote]

I love the bones of this game. Building robots is fun in concept, but in practice, the minigames so far all boil down to "press the button to do the thing" and I found it became repetitive quickly. Crafting, in particular, became grating after 4 part builds were introduced, which led to a minimum of 6 plays of the exact same minigame for a single robot part. That ends up being 30 just to build a single robot from scratch (although a few of those crafts could be combined, so we'll say 20), in addition to 5 blueprint minigames. and that's AFTER the smelting minigames. So, you end up running in a circle playing the same 3 minigames. Maybe that load lessens as you get robots and automation, but getting there is as draining to me as it is depressing to my character (and I can't use pizza to cure my depression). I would suggest minigame alternatives, but it's a poor customer that tells the chef how to cook. The UI is very unclear, I didn't realize upgrade tokens were the currency until an hour in. A help section would help a lot. I find myself looking at +1 Strength and -1 Speed, and I have no idea what that even means. Once the shop start breaking down and the puddles start appearing, it's unclear what is happening. After some consideration, I didn't refund this, but in it's current state, I cannot recommend it. I'm hoping post launch updates fix some of these issues, but only time will tell

The Demo was a lot of fun so I bought the game. The first mission after getting the full game, "Give Vince's Robot Strength +4" has no instructions on how to give a bot +4 strength so the game can not be progressed. The game basically ends at the end of the demo so there is no point to buying the actual game. I got the bundle so here is to hoping the other game is not a dud :(

This is a super fun game. I end up mining in the cave and ignoring quests half the time haha. If you like crafting games this is one you gotta pick up!

Played the demo and really enjoyed it, so I picked up Bots & Mods — and so far the full game feels just as great. The robot workshop loop is super satisfying: repair and upgrade bots to spec, craft components, and gather materials when you need them. The cyberpunk city vibe of Danopolis is awesome too, with gangs/corps and a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you like repair/crafting sims with personality, I’d recommend it.

This is one of those games where I really wanted a 'Neutral' option instead of Yes or No. The game is semi decent. It's fun. You are the owner of a droid repairshop. You mine resources, repair droids through different stages (blueprints->frames->final product) and help out the people in town. [h3] The good: [/h3] - Nice pixelart graphics - Decent but monotone music (it's in the good category because it's not annoying) - Fun gameplay (at least most of it) - Decent though short story [h3] The bad: [/h3] - Really short: I finished the game in 4 hours and I was not rushing things - Minigame: All crafting interaction requires you to play a minigame. The minigames are not bad in itself but they do get tedious after a while - You build and repair droid parts, but there is no way to create droids of your own to automate your shop (which wasn't needed eventually since the game is so short) - You don't really run a shop in the traditional gameplay sense. You do quests for 'customers' untill the story is done. [h3] The ugly: [/h3] - Green pile of spillage on the floor that is tedious to clean (Tip, buy a couple of bins early on) [h3] Conclusion [/h3] This game has loads of potential to be a full fledged shop keeper type game. Instead it's a (short) story driven game and repairing the droids is only the medium to tell the story. The game feel more like a extended demo.

Fun game. You get to make parts and fix robots. I like prepping as much as possible so I always have a bar going and extra storage. There's a learning curve but just explore and it's fine. I made mistakes the first time so I started over.

very cute story and characters, art is amazing too, great for one or two quiet afternoons

The central hook of making and upgrading bots is actually not a thing in this game. It's an upsettingly bland story, and I finished the ending with real blue-balls. I wanted 20 hours of buying and selling Transformers and Medabots, but all I got was 4 hours (plus 1 in my game time because I had to ♥♥♥♥), of literal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fetch quests and Potion Permit boring levels of minigames to begin a machine... ...which then works via a timer bar. As if I hadn't already completed the minigame, and I just wanted the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reward for sitting through such unimaginative slop. Without beig salty; I felt like most of this game were teasers of possible mechanics from an alpha version, maybe a vertical slice that the dev probably wanted to sell the rights to a studio. It's very clear that the dev was far more interested in pushing this ♥♥♥♥-ass narrative, instead of actually polishing the core mechanics and making the game fun. But who knows. This game will still kill an afternoon, and you'll only get pissed off with the game AFTER you've played it. Not necessarily during. Kinda like banging an ugly chick.

Great game! The cyberpunk ambient and vibes along with the music is really good. The game progression and how you get introduced into new machines and components is well done and the amount of content is great. In addition, the game has an interesting story spanning three acts. Totally recommended if you love crafting games and cyberpunk style.