It's the rare game that teaches while it entertains. Robo Logic 2 HD manages to do both, and sports a friendly interface that feels like a combination of a puzzle game and a top-down platformer. The robot hero of the game is cute, and his motions on-screen are appropriately stilted and... robotic. The sounds that accompany your robot's movement draw from a limited palette, but they're entertaining in the short doses that comprise each bite-sized level. Robo Logic 2 HD is a pure puzzle game in the tradition of putting substance over style. You won't find much variety other than the new configurations of blocks in each level. These blocks and stacks are the meat of Robo Logic 2 HD, as you learn how to instruct your robot to navigate them toward its goal. Perhaps Robo Logic 2 HD would be more captivating with themed environments or skins, but no amount of window dressing will make up for thin inspiration. This game has several great ideas that can easily be built on, but what's here is plenty captivating...

If you're old enough to remember doing turtle graphics on computers in grade school, you're pretty old. Like me. Before the days of Basic and tinkering with a Commodore-64 at home, we were slinging Logo and making cool pictures with a little turtle on a screen at school. Robo Logic 2 HD recalls those halcyon days by putting game mechanics around what amounts to a basic primer on programming. The collection of levels spreads across seven distinct stages, or "Worlds." Each World contains five levels that you can tackle, at least to complete the basic objective. The goal of each level is to activate one or more spots marked in orange. You accomplish this by directing the robot through the level and feeding it commands that include an "activate" command at the right moment. It's initially as simple as staging commands, one after another, but things get much more involved as you progress. The simple structure is disarming, a bit like the way that Portal sneaks up on you and eventually takes command of your life. The edutainment portion of Robo Logic 2 HD is also obscured from kids, but the game absolutely teaches some foundational principles of computer programming, such as logic, problem-solving, and reuse of objects. If there were any doubts about the inspiration for Robo Logic 2 HD, note that the reusable objects are called functions, and can even be nested. Super geeky!

We've probably made Robo Logic 2 HD sound a bit too charming, because it will definitely prove frustrating for even the most seasoned puzzle-gaming fans. The issue isn't whether you can move your robot around the course and activate those orange tiles. Relatively speaking, this is the easy part. The challenge comes from attempting to earn stars. Stars are like in-game currency you use to buy your way into new Worlds, so it's important to earn them. There are also some upgrades you can purchase, that provide your robot with new moves and let you enter more commands. The first star is almost a freebie, but most after that are only earned when you can complete a level in less than a certain number of moves. The typical scenario is one where you craft what you think is a perfect solution in 14 moves, only to see the message that tells you to complete in less than 12 moves to earn a star! Our only beef was that the game doesn't make it easy enough to go back and replay a level, or to see the moves you entered. Rather than give you a chance to prune moves, Robo Logic 2 HD forces you to rebuild the entire level. This makes things harder and more tedious than is necessary.

For the most part, things are smoothly implemented, but we noticed some iffy design decisions. One was the sensitivity of the section where you enter commands, leading to some accidental erasures. It's nice that you can do a simple tap to remove a block you've placed to give the robot a command, but too often we triggered deletions as we were dragging across the playing area, to put a command elsewhere. Moving commands around can also be tricky, because a misplaced tap, or tap-and-release, may result in accidentally removing a section of your "program." Otherwise, the menus and the flow of Robo Logic 2 HD work extremely well. It's minimal but effective. The geek appeal of Robo Logic 2 HD is undeniable, and this is way more fun than any of that Logo stuff we were doing back in the old days. Robo Logic 2 HD isn't a game that the youngest players in your house will appreciate, but teens and a few tweens may find it interesting. Where games like those in the Professor Layton series try to wrap puzzle mechanics in a dense narrative, Robo Logic 2 HD keeps things simple, interesting, and intellectually stimulating. Recommended.