| Developer: | Level Eight |
| Publisher: | Chillingo (formerly) Level Eight AB (iOS)[1] DECA Games (Android) |
| Genre: | Stealth, action |
| Platforms: | iOS, Android, Windows |
| Producer: | Johan Westin |
| Modes: | Single-player |
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 stealth action game developed by Swedish[4] studio Level Eight and originally published by Chillingo. In the game, the player controls a robber named Bob and must sneak around houses to complete missions. The game 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, the player controls Bob, the titular player character, from a top-down perspective. Bob must sneak around houses and steal items without being caught.[5] [6] Enemies, including police officers, dogs, and family members, will roam around the house. Bob can put on disguises, hide, change the enemies' direction, and make distractions. The player can run, but it will lure enemies towards them. Once out of the house, the level ends, and stars grade the player's performance based on speed and accuracy. On May 3, 2012, Chillingo released Robbery Bob for iOS.[7]
The game has a "mixed or average" score on Metacritic.[8]
The gameplay was received poorly. In a TouchArcade review, Brendan Saricks felt that the game's sneaking mechanic went from "real strong" to "a repetitive room-by-room hunt". 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. James Nouch of Pocket Gamer thought the controls were "clumsy",[9] while AJ Dellinger of Gamezebo thought they were "pretty fluid".[10] Although he thought the dialogue was "cringeworthy", Dellinger found that the story was "intense", writing about the crimes Bob commits in the game.
Robbery Bob art style was met with criticism. Luke Larsen of Paste magazine described it as "tacky", presented through "cartoonish antics" and "forgettable characters". Dellinger said the graphics mostly consisted of smoothed "pixels from the '90s", and he stated that the plants were "drawings from kindergarteners".
A sequel, titled Robbery Bob 2: Double Trouble, was released on June 3, 2015.[11] 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".[12]