The whole premise of the story is that an alien named Bob has his spaceship torn apart on his way to work and he lands on the planet where the pieces are, forcing him to collect these pieces in order to get to work on time. Throughout the world are warps that take him from place to place (they are at the end of each level), but never seem to lead him home. So the search is on for that final warp which will lead to the main rocket which will propel Bob through space and back to work (now that's dedication!). Will he ever succeed and make it to work on time? Well, playing
Bob Came in Pieces will be the only way to know if he ever gets off the planet as you guide Bob through 13 levels of puzzle-based mayhem.
In Bob Came in Pieces, you'll control his ship, which is basically a small spherical device that has interchangeable parts. At each checkpoint, you'll actually be able to add or remove the parts that you collect in nearly any combination that you can dream up (they just can't overlap). Straight pieces, angled pieces, corners, T-junctions, and more can all be placed onto the ship's connectors. You'll also be able to attach differently-powered rocket boosters, as well as attachments like the pull and push beams to either pick up or thrust interactable objects to help solve puzzles, respectively.
The levels consist of typical 2D side-scrolling action that is relatively linear in nature, but the hook for this game comes in the form of full physics, whether it be in objects that lay around or in the weight of Bob's ship depending on the configuration that you build. Just because you may need to attract a ball with your pull beam, the ship gets much more difficult to navigate if you don't compensate with counter-weights or added thrusters. Geniously, the developers have put a weight system for each piece that you attach, so there are consequences associated with funky configurations, even if they are fully functional.
Because of these little intricacies in Bob Came in Pieces, the game potentially can play much longer than it actually is. The puzzles themselves aren't necessarily that difficult to figure out either, but getting the right configuration, along with being able to navigate it, is what keeps this game interesting until the very end. The puzzles do get a bit more complicated as you progress, but once you do get past them, the replay value won't be that high from a brain-teasing standpoint. However, each level contains (sometimes hidden) pieces that may not be as obviously solvable, so if you choose to skip picking up any objects (or miss them altogether), you can always look forward to going back through the levels and trying to hunt them down.
There were a few problems that arose as I went through Bob Came in Pieces, but most were relatively forgivable. The biggest issue that recurred was that the ship kept getting stuck, most notably when a crazy ship configuration was used in tight spaces. Fortunately, the developers anticipated this, and a quick press of the Enter key pops you back to the last checkpoint (which also acts as your configuration station) and resets the puzzles (sometimes). I also ran into an issue where I was unable to get the rockets to fire in multiple directions (left/right) at the same time when trying to gently guide myself into tight areas, but for the most part this worked.
