Rove

Rove (2021) is a solo puzzle game where you pilot a robot trying to escape a hostile planet. You play by placing and moving cards into patterns to complete missions. It is a part spacial puzzle, part desperate survival game where you battle your robot's limitations in order to escape with your life intact.

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You play as an exploration robot, who has crash-landed on an alien world. Your robot is made up of six Module cards, that are set out in a 2 by 3 grid. To escape the planet, you must complete seven Mission cards by moving these Module cards into specific patterns. To move, you discard a Movement card from your hand and make the number of card movements that it allows. However, because your moves are limited, you must plot out which cards to move and when. Each go is like a miniature spatial puzzle within a larger puzzle, so you need to take your time and really study the cards carefully. If you get stuck without a move to make, then you can use one of the module's special abilities. These can only be used once per game, so you need to use them wisely.

As you play, you use up your movement cards and your module's special abilities, so the missions become ever harder to complete. There is no room for error, as you only win if you complete all the missions before running out of moves. It is a fiendishly difficult puzzle, that you won't complete the first time. But like Solitaire, you can be set up quickly ready for another shot at success.

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Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Rove 21 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 14 months ago.