Roobrick:

In Brief:
Roobrick is a 2D 'hardcore' puzzle platformer with a retro/minimalist graphic with 28 levels, that was created using the Game Maker engine for the Gamiron 12 competition several years ago.

Game Maker is a similar engine to the Unity Engine that requires no, or little coding experience and comes in a few different levels of subscription i.e., Creators, Indie and Enterprise subscriptions, ranging from a few pounds/dollars a month, to over sixty a month. You can find the 'free' base version of the Game Maker engine on Steam HERE.

The Game:
Move the brick (the protagonist) from its starting position to the exit portal by navigating various obstacles, moving platforms and traps. You can change the size of the brick, making it thinner, or shorter or both, to enable you to squeeze through narrow gaps, climb walls, cling to the ceilings and jump higher or further. The size of the brick 'will' determine what it can accomplish with respect to any of the above, e.g., the longer the brick, the higher it can jump, the wider it is, the further it can jump. These skills are important for avoiding the various traps and being able to access parts of each room. You'll need to change the size of your brick appropriately to be able to navigate around the various traps and puzzles.

When you move through green artefacts that appear to swirl around in specific areas of the room, (see the third image above, you can see three distinct areas with green artefacts present). These artefacts allow the brick to change size in additional variations from the normal changes so that the brick can pass a particular section of a level. Once you've selected that variation, to do so again requires you to pass another green artefact.

Once you pass the first few levels there are secret areas to discover (some of these will be obvious) These secret areas often contain secret passages, more traps and/or the exit portal.

Watch out for anything coloured red; because, if you touch it, you will lose a life. You start with three lives, indicated by the blue diamonds in the top left-hand corner of the level. If you lose a life you'll have to start from the beginning of the same level; that is, unless you lose your last life, in which case you are taken to the main menu. If you've managed to complete any levels, you can skip those by pressing the Enter key, saving you the hassle of having to restart from the very beginning. When you progress to a new level any lives you've lost will be recovered; giving you a better chance at completing the game to the end. :)

Other Useful Tips, Information, Questions & Videos:

1) ... Watch out for spikes that are attached to the ceiling because they drop down onto your brick if you're not quick enough to avoid them.
2) ... Blue blocks can be moved by pushing them with your brick; (they often block area's you need to access).
3) ... The white circles with a black dot appear to be indicators that tell you where your brick is; useful if your brick is reduced to its smallest size; but, apart from that, I don't see any other reason for their presence. That said, there may be other functions, but I've not figured them out yet; (possibly an indication of where a secret area is located)?
4) ... When you need to change the size of the brick a small red arrow appears briefly.
5) ... You can restart a level by pressing R. If you are on the first level and lose a life, you can regain the lost life by restarting the room.
6) ... Any blank gaps that separate parts of the room indicate a secret area.

Check out the following short videos of game play HERE and HERE. You can also see a full 45-minute walkthrough of the game HERE

Controls:
The key bindings are shown in a small window overlaying the main game arena after you've pressed the play button at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, they aren't editable apart from the ability to swap the movement and size adjuster keys around.

The keys for movement and changing the size of the protagonist that you move in this game can be swapped via the main menu, but once you start the game, you cannot reverse them. Just click on the fourth button in the top left-hand corner that shows an illustration of the WASD and arrow keys; (see the second image above).

Arrow Keys = Movement
Up Arrow + Up Arrow = double Jump
X = Jump
X+X = double Jump
W = Taller
S = Shorter
A = Thinner
D = Thicker
R = Restart
M = Menu

Conclusion:
For a game created under competition rules, where the time to create a working game is one of the governing factors, today's giveaway is actually a well-constructed puzzle platform game; that said, unless you are quite dextrous and fast, Roobrick is a very difficult puzzle platformer to beat (at least IMO) because, to navigate through the various traps and platforms you have to regularly change the size of the protagonist, usually while moving at the same time. This requires you to be able to use both the arrow keys and the WASD keys to navigate the various levels (called rooms) and often you need to use a combination of two keys from each category (e.g., W + D and Left + Up arrows, or other combinations).

Unfortunately, I'm starting to get arthritis in my left hand, so find these types of games quite difficult now. The ability to swap over the key bindings for movement and size, before starting to play is a plus for this game as it caters for both left and right-handed community members, i.e., WASD can be used for either movement or changing the size of the brick, but not both at the same time; the same goes for the arrow keys.

Roobrick reminds me a little of a much simpler and retro styled version of Super Meat Boy, which I used to be able to cope with when I first purchased it over a decade ago (at the time I only purchased the game because one of the developers was also responsible for one of my all-time favourite platform games called Gish from 2004) and I was hoping to see some similarities; which sadly, wasn't to be. I've never been able to complete Super Meat Boy due to its extremely difficult level sets that include loads of different modes, some of which are almost impossible to beat unless you are very dextrous and fast. The last time I played the game a couple of years ago I could barely complete any level. You can find Super Meat Boy on Steam HERE. Gish is also on Steam as well as another game by the same developer called The Binding of Isaac, (as well as its sequel and DLC).

Today's game giveaway used to be on Steam as part of the Greenlight project, but it never garnered enough votes to be released on Steam. The second video I've posted above was the video used to demonstrate the game while it was part of the Greenlight project. Personally, I think it's far better than many of the cheap and nasty asset flipped games that are barely playable and ultra-short which we now see on Steam, that usually cost less than a dollar, or the ones that are now selling for ridiculous prices that were originally only a few dollars; (we're talking mid-range AAA game prices), many are regularly on 90% sales to make it look like they are a bargain (e.g., Starman in Space, that now costs £19.49 on Steam, though it has been on sale with up to 90% off 35 times since it was released in 2018. We were given it via the game giveaway of the day for free on the 19th of Feb 2020, where it was quoted as costing $2.99 HERE. It's lowest price on Steam was £0.39/$0.50 at 50% off. Odd that it's now selling at £19.49 when not on one of its regular 90% off deals. It's no better than most of those assets flipped games we see for £0.79/$0.99. (please 'excuse the rant, those inflated prices for what are essentially asset grabs and/or stolen templates make my blood boil).


There are four buttons in the top left of the main menu. The first three i.e., labelled f, t and VK are dead social network links, which, i believe were there to promote the game while it was going through the Greenlight project; the fourth is the key binding swap button for movement and the brick size changing keys.

Don't let the retro graphic put you off this game; the gameplay is what really matters, and this will keep most community members frustratingly occupied for quite some time. Thankfully the regeneration of lives on each level and the ability to skip already completed levels means the goal of completing the game is possible.

You can find a link to the Russian web site where the game is described in more detail via the readme that is installed with the game.

This is another of Ashoots games that appears to have a different developers name to it than what's quoted on the initial splash screen when you start the game i.e., Monster Bit and/or RGS_Haker from the main menu. I think the latter is the actual online moniker of the developer and the former is the development house.

Scoring
Game play = 8
Graphic = 5
Re-playability = 6
Music = 7
Difficulty = 9
Total score out of 10 = 7

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game using Virus Total and it found zero hits from 62 antimalware engines. You can see the results of the scan HERE