Polarity City is in chaos. All of the Magnetpets have vanished, the Bloxbots have gone crazy and rather than repairing the city and its treasures they have begun to destroy everything in sight. You are Farraday, a Polarity park ranger who must investigate what has become of both the pets and why the bloxbots are running amok under the supervision of the city’s Master Analysis and Organisation Robot.

Magnets: Fully Charged from Total Monkery, is an action puzzler with a distinctly old school style and very simple mechanics.

To aid Farraday in disrupting the Bloxbots destructive rampage, he is equipped with the titular “Magnets”, a polarised baton that when dropped creates a magnetic field between it and Farraday in order to disrupt the Bloxbots. Disrupting them multiple times causes them to overload, leaving behind remnants that can be fed into a recycling station to craft usable items such as levers and fuses. These items can then be used in conjunction with the environment to open new areas or permanently protect artifacts in the level.

Set in 20 levels across four zones, as you get closer to the truth about the missing pets and rogue bots, you encounter various enemies determined to stop you.  You will face up against the regular as well as positive and negatively maintenance Bloxbots, HeliBots who will chase you with Lasers and minibots, who overcome what they lack in size with sheer weight of numbers.

magnets_fully_charged

Aside from your magnet, you are also equipped with a limited sprint functionality to escape tricky situations and a jump stun that paralyses bots in order to give you a few seconds of breathing room. Learning to utilise all your skills combined is essential to some of the more devious levels and boss fights.

Combat is extremely simple, yet this simplicity is one of its biggest drawbacks. It soon becomes repetitive once all of your abilities have been unlocked and even the introduction of new enemies fails to counter the fact that every enemy is defeated by repeated mag-net captures.

On the whole, for an indie title from a small team, the game is well polished and fleshed out, and although I did manage to clip through a wall in one of the later levels, the overall environment is extremely robust.

Thanks to Xbox and Total Monkery for supporting TiX