Toy Bot Diaries is a three-part series of 2-D side-scrolling platform/puzzle games for the iPhone. Your goal is to guide Toy Bot through the worlds to get to the end. Along the way there will be certain types of puzzles to solve using his grappler arms and magnetic feet to attach yourself to things and move them when necessary. Along the way you’ll pick up mobile phones that will help you regain your lost memory and fill in the back story for the game.

I’ve grouped all three together because there’s no real difference in the gameplay, graphics, sound or theme and the story runs through all three of them. The titles are from IUGO who are making a fair amount of games for the iPhone at present.

The graphics are cool. Kind of cartoon-like but not so much so as to be childish or uninteresting. Meanwhile the environments are well drawn and overall the look of the game is very nice. Aesthetically pleasing, if you like. The whole thing has depth and shows some of the possibilities of the iPhone in regards to a 2D side-scrolling game.

The audio is cool as well. Good tunes and the only annoying part was the Toy Bot’s "whooooaaaa" when you send him flying or something. For reference you might think of a slightly higher pitched Wall-E from the recent film.

One of the less-than-desirable features of the game is the ability to get the little guy stuck in the environment which then requires you restart the area. Luckily there are reasonably well-placed save points so that you don’t have to play an entire level over and over again.

The other thing that is seriously irritating and takes major points from the game is the lack of consistency in the touch interface. There have been numerous times where I’ve fallen a long way because the touch interface didn’t allow me to grab on to something that I should have been able to. On several occasions it had me simply shut down the game in disgust. There’s also often, a complete lack of direction in the title. You think you should go one way only to die with no way to prevent it. Then you must begin again at the last save point. A very unnecessary game mechanic I think. Sure there’s little penalty for dying and usually you don’t need to redo too much, but it was still disappointing.

You don’t really need to play the games in any specific order if you’re not interested in finding out the specifics of the story and picking up any one of the three would be fine since the gameplay experience differs very little.

Overall they’re a challenging and entertaining experience. The flaws keep them from being fantastic but for iPhone apps they’re worth the cost providing a few hours distraction per game. They look good, sound good for the most part and play fairly well. Though playing through all three of them might put you off this sort of game for a short time.

Toy Bot Diaries 1-3 are now available on iTunes.com