By John Walker on August 30th, 2012 at 5:00 pm.
Sometimes a premise is all you need. Build your own robot from a big pile of parts, then have it fight someone else’s robot. Sold? Good. Check out the Rawbots video below.
This is from indie dev Alex Rozgo, and is clearly a little more complicated than just fighting the robots. The building system looks really interesting, and enormously complex. It’s certainly caught our eye.
It’ll be interesting to see how it is to use, but unfortunately finding out more details about the game is tricky, since it apparently only has a Facebook page at this point. Indies! You can’t skimp on a proper info page! Just the mad cavalcade of a Facebook timeline is going to lose you interest and therefore customers.
30/08/2012 at 17:06 MuscleHorse says:
If only there were a TV show based around this premise.
30/08/2012 at 17:50 Hoaxfish says:
I could’ve sworn there wars, but I’m probably mistaken.
30/08/2012 at 18:00 ZIGS says:
I still can’t believe no one has made a proper Battlebots videogame yet.
30/08/2012 at 19:34 BestFriends4Ever says:
I watch that when I need to go to sleep early but am not sleepy. Works like a charm.
30/08/2012 at 21:02 jikavak says:
Robot Arena 2?A bit rough around it’s edges,but it has a community that’s still going strong and making bots and mods.
30/08/2012 at 17:10 AmateurScience says:
This looks enormously complicated. But awesome.
30/08/2012 at 20:10 LionsPhil says:
That big cloud of floating symbols, and the apparent lack of a grid, does make it look like editing a nontrivial bot may be an exercise in fiddly mousework and camera-faffing.
31/08/2012 at 05:46 rozgo says:
For editing you can use the in-game graph system, our graph language http://imgur.com/a/jamYq or external tools the community will come up with. We will provide mod tools.
31/08/2012 at 06:52 Derppy says:
This looks awesome, great work.
Would it be possible to mod the game in a way that allows sensors and AI scripting for the robots? It would be absolutely amazing to create your own robot and it’s AI, then watch it battle other people’s creations, seeing all the horrible mistakes you made in the logic and try to iterate on it.
31/08/2012 at 09:19 LionsPhil says:
Yeah, Robugs (on the Atari ST)/RoboCode/Mindstorms show that that’s really fun. Dunno if it quite fits this game design, but if the modding scope is wide enough someone might throw Lua or such in there, if not a pretty wiring graph like Robugs/Mindstorms…
04/09/2012 at 21:01 rozgo says:
Mod’n it is one of the main goals. Where you can plugin your own physics, AI, or other controllers, through any .Net language, C#, F#. And we are trying to get other languages in like Python and Lua.
30/08/2012 at 17:11 philbot says:
Yes! I love these types of games. “Crashtastic” is similar to this one, that looks like it has excellent potential.
30/08/2012 at 17:12 frequenZ says:
Looks awesome, can’t wait to see more of it.
30/08/2012 at 17:15 Moni says:
Yes, but can the robots transform into vehicles?
31/08/2012 at 05:49 rozgo says:
You can change ‘blueprints’ on the fly, so in a way, you can change into anything you’ve designed with the same parts.
30/08/2012 at 17:17 Crimsoneer says:
WUB WUB WUB
30/08/2012 at 17:25 KDR_11k says:
Definitely been looking for another build-your-own-vehicle game since Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts.
30/08/2012 at 18:09 lordcooper says:
Cargo! – The Quest For Gravity
Seriously.
30/08/2012 at 19:47 grundus says:
Seconded so incredibly that it’s barely plausible. That game is just amazing.
31/08/2012 at 11:38 LionsPhil says:
The vehicle building’s a bit limited, but then it does have little grinning naked RIchard O’Brians in it.
30/08/2012 at 17:31 mmalove says:
Looks amazing – I REALLY hope this idea comes to fruition instead of being dumbed into the ground for “playability” like Spore.
30/08/2012 at 17:34 hjd_uk says:
Cant wait for this inovative “keryboard” peripheral.
30/08/2012 at 17:43 DanPryce says:
Can I control it with my Guitar Hero drum kit?
30/08/2012 at 17:58 thenagus says:
Looks like its probably possible to convert Guitar Hero Drum signal into MIDI
( http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1592586 )
…so yes, I guess you should be able to control it with your Guitar Hero drum kit. Which is awesome! Allowing Midi control is a mad idea, but also a terrific one.
Also, this brings back fond memories of the old Robot Wars PC games.
30/08/2012 at 17:47 Blackcompany says:
Yes, but can the robots also fight wrestlers?
30/08/2012 at 19:40 BestFriends4Ever says:
That would be an awesome game. 10 wrestlers against a robot. Or 20. Or 50. Whatever’s more realistic and, I guess, depending on the robot’s size, strength, etc..
All multiplayer, of course. You design your own robot, so the opponents do not know your weak points. They are all climbing each other to climb you, jumping on you from above, tearing at the wires, dying horribly. Ah, the possibilities.
31/08/2012 at 16:19 Rane2k says:
Haha, that sounds great.
And to make it fair it would obviously have to be “a giant robot vs. a giant robot´s weight in wrestlers” :-)
31/08/2012 at 22:28 Phasma Felis says:
It looks as though you could make a robot that is a wrestler. Like, it wraps the enemy up in snaky tentacles to immobilize it and then punches it to death or something. Which is amazing.
30/08/2012 at 18:02 Zanchito says:
I played a game very much like this quite some years ago. You’d design a robot from tons of bodies and pieces, give it weapons, mass, sensors and processors, program it in a sort of visual scripting language and upload it to fight automatically against other robots. If I only could remember the name of that game!!
30/08/2012 at 18:24 Tacroy says:
I came here to say that exactly! This wasn’t Mindrover, the building was way more complicated (you had joints and bars and things).
I remember there was one robot who ended up winning a big league event to much consternation – its name was “Peacebot”, and all it did was dodge really really well – it took no damage at all in the tournament. Since tied games were scored on energy expended, and it barely used any except to dodge, it won every game.
30/08/2012 at 19:52 Zanchito says:
Why, yes, thank you!!! Mindrover indeed. I came in strong thinking I’d own at it because I’m a programmer only to get out with my tail between my legs because I didn’t care to spend the kind of time it took to make a really good bot.
30/08/2012 at 20:43 Tokjos says:
Roboforge? I remember playing it, but it was too complicated for me at the time. You had to design almost everything on the robot.
31/08/2012 at 02:54 Tacroy says:
Yus, it was totally Roboforge!
30/08/2012 at 23:12 lhzr says:
Robocode, perhaps?
30/08/2012 at 18:05 dontnormally says:
Awesome to see him using a MIDI controller!
30/08/2012 at 18:21 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Yes please, I’ll take a double helping of Smingleigh Destructionators.
30/08/2012 at 19:25 Jimbo says:
Be sure to play Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on 360 if you haven’t already, it’s fantastic.
30/08/2012 at 19:40 niulong says:
http://clxu.eu/Tb3or
30/08/2012 at 20:06 LionsPhil says:
But can I program my robot to defeat its peers in rigorous intellectual debate?
31/08/2012 at 09:49 phlebas says:
WHY?
30/08/2012 at 20:44 tomeoftom says:
It saddens me that RPS /just/ covered Garry’s mod and it got less discussion than this. What this game does is a tiny subset of Garry’s Mod, /and/ GMod does crazy robo-contraptions better. Hrm.
30/08/2012 at 21:08 jikavak says:
It’s way more complicated in Gmod than what this is trying to do.
31/08/2012 at 04:53 yurusei says:
Finally. A trailer that isn’t ruined because of the wub wub wub.
31/08/2012 at 09:48 Hunchback says:
Awesome!
The fighting part doesn’t seem all that interesting, but the building sure looks like it can keep one occupied for a good couple of days straight! Nerd away!
31/08/2012 at 23:53 Phasma Felis says:
relevant items from the Facebook feed:
“If you want to follow inside development, we will be discussing on TIGSource Forums. This will mostly be for hardcore followers and game developers. The rest can stick around facebook. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28104.0”
“Steam Greenlight! Head over there now and vote for us! DO IT NOW! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92987433”
Yeah, really wish they had a proper website going…
12/09/2012 at 06:08 rozgo says:
Rawbots.net is ready! Join the forums and get the latest info.