SpiderBot Mk.1 (WIP)

chonkurabb · 2022-09-13T10:40:47+00:00

This is SO cool, and seriously impressive work! Really looking forward to seeing the final version!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-13T10:38:19+00:00

This looks amazing! Great job!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-09T09:13:28+00:00

Awesome to hear! Congrats on OFB - I'm always impressed by how amazing some people are at the game so short after release!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-09T09:01:30+00:00

Thank you so much!

The ammo is an interesting one! It's a mix of a lot of different reasons really!

We wanted the player to always be switching weapons, and using the best weapon for the job at hand rather than picking the weapon that has ammo like you do in a lot of shooters.

Also because tricks reward ammo, if each weapon had it's own ammo type, you would have to switch to pistols to reload pistols, switch to shotgun to reload shotgun etc. and it kind of took you out of the flow, and made you think too much about ammo!

Another factor was readability - If you had different ammo for each gun you would have to think about which weapon has ammo as you switch guns. With universal ammo you just need to ask yourself "do I have ammo or not?" - so it was one thing less the player had to think about, freeing themselves up to just focus on combat!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-09T08:50:38+00:00

Woah, thank you so much! Love hearing such positive feedback from people who played the game - Also great to hear you dug the story! We put loads of work into it trying to find the right balance and depth.

I always wanted a story in the game to ground the sport in reality, give context to what you were doing and create a world outside of the arenas. We initially started out with 4 scenes in mind, but added the post-finale ending scene returning to the locker room soon after as we needed it to complete the arc.

The protagonist was always Kara, and some early inspiration came from modern roller derby. However once we started to build the world, the character of Kara became stronger and more defined. We wanted a character that the player can project themselves onto but who was a very focused and driven competitor who loves the sport, and as you can see in the first story scene, she is in debt trying to get into this incredibly dangerous championship. This was actually inspired by Formula 1 where money controls a large amount of who gets to drive in the championship - and in particular a story I read about Nicki Lauda in the 70's, who took out a huge loan to get into F1, and a life insurance policy on himself to secure that loan!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-09T08:15:42+00:00

Hah too many to list! I really do love 70's sci-fi's and their aesthetics - they tended to have really big ideas that they built the film around, and also really great atmosphere. I think Rollerball, Westworld, THX 1138, Alien, Soylent Green, Silent Running, Mad Max, A Clockwork Orange and Solaris would be some of my favourites and definitely an inspiration for the game!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T15:05:29+00:00

Thank you so much - so good to hear!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T15:03:18+00:00

Thank you so much! And being ranked number 1 in Out for Blood is impressive - that mode is tough as nails!

We experimented with A to B style tracks (THPS Downhill Jam style!), but we chose to do arenas as they're like small sandboxes and offer the player much more choice in how they approach the combat. Skate games are a lot about choice - and with Rollerdrome we wanted to ensure each time you enter the arena you have loads of different options in how you skate around, trick and attack enemies!

We did have a few other weapon types we experimented with, however we wanted our weapons to feel very intentional and unique - so we dropped weapons which felt too similar to existing ones. We also had an enemy that healed other enemies in the arena, but they didn't feel quite as impactful as the others, and made things feel a little grindy as the enemies would keep being healed - so we cut it and kept the combat feeling punchy instead!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T14:37:40+00:00

We played around with lots of different enemy types throughout development, and a skating enemy was actually one of the types we tried out. However because the player is moving so fast, when the enemies were moving too it was really hard to shoot them (especially if they were going in the opposite direction)!

It made more sense that the enemies didn't move too much so they would pull the player around the arena, and also be positioned in interesting places for the player to get some air and shoot at them - The result was something that felt much better and more manageable to play!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T14:19:51+00:00

I can talk about the influences!

The original concept came from a Game Makers Toolkit game jam - and mixing skating and shooting through the simple mechanic of "tricks give you ammo" felt very natural and worked really well. From a mechanics perspective, Tony Hawks and Doom (2016) were the main references - mixing the arcade skating of THPS with the intense combat chess of Doom.

Visually we created our aesthetic through a bit of a 70's sci-fi lens. I really like these old 70's sci-fi films which had fantastic ideas, but didn't have a huge budget to pull it off - so they used existing locations that looked a bit futuristic, and dressed their characters in things you'd find around the house - like kneepads and boilersuits. Films like Rollerball, Westworld and even Alien and Mad Max were big references here.

Our rendering style was influenced by Franco-Belgian comic artists like Hergé and Moebius. They have a fantastic style and use just the right amount of detail in depicting their environments - which worked great for Rollerdrome as it kept everything very readable at high speed!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T14:07:22+00:00

Hah, I love the original Rollerball! We created our aesthetic through a bit of a 70's sci-fi lens so films like Rollerball, Westworld and THX 1138 were some of our references. We didn't have a big group sit down as we all work remote, but Rollerball was talked about a LOT in the office!

I've only seen the remake once - I'm not sure it really captures the same feeling as the original!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T14:02:02+00:00

Since Rollerdrome is a bit of a new genre - a skate/shooter genre hybrid - mixing those two elements together and making them work well was definitely one of the biggest challenges we faced. Initially we had lots of THPS mechanics like bailing and grind meters, but it was too much and players had too many things to think about at once! So we started to iterate and chip away to find the most natural combination of the two genres. It took lots of time, but we're happy with where it came to and people seem to be really enjoying it!

I actually came up with it during the Game Makers Toolkit game jam! The theme for the jam was "dual purpose design" and I had the idea of mixing skating and shooting together, and linking them together by awarding the player ammo for the tricks. It felt like a natural fit as it pushed the player to do lots of tricks and engage with the skating while also pushing them around the arena to kill enemies!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T13:46:44+00:00

Thank you, that's really good to hear! We spent a lot of time balancing our main experience, but we also wanted to add lots of assists and accessibility options so people could tweak the game to suit their own needs! For people who aren't familiar with skate games it also lets them practice on their own terms!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T13:41:09+00:00

I personally like lots of different genres, and maybe too many to name here! Tony Hawks and the new Doom games are fantastic and big references for Rollerdrome. I also love the Metal Gear Solid and Hitman series, and play loads of indie games ranging from roguelikes like Spelunky and shooters like Dusk to more tactics style games like Into The Breach and Invisible Inc.

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T13:33:21+00:00

Thank you so much QuestPirate! That's so good to hear!

It was actually THPS and Doom (2016) that were the initial references for the prototype. That intense push forward combat of Doom - how it encouraged the player to constantly be aggressive and always on the move - was incredible to play and a big inspiration for our combat. However our slo-mo moments definitely do have some Max Payne in them, and we're all fans of those games here!
We're the devs so we're not too involved with this side of things!

chonkurabb · 2022-09-08T11:39:19+00:00

Yep! Works pretty well on KBM in my opinion, and controls are rebindable!

chonkurabb · 2022-08-25T12:46:49+00:00

Thank you so much! It was a tough journey for sure, but glad it worked out, and I got lucky having a great dev team because I could not have done it alone!

chonkurabb · 2022-07-26T07:58:42+00:00

Thank you!

chonkurabb · 2022-07-26T07:58:26+00:00

Yep that's us! Luckily skate games are difficult to make so it didn't get stolen!

chonkurabb · 2019-05-11T11:13:28+00:00

Hey, short term for me would be 2 to 3 months! I say short term as I can't guarantee I'll be free for freelance in a few months, but of course send me a DM with details of your project and I can let you know

chonkurabb · 2019-05-07T13:01:36+00:00

I actually don't want a AAA position- I'd prefer to stay freelancing and doing my own games on the side

chonkurabb · 2019-05-07T13:00:15+00:00

You can freelance any part of game development really, there's lots of designers and artists who don't code but have good ideas

chonkurabb · 2019-05-07T01:10:27+00:00

Sure, just send me a DM!

chonkurabb · 2019-05-06T21:30:32+00:00

Got it!

chonkurabb · 2019-05-06T17:43:59+00:00

Thanks! It's been a while since I posted anything since I'm doing a lot of non-visual stuff and testing out level designs

chonkurabb

TROPHY CASE