Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at Vehicular Combat game, RoboCraft, the first game developed by Freejam Games for PC, MAC and Linux and winner of the indie game of the year award for 2014. RoboCraft allows you to customize your robot for battle with an almost unlimited amount of vehicle variations and then take it out to the battlefield to duke it out against other players weird and wacky creations.
Given a basic vehicle to start off with you can choose to either go straight into the battlefield or you can start to design and build your very own robot in the garage were youa re given 3 robot slots to work with. The game currently contains 2 game modes with the main game mode being comparable to the World of Tanks standard game mode. Two teams start at their respective bases and move out to destroy the enemy robots and to take the opposing base. Maps are fairly large so you have time to set-up strategic positions to ambush the enemy however the game doesn’t play quite as strategically as World of Tanks with robots being able to move quickly and fire their weapons even quicker. The maps are a little dull too with no trees, buildings or anything really except hills, ravines and mountains to break up the environment and with destructibility a core game feature it does feel like RoboCraft missed a great opportunity to integrate environment destructibility. They are however looking for an environment artist and designer so this may change in the future.
The second game mode is called Boss mode were 10 players take on 1 AI controlled high tech level robot that usually has strong enough guns to one shot you. Additional game modes planned are Tournament mode and megabot mode which will be similar to boss however a player will be controlling the boss bot.
Customizing your robot can be somewhat overwhelming to begin with due to no current tutorial in the game however after some trial and error you’ll become accustomed to systems like weight, weapon speeds and especially CPU as it restricts the amount of blocks that can make up your robot. As you play games you will earn RoboPoints that can be used to purchase more blocks with higher tech level blocks costing considerably more. To unlock higher tech level blocks you use tech points which are earned in-game for contributions like kills, assists and captures. Tech points are divided into the separate tech levels from 1 to 10 and are awarded depending on your robots current tech level. And yes you can have a tech level say 3 robots without any tech level 3 blocks. These tech levels also act as the game matchmaking tiers so as to match similar tech robots together.
Apart from general shape customizations, other options start small with the first real option being between a hovering robots or a wheel based robot. Later on in the game movement options will be increased with caterpillar tracks and walker legs. Weapons will be limited to top and forward mounted SMG’s until around tech level 3 were alternatives like plasma launches and rail guns are unlocked. As for the blocks that make up the bulk of your robot changes to their armour levels and colour will be the main difference for a while before fins and wings are unlocked that are used as defenses against heavier weaponry. Melee weapons are also a thing but they unlock extremely far down the tech tree. The weaponry options are somewhat limited at the moment and I would personally like to see other weapons like flamethrowers, shotguns and perhaps even some defensive weaponry like mines or timed bombs for example.
Being a free to play game the free to play model employed is always something to consider. Everything in the game can be bought for the premium currency including blocks, cosmetics and even pre-built robots. Due to the matchmaking system this isn’t really the ability to buy power as you will still be matched with players that have same tech level robots as you so you can’t buy your way to an overpowered status. The second method employed is a premium subscription to the game that increases the amount of end game xp, tech points and in-game currency reward you receive. These increases are quite significant at 100% of the usual rewards and if you’re not a premium user but happen to play with other premium players you receive a 5% bonus for each of those players.
Other features of the game include a ranked matchmaking timer were every 10 minutes matchmaking will be made ranked for all players for the next 2 minutes. Participating in the ranked matches offers no other rewards except updating your standings on the ranked leader-board and in the near future will be used in RoboLeauges. Platoons are the guilds of the game but are limited to 4 players even for premium players so it’s safe to say that the full features of guilds are still to come to the game.
RoboCraft is a great way to take your creative side and make some unique war machines to deploy onto the battlefield. While the creative side of the game is fantastic the combat systems are somewhat lack-luster due in-part to the lack of weapon variety. With the destructibility of the robots I was expecting some form of environmental destructibility but the maps as they are, are fairly desolate and could use some more sci-fi influencing. Being based on other planets isn’t really an excuse either with man-made bridges and pipes appearing around some of the maps and the setting being in the far future. In saying all that though I have had a ton of fun playing RoboCraft designing different robots and fighting alongside and against some rather talented creations and some strange and surprisingly functional creations. The core of the game is fantastic and with some polish in the combat department RoboCraft will become fantastic game all round.
That’s been my player preview for RoboCraft, the game is currently in open Alpha and available to play now via their Steam page for PC, Mac and Linux users. If you want to see more of the game check out twitch.tv/serpentine19 this weekend were I’ll be playing Robocraft in the post preview show. Let me know what you think of the game and I’ll see you guys next time.
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Official Website: http://bit.ly/1wBmsNz
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1BO2nXO
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Music:
What We Left Behind - Aviators
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02813/
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