Andrew Stewart – Game Designer

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afF3EReEX9I

Bash-Bots is a single screen competitive multiplayer game made in the Unity engine, inspired by the TV show Robot Wars. Players complete to win by destroying their opponents or ejecting them from the arena, using one of four robot classes based on those used in real robot fighting. Movement and combat in game utilises Unity’s physics system, which gives game play a more realistic and unique feel than other robot combat games.

The aesthetic for Bash-Bots, unlike many existing robot/vehicular combat games, is based around a modern ‘sportified’ aesthetic. This is expressed by the bright colours and clean lines, as well as the framing the players around competition rather than destruction. The low poly design also has gameplay utility as weapon functionality depends on collision with opponent’s meshes, as well as those of the arena, and a clean aesthetic allows players to better understand the nuances of this system.

The decision to base Bash-Bot’s systems entirely in Unity physics presented an interesting challenge as Unity physics (particularly when rapid movement and great physics forces are concerned) have the potential to be unpredictable and chaotic, which is detrimental to a fair and enjoyable gameplay environment. Because of this these systems utilise a function that identifies the impact point and direction of forces during a collision and calculates the resulting displacement before applying it to the objects in game. This allows safeguards to reduce the frequency of game breaking instances whilst maintaining a weighty gameplay feel.

Bash-Bots was produced in seven weeks with all assets being created independently with the exception of fonts (from dafont.com, see credits), sounds (from freesound.org see credits) and particle effects (from the Unity asset store, see credits).

You can download and play Bash-Bots from here: https://andrew-stewart.itch.io/bash-bots