Rustbucket Rumble Character Blog

Character Design Goals - Jason Mooney

One of the cool things about playing Rustbucket Rumble is learning how to play as, with, and against each of the unique robots. But what makes a good Rustbucket Rumble robot? Let's take a look at a few of Reactor Zero's goals. Each robot needed to:

1. Exhibit competency at both stunning and recycling.

We toyed with the idea of robots that were awesome at combat but terrible and bringing scrap bins back to the recycler (and vice versa) with the hope that this style of robot design would promote teamwork. In practice, all it did was remove players from half of the core gameplay loop. Some of the team would fight a bunch but never try to retrieve scrap bins, while the other half just followed them around on clean-up duty. It quickly became clear that each of the six, playable robot's unique skillsets and weaponry needed to support a minimum level of effectiveness at both stunning and recycling - Rustbucket Rumble's central combat mechanic and premise.

2. Fulfill player fantasies.

Each robot needed to have something about them that appealed to people who don't know anything about the gameplay mechanics. What's more, each robot needed to deliver on the promise made by that fantasy. For example, the idea of being a fast, elusive ninja is very appealing. We made sure that Kasumi delivered on this fantasy with her speed, teleport, and clones.

3. Offer unique strengths and weaknesses.

The dev team strove to ensure that each robot brought something different to the table. If Daisy felt the same to play as Clancy, why would we need them both in the game? Giving each robot different strengths and weakness causes the player to seek out different situations based on who they are playing as. For example, Bjorn players love when multiple opponents are in the same place, while Kasumi players would usually try to avoid that situation.

4. Create opportunities for counter play.

Counter play is the idea that player abilities should be fun for the player using them as well as the players on the receiving end. One example where this principle helped us was with Daisy's turrets. They used to have a high rate of fire and shot in all directions. This gave opponents only two options for dealing with them: avoid that area or sacrifice some health to take them down. Now turrets have a slower rate of fire and only cover 180 degrees, so opponents can try to get behind the turrets or time their jumps to avoid the bullets. Credit goes to Tom Cadwell of Riot Games for formalizing the concept of counter play.

We took a lot of other things into consideration when designing robots, but the above are some core goals we wanted to ensure each robot achieved.

Robot Design Case Study: Valentina

Now that we've identified a few of our design goals for robots, let's look at how our upcoming robot Valentina progressed from concept to implementation.

There was a strong desire on the team to create a robot that fulfilled the fantasy of a sniper. Our first attempt was a robot with a very long-ranged gun that did moderate damage. This implementation didn't feel particularly good, but the team wasn't certain on which direction to take the robot. Some of the team considered burst damage to be an essential component of the sniper fantasy, while the rest of the team was concerned that a faster, stronger bullet with the longest range in the game was lacking in counter play.

Eventually, we decided to break a few rules to support this fantasy. All of our other robots have one primary weapon. We decided to give Valentina two: a sniper rifle and a pistol. The sniper rifle had the longest range and did the most damage per hit, but with a cost. Valentina is locked in place when she has her sniper rifle drawn. What's more, there is a laser pointer attached to it. While this certainly helps the Valentina player line up his or her shots, it mostly serves as a warning to her opponents. If you see a laser pointed on you, you know you'd better move or else risk being hit by the powerful sniper bullet. Her pistol on the other hand is very short ranged and weaker than most other guns, but allows her to still attack while on the move.

It may sound obvious, but her main strength is her ability to stun opponents from long range. But remember the part about needing to exhibit competency at both stunning and recycling? With Valentina always being on the far back lines, she is usually pretty far away from the scrap bins while her teammates were usually much closer. That's why we gave her a long distance grab. She shoots out a claw to grab bins and pull them to her. She has to be careful while using it, though. It prevents her from moving or shooting while it is active, so enemies can close in on her. Hooray for counter play!

So now we have a robot who can both stun and recycle, fulfills the fantasy of being a sniper, has the strength of being a long-range powerhouse but the weakness of being in trouble if enemies close in on her, and with lots of counter play built in to her kit using telegraphed attacks and limited mobility.

We went though this sort of iteration with all six of our playable robots: Clancy, Daisy, Kasumi, Bjorn, Maverick and Valentina. We built up, broke down, reworked, and analyzed each of them to achieve a fun and distinctive character. Each has its own unique look and feel, providing a range of play styles without making any one robot stronger or weaker overall.