New Website, PC Game, and The Grudge Match Challenge.

So after months without a website because it got hacked, we€™ve finally been able to use our quiet summer to build one.

Working closely with Liam Cozens, not only do we now have a brand new website, but also a PC Game too!!!

For the first time you will be able to control your favourite robots in your armchair, and with regular updates and upgrades your game should always be up to date with the latest robots and arena changes. The game will be released 7th October, but until then feel free to play the early version on the website. Pre order your copy now.

Something also which is new is the €œ Grudge Match Challenge €œ where you will be able to submit your grudge matches either from you or if you prefer even anonymously and we will try and sort them out. http://www.roamingrobots.co.uk/grudgematch.html

Enjoy
John
www.RoamingRobots.co.uk

i noticed that the game update was on the shop so is that up for pre-order aswell. :?:

Yep you can purchase both now if you like.

The game will be sent out 7th October and then the first update will be in February.

It's up to you of you want to pay for both now or seperately !

Regards

John

Will the game update come out as a disc or a download? (sorry about so many questions)

Most probably a download from
Our website !

That's ok, fire away if there's any more :-)

In the first version of the game will you be able fight robots or just drive them around the arena?

First version is just driving, flipping objects and fall in the pit.
After the update it's the finished game and it will be fighting and multiplayer.

Hence the reduced cost at the moment to launch it.
Once it's complete people will buy the finished thing and then it'll just be robot updates etc :-)

You save money by buying it now but obviously you have to wait a bit for the update.

I'll probably pre-order the game tomorrow. Nice website by the way.

Oh no, the database is missing. *cries*

Nice website though. Looks nice.
I still think a downloadable mobile game would be better. Far more downloads, keeps the kids quiet on the way home.

As a piece of constructive criticism the average page size is WAY too big, takes an age to load on my connection let alone the average slower one. The images can and should be smaller files with no loss of quality, the background image for instance is a crazy 2551x1616px, it's incredibly inefficient to use images to format web pages in that way, much wiser to use divs and css to style tables and borders. Whoever re-designed the website clearly doesn't know much about web development to put it bluntly. Maybe most people who don't know much about programming won't mind as much, but it's worth considering that as it currently is the website is definitely holding you back from an accessibility standpoint!

Also just to check did you get my PM reply OK? Haven't heard back, can resend if not?

Lol nice constructive criticism, I don't know much about it but I'm learning, :-)

Yes did get it, forgot to reply, will be in touch.

Ceri,

I'll bear that in mind, although our target audience for the game is to sell them at events rather than the comparible low volume of traffic not buying tickets for a show and just browsing the website, so for someone to take an actual disk home from an event after they've seen the robots fighting, nicely packaged should be a much more attractive proposition.

That's my logic, but open to suggestions and it's worth considering as an option.

What's your thoughts ?

Are you going to put the team championship stuff in a future update for the game? (e.g. Robot Hockey/Football)

Possibly.... it's all a bit new at the moment so people who buy it are going to travel down the development journey with us :-)

I'm just glad we now have our own game as its something I've wanted for years :-)

How far it goes depends on Liam and how his skills develope.

Just Pre-ordered it.

Though I don't know what you mean by 'hacked' you could dig out enough of your old website to get one similar to it from here: http://web.archive.org/web/201007251151 ... ots.co.uk/?

Well i had all the pages saved, they knew what they were doing as they deleted all of our database data.

Could have made a copy of the old one but much prefer the new one anyway ! :proud:

As someone who works in the games industry I think you're very brave launching the game as a paid, packaged product.
Even the biggest firms are moving away from retail as we know it and download is becoming the standard medium. They're also adopting the freemium method and actually paying for games upfront is becoming a rare occurence.
Then again you have a unique platform from which to sell (your events).

Well I think the difference is the game industry are looking at high volume products and a lot of competition.

This is a specific thing for a specific market. Marchandise from
An event, relatively cheap, and certainly relatively unique.

Yeh it's an interesting idea. Good luck.

what do you do PJ ?

I'm a freelance audio designer for the games industry (music and sound design) I also do game design and advise on monetisation and marketing.

Nice Job :proud:

Haha, cheers! Almost as fun as building and fighting robots for a living!

Yep Im not complaining :rofl:

It's interesting to see another robot combat game after over a decade.

Is there any chance this will be distributed on Steam later on? A lot of indie developers seem to be turning to that to distribute their games.

What's steam ?

Steam is an online distribution portal for games that's developed by Valve (The guys that made, Half Life, Portal, Counterstrike etc..).
It's become the industry go to place to download games that run on a PC/Mac and not console.
It's popular because it has a vigorous vetting process for new games that means there's only good stuff basically. Well popular amongst consumers, but developers complain.
They also have a lot of decent indie games, and have made a name for themselves in indie circles as a great platform to sell your game.
They recently changed their vetting process to something called Greenlight though and it's getting some criticism.

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/

Or as Gary would say Just Google it!

Yep. I play Team Fortress 2 through Steam. Though Steam is kind of unreliable at times. Recently it's been validating all the games I've tried to play before I can access them.

Since I pre-ordered the game everyday has seemed so SLOW. It's going to be a long September for me :sad: .