Robocraft, a robot creation game that I had already had the opportunity to test almost two years ago on the occasion of the gamescom, is now in open beta! So I went back to see a little how things are going!
After successfully recovering my account, I found myself in a game that looked much more modern than I remembered. It slams!
I currently have three robots in my lobby, I present you Robo1, Robo2 and Robo3:
All the robots can be created freely using the integrated tool which is based on the nesting of shapes that must first be owned or created in the Forge. The possibilities are monstrous as you can see with all these tabs from the Forge:
For rich players lacking inspiration, there is a wonderful gallery (the Factory) filled with robots, each more original than the next, created by talented players in the in-game creation tool.
Close-up on some models
The robots in the gallery, like the coins to be created in the Forge, cost Robits, a currency that can be recovered by recycling coins. Because while playing, we recover bits of robots, which means that the inventory lurks caterpillars, weapons, and legs! Of course, the conversion rate is not to the advantage of recycling: it will be necessary to recycle a lot of parts to succeed in obtaining a desired one.
All these elements come together in a large clean room where the camera is free, allowing to navigate in FPS view anywhere to create the robot of my dreams.
Armed with a gun-creator, I was able to stack blocks (but not squares because, as you can see above, I don't know why, the game did not offer me any squares, I only have quirky blocks). The tool is ultra-simple, and ultimately only requires knowing a few commands: Q to go to the inventory and select the object to insert, left click to place it, right click to remove it and the mouse wheel to change the meaning. For experienced creators, there are other options like mirror creation, creation in blocks of 10, center of gravity management ... Let me introduce you ... uh ... Two legs?
In the screenshot, he's standing in the test area, a large area with no enemies to shoot at fixed targets and test if everything is working. Because yes, when you create a robot, there is no guarantee that it will work. It is better to test after the flag does not obstruct the field of vision of the weapons or that the weapons simply have a good angle of fire. I had a few surprises ...
Beyond the creation phase (which is a very important part of the game), there are several game modes:
I notably tested the game mode against the AI (in a team of 5 against 5 where you have to be the first team to reach 25 enemy deaths) and the Brawl game mode (in a team of 10 against 10 where you have to eliminate the enemy team with no possible respawn after death).
Both are dynamic, taking place on different maps, and I particularly appreciated the Brawl mode where everyone has small robots, the maximum score must not exceed 495. Suddenly, there are featherweights, Flying micro-robots in particular, which are particularly difficult to target because they are so fast and small. This gives another dimension to games where, in the classic world, players are more inclined to take rather large robots with a lot of weapons.
On the other hand, there are places in each map to hide and lots of enemies to shoot down! The principle of the game is very simple, the left click allows to shoot, while the right click zooms. The only other keys depend on the weapons equipped on the robot, keys 1 to 6 change the mode. A few other handy keys: F to turn around and M to zoom in on the minimap.
At the end of a game, the scores are announced in a summary table that can be sorted by clicking on the column titles.
Then the gifts are distributed, most of the time a box whose quality depends on the classification, which can range from bronze, silver, gold to protonium!
The perfect opportunity to talk about the store and the paid options of this free-to-play game. There is no need to pay to log in, build a robot, and play. It's completely free, so you can install the game and get started right away. On the other hand, there is a premium status, a subscription, which doubles the experience gain, allows you to unlock more pack rewards, offers access to more colors to create your robots and triples the robits during recycling. It is also possible to buy boxes directly.
We will therefore welcome this desire not to offer options unbalancing the game because you will only gain comfort and time here by spending premium. As you can see in the screenshot on the right, there is a rather interesting premium for life option currently at € 36. If you plan on playing for a long time, or just want to thank the developers for the game, this sounds like the best return to me!
Robocraft is a good vehicle combat game, pretty and dynamic, offering a great freedom in the creation of the machines of death which will then allow you to fight. No player has the same machine, and enemies' abilities are not known until they pay the price. Nothing makes it easy to guess from a distance what others are capable of! Even if the cards are not very varied, the parts are each time different, reserving its share of surprise and astonishment in front of the increasingly original creations of the players. Test, and don't hesitate to share your creations in the comments!
