RoboCo is an upcoming robot-building game from Madison, Wisconsin-based indie studio Filament Games that aims to spark interest in STEM fields by offering players the tools to unleash their problem solving skills and creative potential. That may be true, but it also looks like a great way to have fun building sh*tty robots in VR.
RoboCo is admittedly a PC-first game still in the making, however the studio hopes to support VR headsets too; which ones, we’re not sure yet, although the studio has released a few hilarious gifs on how the VR mode will work.
Filament promises to deliver not only a robot-building sandbox mode, but also a campaign mode where you build specific robots for the squishy, toddling humans of world.
Filament says RoboCo was originally conceived as a VR robotics sandbox experience, as the team found the tactile, hands-on nature of 6DOF motion controls to be “a perfect match for a game about building robots.” RoboCo is said to allow for easy transition between both PC and VR modes with the click of a button.
Users can assemble bots with an array of motors, gears, and customizable wireless controls in order to conquer what the studio calls “tricky, open-ended challenge courses where the solutions are as varied as your engineering ingenuity.”
Since the objectives in campaign mode are open-ended, giving you seemingly simple goals like ‘put the baby in the crib’, the game essentially leaves it up to you whether you want to gently lay the baby down rest, or launch it with an improvised trebuchet. You’re incapable of harming humans and the robot itself—the only stipulation is you can’t damage the property—so why not launch the little quirt like a sack of rancid potatoes?
Other objectives include: setting the table for a romantic dinner, build a vacuuming robot, build a voice-activated robo-chair, build a robot that can gently dust your house’s valuables, and a host of other challenging tasks.
The studio is staying tight-lipped on the game’s launch date for now, but if the preview video of the campaign below is any indication of the finished product, we’ll be looking forward to building crappy robots on day one with the best of them.
