The story of how a wide range of illustrators and writers came together to create the PS4 game’s robotic cast
The evil robot overlord Kernel has taken control. His new totalitarian regime demands that any malfunctioning robots be thrown into the arenas where they must survive by battling to the death.
Welcome to the world of Insane Robots, a card battler like no other you’ve ever played. Enter battle arenas, power up your robot, and fight in a game that has been described as ‘Hearthstone meets The Hunger Games’.
The robots are coming
You’ll meet a cast of 46 beautifully-realised characters created by some of the UK’s leading illustrators and go on an enthralling adventure plotted by three top game writers! Even though Playniac is far from a huge studio we were able to pull in an immense amount of talent from the creative network we have built up around us so that we could realise the vision that we had for the game.
The game has been created by a unique collaboration with 15 people. Designer Rob Davis had created International Racing Squirrels and festival favourite Cat on Yer Head and pulled in 80 Days and Heaven’s Vault developer Tom Kail, plus two more developers to help.
We had top-class writers who had worked on the likes of Fallen London (Yasmeen Khan) and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Paranoia RPG (James Wallis). Plus we introduced new writing talent in the form of LSBU graduate Charlie Carter.
Cuckoo clocks + Daft Punk + Star Wars
What people usually fall in love with first in the game are the robots. They were inspired by everything from Star Wars, Daft Punk, the Wild West to a jellyfish, a crash-test dummy or a Swiss cuckoo clock.
The robots are a diverse group of characters – some lovable, some formidable – that all look amazing. This is thanks to our group of ace artists, who had worked on the likes of Pokemon, Snipperclips, Detective Grimoire, Total War and Frozen Synapse. The quality just shines through in the game.
Artists included Catherine Unger (Snipperclips, Detective Grimoire, Haunt the House, The Swindle), Fran Court (Hue, Stealth Inc 2, Frozen Synapse 2), Belinda Leung (Total War, Pokemon), Alice Duke (Fantastic Beasts, Lazarus), and Karen Teixeira (Twelve a Dozen, Oceans Heart).
Music is a big part of the game too and the game’s soundtrack includes over 50 tracks, including some by Noise 5000 and legendary French electro producer Kid Loco.
Teamwork makes the dream work
A crew of 15 people working on an ‘Indie’ game is unusual, but by using the network we have of incredibly gifted people we were able to bring creatives in, when needed, to build a game which has the depth, quality and complexity usually associated with full-on AAA products.
Every member of the team brought something different, yet they have created a realistic, engaging world where players will battle robots that they care about, that they want to see succeed, to overthrow the despotic ruler and find a bright new future for every Insane Robot!
Insane Robots is now live on PlayStation Store and we can’t wait to see what you think of the game. It’s been a work of passion for such a number of talented people and we are very proud of the end result.
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