Update 1.2: QoL improvements, economy balance and bug fixes
After taking in count many of our players feedback, we’re glad to provide you all with this update containing many QoL improvements.
The main improvement is a rework of the rooms transition:
No more black screen fade each time you move with your robots!
Also, we were not satisfied with the current economy in the game, so we’ve decided to tweak the costs of several elements to avoid players from stacking Rez too quickly without having anything to sink their Rez into.
For example, crafting items was not expensive enough, so it has been tuned up. In addition, reforge cost has been tweaked down to make it cheaper than crafting a new item.
Repairing cost was not satisfying as well, so we’ve decided to make it scale with robots level.
You will find a list of all of the changes in details below.
In addition, there is a little surprise we've decided to keep secret in the patch notes... We will reveal it in a few days ;)
Thank you all for your support and have fun!
[H1]Improvement[/H1]
Rooms transition is now a slide instead of a black screen fade. It is also faster than before!
A class icon has been added in robots portraits in the Equipment to make it easier for players to recognize them at first glance.
Money/credits icons have now a tooltip to inform players that the currency of the game is the Rez.
The blue circle in front of robots Structure and Shield bars in fight has now a tooltip to inform players that it represents the Thoriumeter. Thoriumeter is the gauge robots need to fill to use their Ultimate skill.
A confirmation window has been added before launching a mission if at least one of the robots in the team is under 50% Structure.
The frequency of robots dialogs in fight has been significantly reduced.
An intermediate menu has been added in all the scenes containing the settings button (gear icon) to allow players to go back to main menu from almost everywhere.
The first item in the list is now automatically selected when changing tab in the Workshop.
The wheel of chance won’t show anymore on inspectable elements actions with 100% success chance.
[H1]Economy[/H1]
Crafting cost has been increased from 10 Rez per item level to 200 Rez plus 20 Rez per item level (10 tuned up to 220 for a level 1 item, 200 tune up to 600 for a level 20 item).
Reforging cost has been reduced from 50 Rez plus 20 Rez per item level to 100 Rez plus 10 Rez per item level (70 tuned down to 110 for a level 1 item, 450 tuned down to 300 for a level 20 item).
Repair cost has been increased from 1 Rez per percent of missing Structure to 1 Rez per percent of missing Structure and per robot level.
Skill unlock cost has been increased from 50 to 100.
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue where components number was not refreshed when crafting components.
Fixed an issue where the Recycle all button was not displayed correctly when opening the Recycling tab.
Fixed an issue with items generated in the Black Market when players had unlocked the 3rd faction bonus with The Piece.
Fixed an issue with a few talents that were not adding correctly the effect description in the skill tooltip.
Fixed an issue where the Ultimate skill was not locked correctly in the skills bar when a robot was affected by the Short circuit Status.
Fixed several issues in the “Gathering the clues” main mission.
Fixed an issue causing “The Chip’s Diagram” mission to get stuck occasionally.
Fixed an issue causing the L.A.D.Y.’s posture changing skill to reduce Overload to 0 when using it.
Fixed several sounds missing on the Metabot event.
Fixed an issue allowing the player to move before a sector being unlocked, resulting in the playing being unable to move.
Wave fights and missions in general shouldn’t get stuck anymore.
Robothorium's Post Mortem
Robothorium is not dead already, we want to make new updates. But we figured it was time to take a look back and see what's been going on during the production, learn from it, and move forward!
First, a note about how I’m doing this post-mortem. I’m a Marketer who arrived in the team a few weeks ago and gathered the feedback of everyone working on it. They sent me by DM to make it a bit more “anonymized” and “less influenced” by other people experience. I also added feedback from my own point of view, as someone arriving in the latests months of a project.
Who worked on it
How it went
After the success of Dungeon Rushers, Johann, the creator of Goblinz Studio, wanted to work on a game using the same codebase & gameplay. It would be a sci-fi RPG game taking the gameplay basis of Dungeon Rusher but improving it. The same team would be on board and use the experience gained on the first game of Goblinz Studio.
There were some hiccups and the art director of Dungeon Rushers wasn’t available any more. Johann hired Mathieu to do Robothorium! It’s quite important because it was Mathieu’s first project. He learned a lot but still had to gain experience to make something cool.
Mathieu accommodated nicely but the art and creative direction were a bit clunky from the beginning. The team had to do a complete rework of the art direction and change all sprites, for the sake of the game. It did help but we still noticed players were not interested in it that much.
Using the old engine was a bit hard to do at first. We used the basis of Dungeon Keepers. Using an old basis seems flawless and the best use case. That’s you know, in programmers dreams. Not in reality.
The story is a sci-fi tale about a war between robot and humanity. There is a whole plot about how robots trying to integrate in a future society. There are also links between dangerous science and who should own it. Alas, the writing is a bit disconnected from the gameplay! We could feel that the sci-fi part wasn’t interesting for layers.
Dungeon Rushers was very fun and put cheesy adventurers in crazy dungeons. Robothorium was “serious business” and the writing was different from Dungeon Rushers. Some players didn’t really recognize themselves in it.
Our marketing was very focused on robots, sci-fi, story until we realized that the very best thing of Robothorium is it’s gameplay. The gameplay is generous, with skill trees, crafting, looting and such. The progression curve is nice. We decided to shift the marketing more onto the gameplay and less around the story.
We arrived near the end of the Early Access and we knew that the game was good, but the sales couldn’t skyrocket. The team decided to give it’s best though because everyone loved the game. All the team pushed trough the release, and it went pretty well. We organized a stream run with around 30 streamers ready to cover it around released. We had a coupon with Chroma Squad which generated significant sales!
Today we’re preparing the 1.1 patch for Switch + PC, but we’re unsure about how we’ll push after that. We want to work on our new projects like Legend of Keepers. We also have to keep working on Sigma Theory & Seeds of Resilience.
What went right
The gameplay is solid. There are a lot of strategy to try, the rpg parts allow for customization and it’s a good tactical game. Early Access helped to make a strong & balanced gameplay.
The project “only” lasted 2 years and made okay revenue for this kind of length. On the side, we had other projects to make and the team made the project without crunch. It feels like team management is good!
The marketing was solid and allowed for a lot of experiments. Spendings between production & marketing were well balanced.
People like to work at Goblinz, because there is a lot of freedom and trust between people. Everyone told me they liked working here (well… remotely, but still here!).
Bastien hunted community feedback, bugs reports and answers to every reviews possible! It helped with our rating and branding, people saw we care about addressing issues.
A 3D Printed fan art!
What went wrong
The creative direction at the beginning was very weak. It created a lot of problem around writing and art direction. People weren’t too sure on where the project was going.
Not everyone on remote work was fitting. Remote can be great for some people, harsh for others.
The project wasn’t super easy & chill. The reshaping of the art direction was exhausting and took a lot of time. Some people didn’t really live it well!
Matching procedural missions building with history & gameplay. It was hard to do and the result is quite deceiving.
People lacked a bit of experience so the production value is a bit weak, but they definitely learned a lot. We’re currently working on the first iterations of our next game Legend of Keepers. You can see this improvement at every level.
Stats for nerds
I love stats. You love stats. Let’s make a stats party!
As of today 20/02/2019:
63 Steam news
Robothorium Twitter = 800 followers
Robothorium Facebook = 400 followers
Production Budget = around 180k
Translation budget = around 35k
Marketing Budget = around 35k
Rough units on all platforms = around 14k
We’re french but have quite a low amount of French users, we don’t know why. For RU, we hired Pangolin (https://twitter.com/YaPangolin) around launch to help us a bit. China is still quite low cause we had some issues with our publisher there.
125 around EA launch SP ; 5–10 daily ; 220 around launch. Still going :)!
What we learned
Prepare your creative direction seriously. It’ll be useful all along the production and is hardly “lost time”.
Sometimes games have an excellent gameplay but they’re not appealing. You can patch it a bit, but sometimes it’s a lost cause. Deal with it and finish the project.
Narration must fit the gameplay, it has an impact on the whole experience.
Thanks for reading! Robothorium is NOT DEAD! We still want to push new updates, so stay tuned ;)
Update 1.1: Balancing and bug fixes
After all the feedback and reports gathered since the release last week, we're happy to do our first update.
We've listened to your concerns about several balancing issues and have fixed as many major bugs as we could in the last few days.
Thank you all for the support!
Have a nice uprising!
[H1]Improvement[/H1]
Level scaling of secondary missions has been adjusted. It will now be calculated from the main mission level if robots are overleveling it, or from the highest level robot if it is lower to the main mission level.
Starting a mission will now refresh the secondary missions available on the map.
Reaching max level with your robots (20) will no longer make missions available go up to 20 in Rebellion and Insurrection difficulties.
The group of 2 Perfect Juggernauts (grade 3) in the “Gathering the clues” mission have been replaced by 2 Juggernauts (grade 2).
Twitch votes window can now be closed with gamepad.
Dialog choices buttons mapping have been changed for gamepad to avoid dialogs to be skipped when pressing button A too quickly.
[H1]Balancing[/H1]
Juggernaut:
Skills:
Atomic fission:
Percent of enemies maximum Shield and Structure dealt as damage reduced from 50% to 30%.
Can’t trigger while Overloaded or Stunned anymore.
Z.E.R.K.E.R.:
Attributes:
Resistance increased from 85 (11,53%) to 98 (13,1%).
Skills:
Plasmic wave:
Power scaling increased from 0.7 to 0.75.
Supersonic ammo:
Power scaling increased from 0.75 to 0.9.
Loaded shot:
Power scaling increased from 0.85 to 1.
Nucleon shot ultimate skill:
Power scaling increased from 0.65 to 0.75.
R.E.P.A.I.R.:
Attributes:
Base Shield increased from 83 to 100.
Shield per level increased from 17.47 to 21.05.
Base Structure reduced from 167 to 150.
Structure per level reduced from 35.16 to 31.58.
G.U.A.R.D.:
Skills:
Belligerent smash:
Power scaling reduced from 0.3 to 0.15.
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue where going back from a game to the menu to start a new game on a new slot was not generating level 1 enemies correctly.
Fixed an issue with gamepad preventing players from navigating correctly into Effects in the fighter details window.
Fixed an issue where buying a G.U.A.R.D. in the Hangar or rescuing one in exploration wouldn’t add it fully equipped with Common items in the Team or the Reserve.
Fixed an issue causing enemies to block the fights when they are Provoked and are trying to attack themselves because of the Mesmerized Status.
Fixed an issue where the option to automatically sell Common items caused the game to crash or freeze for several seconds in Black Market when having many items to sell.
Fixed an issue with Shiro’s attributes on first encounter not scaling to level 9 correctly.
Fixed an issue causing specific skills used in the last boss fight on an enemy affected by the Charmed Penalty to make the fight hang because of the Spacetime breach Status.
Fixed an issue causing the fight to hang when killing several members of the Council at the same time in the last boss fight.
Fixed an issue causing the wave fight to hang in the “Inauguration” mission.
Fixed an issue with the Encrypted camera element who was doing nothing when failing.
Fixed an issue causing Danger Level to be able to go under 0.
Fixed an issue where robots from the team were available for demonstrations with a full Reserve and were placed on a “ghost” Reserve slot if sent to demonstration.
Hotfix 1.1.1:
Fixed an issue with procedural generation that could place two connecting doors from two consecutive sectors next to each other, creating trigger issues for scripted missions.
Fixed an issue with the R.E.P.A.I.R.’s Machinist Set bonus that was preventing players to use the basic attack on other players’ robots in Arena.
Fixed an issue with the L.A.D.Y.’s Syntonization skill that was not working correctly in Arena.
Robothorium is now out on Steam and Switch!!!
Robothorium, our cyberpunk dungeon crawler with turn-based fights, is now complete and ready to get out of Early Access.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zepugcb30F0&t=2s
Two years ago, we have started the development of Robothorium. We had no idea where it would lead us.
6 months after starting the development, we’ve decided to change the art direction. And it was a great decision!
We’ve released the game on June 7th 2018 in Early Access, and it wasn’t that easy!
After 8 months of Early Access, tons of updates, the support of our great community on our Discord and the great work of our partner for the Chinese market, Whisper Interactive, we are more than happy about the development of Robothorium and we are ready to let it fly on its own.
Thank you all for your commitment, we are glad to have you in our community!!!
The Goblinz Team
Update 1.0: Release update with a new robot!
We are proud to release our 1.0 update for the official final release of the game!
This has been a long journey and we want to thank all the players who have been supporting us since the beginning of Early Access!
A new robot is finally coming to the revolution-party: the G.U.A.R.D.!
Have a nice uprising!
Update 0.9.8: Last story missions and Release date announcement
[H1]Final Rush![/H1]
We are near the final countdown and we are proud to announce you that the game will be released on January 31th on Steam and Switch! Other platforms will follow, but we have no date we can give you yet.
In this update, we’ve added the last story missions with the final boss.
For those wondering about the future of the game once released, we will still provide updates with fixes and improvements, if not content addition when possible.
See you next week for the release!
[H1]Features[/H1]
Last factions missions available!
Final boss is there!
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue causing the R.E.P.A.I.R.’s Shield stabilization and Localization skills to sometimes do nothing in fight when their second talent was upgraded.
Fixed an issue preventing rooms decoration to be loaded correctly.
Fixed an issue where effects were not cleaned correctly on enemies that have been summoned.
Fix a missing text in English for a Z.E.R.K.E.R. talent.
Fixed an issue where the W.A.R.’s Art of equipment talent was not working as intended and as described in the tootlip.
Fixed an issue with Mythic items and CyberRights faction bonuses where Danger Level decrease was applied more times than intended when succeeding an action.
[H1]G.U.A.R.D. Teasing[/H1]
We will release the 1.0 version with the G.U.A.R.D. unit, an incredible tank with no Resistance who's using his tremendous amount of Shield to attack. Manage his Neoconverter stacks to get more Shield back when dealing damage to the enemies lines!
"The G.U.A.R.D. units are steeped in British craftsmanship. They were conceived to replace the Royal Guard at Buckingham Palace in 2030, and were programmed to follow this single directive: defend the entrance to the palace and protect the King of England against all dangers."
[H1]Stream Run[/H1]
We're preparing a 24 hours Stream Run with some content creators all around the world! If you want to join the Stream Run Event, let us know ;)
Update 0.9.7.1: Minor patch
[H1]Improvements and balancing[/H1]
Added some visual effects when a fighter takes Shield damage, Structure damage or receives a heal.
Shake screen effects have been added on attacks that were still missing some and have been slightly increased for the already existing ones.
Improved the animations of all fighters to make them more dynamic. Hitted animation is the most noticeable one.
Enemies grades layouts have been made harder for 5v5 encounters. 5v6 remains the same.
Classes of robots available when starting a new game have been adjusted depending on chosen difficulty.
Several Bonuses and Penalties has been tweaked to help avoiding too many effects being applied on fighters at once. Durations have been reduced and the buffs or debuffs values have been changed accordingly.
The Surprised Status from CyberRights faction bonus is no longer applied in Arena.
A Cyberdog Rookie has been added in the second group of enemies encountered in the introduction mission.
Overload increase from Cyberdog’s Detection skill has been reduced from 15% to 10% per hit.
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue with the S.O.N.G.’s Soloist Set bonus increasing Overload and max Overload each turn.
Fixed an issue with several attributes display in the Equipment when robots were affected by Bonuses and/or Penalties.
Fixed the names of the S.O.N.G.’s Set items that were mixed up.
Fixed an issue with G.A.I.A.’s Statuses mechanics not working as intended.
Fixed minor issues preventing some sliders to be refreshed correctly in exploration or in fight.
Fixed an issue where the Protected visual effect was not removed if the Protector was killed because of the protection.
Fixed an issue preventing the die animation of the Protector to be played if the Protector was killed because of the protection.
Fixed an issue where items could still be drag & dropped in the Black Market.
Fixed several minor issues for older player saves.
Fixed an issue where items that a robot could not equip to not be displayed in red in specific situations.
Added more securities to avoid fights to hang.
Added a security to avoid enemies to keep the level of a previous slot when starting a new game.
Update 0.9.7: New year patch with bug fixes
We’re back from celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and we’re more motivated than ever!
Here is a small patch to fix a few bugs remaining, including some that could prevent some players to start a game correctly or still leading to fights hanging.
The release is getting closer and we’re eager to announce you the date when everything is ready.
There are still some content to be added before then, so stay tuned!
Happy new year to everyone!
[H1]Improvements and balancing[/H1]
Quitting the game will now put you back in the current mission at the same position you were when leaving, with the rooms already visited unveiled correctly.
Shake screen intensity has been reduced when killing bosses.
Added an icon in robots portraits to show which robots are in the active team in the demonstration robot selection window.
Improved minimap camera zoom for gamepad.
Chances to activate Regeneration when being attacked from Backup software R.I.O.T.’s talent has been reduced from 50/100% to 25/50%.
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue causing the L.A.D.Y. unit to be unable to use skills in some specific situations.
Fixed an issue causing items with negative values to not consider the correct max value for perfect stats rolls.
Fixed an issue causing Growing discharge stacks to not refresh correctly in specific situations.
Fixed an issue causing the game to be stuck on a fight without anything loading in the scene for 4:5 screen resolutions.
Fixed an issue causing items to be generated with a level of -1 in the Black Market when having no alive robots in the active team.
Fixed an issue causing Critic stat range in the Workshop to be displayed with 2 decimals instead of just 1.
Fixed more issues that could cause fights to hang. There still might be a few remaining, but we are actively tracking them down.
Fixed several bugs in the Equipment, Hangar and Black market when using a gamepad.
Update 0.9.6: Last factions missions, new achievements and localization
Players will now have access to the last factions missions for CyberRights and BioThorium!
New achievements have also been implemented and the game is now fully translated in 8 different languages!
Have fun!
[H1]Features[/H1]
CyberRights and BioThorium last factions missions available!
New Steam achievements have been added!
The game’s localization is now completely available for German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese!
[H1]Improvements[/H1]
Shop performance has been further optimized when selling items.
Fight performance has been optimized.
Items in inventory now have a green indicator when they have a higher level than the one equipped and at least one attribute higher.
Lots of improvements for gamepad navigation and ergonomy.
Missing sounds added on the most recent inspectable elements.
[H1]Bug fixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue where tutorial dialogs couldn’t be toggled on and off in the settings.
Fixed an issue where language selection was displayed as English even if another language was selected and active.
Fixed an issue impacting the level of enemies generated in wave fights.
Fixed an issue where the Shield slider was not refreshed correctly after taking reflected damage.
Fixed an issue causing the fight to hang against Lisa in the Prepare for battle mission.
Fixed an issue where Juggernauts were not dealing damage correctly when exploding.
Fixed an issue preventing the Deleted achievement to be unlocked correctly.
Fixed an issue where a doors opening sound was played during the enemies encounter animation.
Fixed an issue preventing players to open or close the minimap when encountering a trap.
Fixed an issue where the Zealous worker group could be chosen to be removed from the level when succeeding an action on specific inspectable elements.
[H1]Hotfixes[/H1]
Fixed an issue causing the S.O.N.G.’s Engines Serenade skill to apply the wrong amout of heal.
Fixed an issue preventing the heal preview to work correctly on the launcher for skills affecting an ally line.
Fixed an issue preventing the Humanobots wave fight to end correctly.
New game revealed!
Hello everyone,
Robothorium is near to be finished and it will be released early next year on Steam and consoles.
We are really happy to announce that a part of our team is already working on the concept of a new game: Legend of Keepers.
This is a mix between a Dungeon Keeper and a Rogue-like, and it is turn-based as well. You will have to manage your employees and defend your dungeons against (not so) mighty heroes coming for your treasures.
It will take place in the same universe than Dungeon Rushers, s you will be able to find some links between the two games.
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