Description

Gladiabots is a robot combat strategy game in which you carefully construct the AI of your robot squad and send them into the battle arena, iterating, improving and repeating until they outsmart all their opponents across 3 distinct game modes in either the single player campaign, freeplay or in online multiplayer.

Assemble your perfect team of robots and set their AI strategy with the simple to use but satisfyingly deep visual AI editor. Decide when your units should attack, gather resources, support each other, retreat depending on their health, keep their distance, close in, save their shield, react to the circumstances on the battlefield and much more. Improve, refine and repeat until you outsmart all your opponents and friends online.

History

The original game idea came to me 10 years ago when I was working at Ubisoft as lead programmer on the AI of a tactical game. I realized it was actually fun to debug the AI by plugging it to the player's team and watch it battle against the NPCs. I immediately thought there was something to do with this mechanics but I was not sure yet how.
The idea grow in the back of my head for 5 years and one day I decided I had a solid enough concept to start working on a prototype. Early 2016, I published the first alpha which quickly attracted a lot of attention and positive feedback. That's why, later that same year, I decided to quit my cosy job at Amplitude Studios (where I worked as lead programmer on Dungeon of the Endless) to work full-time on it and live the ultimate solo indie dev experience.

Features

  • Create your own AI and watch your robots execute it in the arena
  • Fix it, improve it and repeat it until you outsmart all your opponents!
  • Simple and powerful AI programming system with nearly 100 parameters resulting in millions of possible combinations (with no programming skills required!)
  • Create and customize your robot crew
  • Solo player campaign mode
  • Online multiplayer career mode featuring, ranked, unranked and private matches
  • Compete in and create tournaments
  • Asynchronous multiplayer - battle friends even if they are not online
  • Sandbox mode in which you control both teams to test your tactics
  • Rank up and earn points to unlock new robot skins
  • Cross platform multiplayer - compete against players of both the Steam and mobile versions whichever platform you choose to play on
  • Shared account - seamlessly switch between Steam and mobile with one account and share your progress across both platforms

Videos

Gladiabots - iOS Pre-order Trailer YouTube

Gladiabots - Steam Launch Trailer YouTube

KatherineOfSky let's play video (beginner) YouTube

kAN Gaming let's play video (advanced) YouTube


GIFs

download all GIFs as .zip (112MB)
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There are far more images available for Gladiabots, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!


Screenshots

download all screenshots as .zip (38MB)
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There are far more images available for Gladiabots, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!


download logo files as .zip (3MB)
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Awards & Recognition


Selected Articles

  • "Gladiabots is without a doubt a little gem. If you have pestered about AI in an RTS game, here is your chance to do better, and it’s easy! The possibilities are incredibly exhaustive, while the interface is surprisingly smooth and accessible."
    - rgk, Save Or Quit
  • "If you’re the competitive, analytical type, and willing to treat losses as learning opportunities, you might want to take a look at this one. It’s possible you could get hundreds of hours out of it."
    - Adam Grindley, OldGrizzledDamers
  • "A clever game, and not without its funny moments, as you destory the entire opposition only to realise all your bots are programmed to huddle around the ball for all eternity because you forgot the "pick up" command."
    - Brendan Caldwell, Rock Paper Shotgun
  • "Destroying opposing robots may require only simple chains, but defending a base, retrieving items, and repelling enemies, all at the same time, starts demanding advanced logic and incredible foresight – especially when different types of Gladiabots start becoming available, each with their own specific skills. Thankfully, any errors in your code can be corrected on the fly, making for a speedy, fun lesson in AI design."
    - Matt Kamen, Wired UK (Gaming)
  • "Je me suis amusé plus d'une heure à passer les dix premières missions disponibles et j'en ai encore la cervelle fumante."
    - Ackboo, Canard PC
  • "It's a very impressive game, that gives some insight into actual video game AI programming, with a fun premise and an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to understand and (most importantly) fun to play!"
    - Leo 'Freak' Anderson, AlphaBetaGamer
  • "Games like SpaceChem, Perfect Paths, and TIS-100 have abstracted programming into challenging puzzlers, but the upcoming Gladiabots will let you test your programming skills in the arena of robotic warfare."
    - Christian Valentin, PocketGamer

Discord
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Forum
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Roadmap
http:

Wiki
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Team & Repeating Collaborator

Sébastien Dubois
Solo Game Dev


presskit() by Rami Ismail (Vlambeer) - also thanks to these fine folks