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CREATUREFEST JULY 2025
#6
Hey everyone! It's the local robot enjoyer here.

I was racking my brain trying to come up with a game to play for Creaturefest, since I don't really play any "pet" games. After thinking about it, I realized this was an opportunity to revisit a beloved series of flash games from my childhood, the Bot Arena series. For those who don't know, the Bot Arena series is a trilogy of flash games made by Luke Haillay that involves building, managing, and upgrading a team of roombas with guns highly sophisticated combat robots. The gameplay is very simple, and the reason I chose it as a "pet" game is because you do not actually have direct control of your robots- you just equip them and let them loose in the arena against teams of increasingly well equipped enemy robots.

The game I'll be playing today is Bot Arena 3, as it's the only game in the series that gives you the ability to order your robots around, although this still isn't direct control. Sometimes your robots will misbehave, or do what they feel like despite your orders, but it's enough player input that I feel comfortable doing a challenge run of the game! The rules are simple: I can never have more than one robot in the arena at any one time. Having multiple robots in my workshop is fine (and I will be doing this since I'm playing ahead before I make the posts), but only one can be in the arena at once. The game is very much not designed to be played this way- you're expected to have two robots at minimum. This is going to make some levels extremely difficult or downright impossible, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Let's meet our robot!
 
[Image: 3_04_07_25_9_15_05.jpeg]
"She/Them pronouns please!"

This is Schmoo, short for Schmoovement- which they'll be needing a lot of. Poor Schmoo is going to be constantly outnumbered and outgunned, and we'll have to work together to maneuver around and through the enemy team's defenses. Schmoo isn't always going to look like this, since I'll be upgrading them with better armor and weapons after each match. But they'll always have those flashy red highlights! Schmoo will roam around the arena on their own, but I can direct them to either move to a specific spot or follow a specific target. These two commands are essential to victory here, and will allow Schmoo to take down multiple opponents.

Our first match is at the Roxtan Park Arena, where we're greeted by the defending team, Wrecker and Steelheart.
 
[Image: 3_04_07_25_9_14_41.jpeg]
"Oh, look at those baby guns. This should be a cakewalk."

Well...

While it's true that the weapons Wrecker and Steelheart are using do inflict less damage than Schmoo's, there's still two of them, and damage isn't the only important thing about a weapon. It's time to talk about FIRING DISTANCE.
 
[Image: 3_04_07_25_9_15_32.jpeg]

Wrecker and Steelheart both use the Zintex LP, the cheapest and most basic weapon on the market. There's a lot of information here, but what we're concerned with is the firing distance, which in this case is between 25 to 170 units. I have no idea what these units actually are, since there's no name for them in game, but whatever. This means that if an enemy robot is closer than 25 units or further away than 170 units, the weapon will be unable to target them.

Now, let's take a look at what Schmoo's bringing.
 
[Image: 3_04_07_25_9_16_01.jpeg]

As you can see, the damage on this weapon is far higher. But take a look at the firing distance- the range is actually a bit narrower than the Zintex! This is important because it means that there are certain ranges where Wrecker and Steelheart will be able to hit Schmoo, but Schmoo will not be able to hit them. If Schmoo is closer than 50 units away or further than 150 units away, the Zintex provides an extra 25 unit window that allows Wrecker and Steelheart to deal damage to Schmoo with no possible way for Schmoo to return fire.

Luckily, the enemy robots in this game don't have people like me driving them, so they very rarely know to exploit these gaps in firing range. But situations like these, where one robot is able to damage another robot while being safe from retaliation, are essential to beating these arenas while limited to just one robot. Even with the best armor and weapons, Schmoo will always be at a disadvantage due to being outnumbered (and most enemy teams will have the best armor/weapons equipped anyway), so she needs to create situations where the enemy team deals as little damage as possible to them.

With all that in mind, let's take a look at the match and see what we can learn going forward!
 

"I still don't get why you're making such a big fuss. That wasn't even that bad."
"Schmoo you have a literal sliver of health left"

As you can see, despite Wrecker and Steelheart's weapons being weaker, they still deal a significant amount of damage to Schmoo. This means that in order to avoid taking damage, Schmoo needs to isolate a single target. I direct Schmoo to go after Wrecker first, as their armor is weaker. While engaging with Wrecker, I make sure to keep Schmoo as far away from Steelheart as possible. Once Wrecker is down, I direct Schmoo to attack Steelheart, making sure to keep their firing distance in mind and avoid getting too close or too far.

One final note: You may notice that I have many of the arenas unlocked, and a bunch of higher-level items in my inventory. This is because I have no idea whether the game is even possible to beat like this, and I'm playing ahead before I go back and record footage. Rest assured that I'm not going into the arena with any armor, weapons, or chassis (more on those later) that I wouldn't have unlocked by that point in the game.
Artificial lifeform/mechanical construct on a mission to obtain every armor type TCP and also maybe make cool stuff along the way

If you call me a bionicle you are correct

[ARCADE SESSION] [CAVE-IN] [THE ARMOR GUILD] [GENERAL CHARACTER HOARD] [INTRO THREAD] [TCPDEX CHARACTERS]
[ADOPTS]

 
[Image: WOxKePR.png] [Image: DGVV5eJ.png]
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Messages In This Thread
CREATUREFEST JULY 2025 - by skinstealer - 07-01-2025, 11:45 PM
RE: CREATUREFEST JULY 2025 - by aeshihowl - 07-02-2025, 12:01 AM
RE: CREATUREFEST JULY 2025 - by AceOfNothing - 07-02-2025, 04:29 AM
RE: CREATUREFEST JULY 2025 - by AceOfNothing - Yesterday, 07:36 AM
RE: CREATUREFEST JULY 2025 - by knux400 - Today, 09:52 AM

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