Rise of the Robots X: dawn of the project

Good day Strategist,

My name is Romain, but you can call me Calixte. Today I would like to tell you the story of Rise of the Robots X: how it started as a standard collectible card game and finally became an ambitious eSport strategy video game.

Rise of the Robots X was born under the name "A.I." (Artificial Intelligence, ngl) more than 19 years ago. Initially a simple collectible card game, its concept has evolved to incorporate innovative gameplay, for example, by allowing players to have all the cards in hand from the start of a game.

Then, I went a step ahead in innovation and transformed A.I. as a mixture of a board game and collectible cards. This concept had at the time attracted the attention of some board game companies. However, despite an original combat system, the complexity of editing cards, figurines and game boards marked the end of this childhood project.

The very first icon for “Artificial Intelligence” I created on Paint 19 years ago

In the 2010s, I understood that digitizing "A.I." was the best way to simplify his gameplay while improving its feasibility. This is how started an adventure in the world of video games production which has seen its protagonists grow from barely major to established adults. In this discovery of large productions and indies, the problem of financing has always opposed its veto to the creation of an “A.I.” prototype, which has been renamed “Rise of the Robots X” (RoRx).

The initial RoRx icon when it became a video game project

Embarked around the world on the colossi of the seas, I was then an apprentice merchant navy officer, but I never forgot about RoRx. On the contrary, as a passionate writer, I created its universe with its peoples, its stellar system, and its intrigue. A first book, "Renaissance", has been written and the second, "Redemption", almost done. I also made Rise of the Robots “on paper” by writing every game design documents that could one day used to develop the game. Almost 10 years passed by before I decide that if I cannot afford to have this game developed, then I will learn to do it myself.

Well, I have to say that the COVID-19 confinement helped a lot by giving me a tremendous quantity of free time, but also the full support of my brother (as a game designer) and girlfriend (as a rough QA)  throughout the years were the cornerstone of my motivation. I will share the full Alpha digest in the next Blog post.

The reworked icon of “RoRx”

Building an Alpha with my limited dev skills but with the power of Unity 3D was surprisingly quick: less than a year. The gameplay changed so much from how I initially thought it, and that is exactly what you should expect from an Alpha. We went from testing the game on a single PC (funny, for a multiplayer game), to locally on multiple PC (what a feeling of achievement!) to online with friends and dedicated Alpha testers (and I have to admit, I lost to newbies in my own game).

It took a while to reach the end goal of the Alpha : Telling to yourself “Good, and now what? Am I ready to go public?”. The answer could have been “Yes” if RoRx was a standalone game, but it’s not, it’s meant to be a competitive, massively multiplayer, online strategy game, and this is another kettle of fish. I needed a team of skilled and talented peoples.

The last RoRx icon

I got certainly lucky by meeting the right people to rally the RoRx team of today, but I would never have convinced them of joining this crazy adventure without having a functioning prototype, and today I feel proud of having them onboard and fully committed to make Rise of the Robots X the online eSport strategy game of tomorrow.

This will be the conclusion of this blog post. To all wannabe video game producer with a “great idea”: develop its prototype. The game engines (Unity, Unreal Engine) of today are so powerful and user friendly that you can build something in a few months without having any initial game dev experience. You will then come with something to show in which extent your idea is so great…

…or be lucky as I am to have mad lads joining you in the fray to fight for a clunky story about Robots crushing each other.

Calixte

The RoRx’s teaser film crew, what a blast!