Update: The event is now over, thanks everyone for joining!

Today we're playtesting Last Bot Standing levels from the Steam Workshop with everyone (more info).

Play the game during the event, and you'll automatically be playtesting new levels!

And you can watch Erik streaming playing and picking the levels on Twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/doborog

See you there!

We are about to try something new!

Tomorrow we'll be holding a live play test of the coolest looking Last Bot Standing levels in the workshop!

Based on your feedback we'll then add the very strongest levels to the game for a limited time.

Playtest time: 10am PST - Saturday Nov 17

Here's how to participate:

• Play the game! - During the playtest we're overriding the current level globally for all players. It should make for an entertaining time. :)
• Watch the stream! - We'll be streaming live at https://www.twitch.tv/doborog! Hang out and tell us what you think of each level!
• Make a level! - Make a cool Last Bot Standing level and maybe we'll try it!

Wondering how to make a great level? Check out our new guide!
It has a wealth of information for all skill levels!



What do you think makes for a great Last Bot Standing level?
Let us know in the comments! :)

We just released a cheeky update!

Introducing...
Surprise! We were fixing a laser bug this update, so we figured, why not make a challenge that uses it! Practice your laser skills with 10 fresh laser-forward levels.



Will you earn the new laser challenge trophy?




Some of you were asking if you could make and play your own Last Bot Standing multiplayer levels. Now you can!!

With a single click, your work in progress level is on a dedicated multiplayer server and ready to play-test. We now wish this was in every game's level editor!



Once you're happy with your level, upload it to the Steam Workshop. People can then use your levels in...


Create your own private Last Bot Standing matches with up to 15 of your closest friends. Download some new levels from the workshop and try them out!



Don't have any friends to try out new level with? Join our...


You may notice a new countdown at the top of the game.



We're going to get everyone together and test out some of the latest Steam Workshop levels on a Twitch stream together. The first one will be at Saturday November 17th at 10am PST. Load up your game then to try the community-created levels we're testing!


What's better than ultimately futile human combat? Memorable ultimately futile human combat!

Now when you win a public match with more than 5 players in it, your new Win Counter will go up. Once you reach a certain number of wins, your Transport Bot will automatically be upgraded to a new, more intimidating model.



You may notice this includes a macho mustache garbage bot. Are you happy, cogitoergosum?! Look what you've made us do.


As part of testing the new ability to play-test Last Bot Standing workshop levels, we've added a new map to the public Last Bot Standing rotation called Rising Tide.



As lava rises up, the level's combat surface grows progressively smaller. Kill your opponents before you drown in lava!

• We added a Setting to select an override region for matchmaking. Hope this helps those of you who were having trouble pinging regions, or couldn't find enough matches in your own region. Let us know!
• We added a news widget so you can see what our latest updates have been (like... this one!!) You may also notice some cute little buttons right below there, including one to some Clone Drone merch from Design By Humans. Fresh.
  

There's so much we want to do next, we're going to parallelize the next bit of development!

• Erik will begin work on Chapter FOURRRRRRRR! No firm release date for it yet, but we will share info once we start in on it! We're make sure to share some teasers along the way. We've got some fun plans for it!!
• Brian will continue upgrading our multiplayer server and matchmaking system to support a US-West region!

Don't forget to come join our play test on Saturday November 17th at 10am PST! Add it to your calendar, and see you next update!

What a fun week! We’re finding Last Bot Standing is so much fun with full 15-player matches! If you haven’t seen it yet, update your game & come play, or check out this fun video from Draegast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9DJiEbxxCg

Thanks everyone who shared ideas & concerns with us this week, it really helped us prioritize! We did a bit of planning after this release about what we’ll be working on next, we hope you will like it!

Here’s what we’re planning:

• Address the most pressing issues with Last Bot Standing!
• Make Sure Last Bot Standing stays fresh while we add…...
• Chapter 444444444444444444!!!!!!!!!!

Start taking direct Submissions of Last Bot Standing levels, trying some of them out on live streams! More details on how that will work, soon. :)

Add US-West Support! To do that, we’ll be switching up how we manage our dedicated servers. That will ALSO give us the opportunity to re-evaluate what regions we have. The goal will be to minimize player pings without splitting people into games that are too small!

Laser Improvements! Currently the laser sometimes damages things that are below the beam -- we didn’t have time to fix that for release, but we’re gonna fix it now!




Your Wins will Matter! We will start keeping track of wins, and display them in cool ways in the game :)

More Variety! Aside from including some Workshop-created levels (see above), we’ll be doing some fun stuff that makes the game even more different to play at times.


Obviously no spoilers but, it’s gonna be coooooool! More details closer to starting it :)

Shower in garbage, human!

Unless, of course, you get smashed to bits in Last Bot Standing, the brand new game mode for Clone Drone in the Danger Zone.

New trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNMs8FTouLk

Join as 15 human minds trapped in shiny robot bodies fight to the death!
Claim the powerful upgrade drops falling from the sky, but be warned; There are not enough for all humans.

Inform your fellow humans that you will soon shower in their garbage remains. Update your game now, and come fight!

This Friday at 2pm PST (countdown / convert to your timezone), update your game and come play!


The new game mode will be called Last Bot Standing.

Confirmed:

• Ceremonial garbage bots
• 15 players per match
• Shower in a rain of garbage
• 5-10 minutes per play session
• Ride fire-breathing raptors

See you Friday!

Holy progress, Commentatron! There is so much new stuff from the past few weeks, we figured it’s way past time for an update post!

We’ve been working hard on creating a super fun Battle Royale game mode, and it’s turning out AWESOME! It’s hitting that point where play testing is becoming fun enough to become an actual development distraction (always a good sign).

If you’d like to try out the work-in-progress development branch with Battle Royale or otherwise follow ongoing development, check out Erik’s Twitch stream & our development branch guide!


The Dash ability will launch with the Battle Royale game mode, and will be available in all game modes (even single-player).

The Dash ability (SHIFT + direction) allows you to perform a quick, short leap in a given direction, provided you have the energy to use it. Combined with a well-timed swing (or used to avoid one), it can become a very powerful addition to your combat toolbelt.

It also makes you look pretty cool.



We’ve already been finding the dash’s quick, punctuated motions make combat feel more dynamic and fun, and helps avoid chase scenarios where both players are running at the same speed -- now there’s some excitement to it!


We’ve been continuing to improve the “hit feel” of multiplayer combat, and the Battle Royale update will introduce two major improvements: (1) cranking the server & client-side network send rate up from 20 packets per second to 60, and (2) using a hybrid client/server hit reporting mechanism that should help hits register more often while still detecting cheat attempts.



Erik has been using this cool visualization of sword hit detection to test out different lag compensation techniques:



Maybe in a future game, you’ll just draw flowers with your sword...

Beyond that, we still have even more ideas for how to improve the networked melee hit feel (including getting US-West region support, our provider suggests it’s coming soon!) -- & this update should be a nice step forward!


Screw launching with one gigantic map, Clone Drone Battle Royale will will launch with a bunch of medium-sized maps!





These maps will take advantage of some newly added level features, such as...


You may notice some levels have laser cannons on them.

Don’t fall off the edge of the map.




Just because your robot body has been sliced to bits doesn’t mean you can’t keep enjoying the game!



Now you can fly around, follow players and watch the game (starting with whoever killed you).


While we’ve been working on these new levels, we’ve been making some pretty cool additions to the level editor (which will become available to Steam Workshop creators when we launch Battle Royale)!


What’s better than the ability to move an object? How about the ability to move ALL THE OBJECTS?!



Those of you familiar with Photoshop, Flash, etc. will appreciate these other handy tools which will be available in our next release (align, distribute, chain). Here are some outrageous things VastLite has been making with them:






When we added Moving Platforms, we were amazed and a little disturbed by what players were able to accomplish with such a simple feature.

Move Groups takes that to another level. You will be able to move not just platforms, but other objects in the level with these groups.

Look what X606 made using move groups (in the development test branch):



Stay tuned for the upcoming release of Clone Drone in the Dancing Zone.

Just kidding.

Maybe.


Come watch Erik live-streaming developing the Battle Royale game mode LIVE! & join one of the development branch test matches to try it out yourself.

Otherwise, see you in the arena September 21st!

Will YOU be the last human standing?
We're excited to announce that the next major multiplayer game mode will be... Battle Royale!


If you're expecting 100 players to drop from a sky thing and then sneak around a large island with human houses... that is not what we're doing. :)

Clone Drone's take on the popular game mode instead builds on our learnings from Long Live Santa!, the merry Christmas game we prototyped last December.

We're placing a strong emphasis on fierce action, tactical trade-offs and contested upgrade drops.


Powerful upgrades become available after the match starts.
To get them you must be the only living player inside of their capture zone for five full seconds!

These drops help drive players together, providing an interesting trade-off between risk and reward. You can avoid the fight entirely with just your starting upgrades, but as more competitors are eliminated, you'll really wish you snagged some power upgrades!




Have you always wanted to ride a fearsome fire breathing robot raptor? Of course you have.
Ridable Raptors is the first Power Upgrade in Battle Royale!

We're also thinking about the best way to introduce ridable raptors in singleplayer, but have yet to decide the exact shape that will take.




Tower over your enemies and strike them down with your superior reach!
It's fun to be a big bot.




Overpowered? I don't know what you're talking about.


Since multiplayer is way more fun to develop alongside real, live humans, you'll often find us developing it LIVE on Twitch -- and we've set up a beta branch where you can play along with every change we make. It's already getting quite fun -- come play and help us make it even more awesome!

• Watch us develop live on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/doborog
• Join the Multiplayer Test Build: http://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/multiplayer-test-builds/

See you in the arena, or for our next update post!

We just fixed a bunch of bugs:

• Fleet overseer moves crazily when legs cut off!
• Fleet overseer hovers high above ground!
• Kick only Challenge Level 1: enemy instantly activates and dies on spikes???
• Kicking a hammer should not work
• Commentator dialogue is incorrect in Duel Invites
• Armor can be applied to missing limbs
• Ally in chapter 3 runs away from armor bot

We're hard at work on the next big update, but these issues were bad enough to warrant a little hotfix.

Happy Wednesday!

Congratulations human, you can now read our privacy policy!

Find out what data we collect and what we do with it. Your privacy is important to us, and so is complying with the new European legislation (GDPR) going into effect on May 25!

What else is new? Well, we are hard at work on the next big multiplayer feature.
In addition we're also looking into a few high priority bugs floating around and aim to deploy a fix for them early next week.

More info soon!