Howdy Folks!
I hope everyone is doing well and is ready to learn more about PACK :: Post Apocalyptic Cleaning Kit. Today I wanted to dive into how I designed the PACK robot.
Why A Robot?
The goal of PACK is about a robot cleaning up after the fall of mankind, but why? While cleaning up the various environments in the game, the player will come across information that sheds light on what happened to humanity. The robot itself is not meant to learn anything from this, but the player behind it should.
The robot is simply doing what it was programmed to do, blissfully unaware of the futility. The world isn’t about the robot, it’s about the stories left behind that are discovered while cleaning and restoring each area. The game is about the sense of discovery and accomplishment in spite of that futility.
Robot Inspiration
I’ve always had a general interest in robotics and have seen a lot of examples of robots trying to emulate humanoid movement. Boston Dynamics has done extensive development on various robot designs including BigDog, Cheetah, Handle and its newer robots Spot and Atlas.
By using real world examples I was able to create something that was futuristic looking, but still grounded in reality.
Development
The first step was to figure out what type of mobilization the robot would have. Should it be on treads, legs or tires? I experimented with various designs before settling on tires. This decision was largely inspired by Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot which mobilized very well on two legs with tires instead of feet. The image below illustrates some of the designs that were scrapped during the design process.
Game development and art is a process of iterative design. It’s important to throw ideas on paper, or the screen, so you can quickly see what might work and what definitely does not. It’s just as important to know what not to do, as it is to know what you should do.
The second step was integrating the core elements that robot would need for washing, vacuuming, generating trash cubes and interacting with the world. I incorporated the tools into the two arms/hands of the robot, which I was then able to animate between washing, vacuuming or graspers.
The final design included all the core functionality I set out to achieve while still being visually interesting. While in first person you only see the robots hands, it was important to build the whole model for both multiplayer and promotional content.
Thank you all for the amazing support. Be sure to wishlist and follow on Steam, if you haven’t already. Stay tuned for more development logs.
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