Design Corner #1: Unveiling TRU's Evolution

2025-05-22

Design Corner 1: Unveiling TRU's Evolution

Introduction

Hello! I'm Andy Mangal, the Lead Game Designer on Two Robots: Unleashed, and this blog post you're currently reading is the first in our "Design Corner" blog series!

The goal of this blog is to invite you, our players and audience, to join us on our journey to make this game the best it can be! We'll be discussing design philosophy, reviewing the various changes and improvements we're making, and providing updates on our progress.

We look forward to your support!

Changes We've Already Made

First, let's address some of the new changes made this month!

#1: Improved Combat Flow

Total Destruction of the Robots

The combat loop of TRU revolves around playing scrap, building robots, and strategically attacking or committing your robots.

However, we noticed that once players reached the end of this loop, there wasn't a chance for it to restart. Broken robots would leave a large amount of scrap on the field, so even though your offense was gone, your entire defense remained. The attacking player wasn't sufficiently rewarded for breaking the robot, and the defending player didn't feel any significant consequence. In practice, we found that players often struggled to deal damage in the second half of the game, and experienced players would end up timing each other out.

All these factors led us to our current solution: when a robot is broken, the lane is completely emptied as well! This speeds up the offensive/defensive back-and-forth and creates more chances for offense in the late game.

It also introduces a pleasant risk/reward trade-off, where players must consider whether to build a stack or not. The defense of a 7-scrap pile might be worth more to them than the damage dealt by a 7-scrap warbot.

Reversal of Heart-Based Power System

Another issue we noticed in our combat loop is that losing players were unintentionally made to do worse (what's called a "negative feedback loop"). The original system was set up so that you lost one of your three hero powers every time you lost health. Though this makes sense from a lore perspective, it feels disempowering from a gameplay standpoint.

As a result, we reversed the system! Now, players start with 1 power and unlock more with each point of damage they take. This creates a natural balance between the advantaged player with high health and the disadvantaged player with more strategic options.

It also introduces risk/reward strategies for intentionally taking damage early to open up offensive/defensive options.

This also raises the question: what sorts of powers should players have access to? This question lays the foundation for:

#2: The New Customizable Power System (name pending!)

We decided that letting players pick which powers they want available in-game would be an exciting way to customize playstyles and make heroes/factions feel unique.

Currently, our system allows you to choose between two options for each of the three powers, with each tree emphasizing a different playstyle. Each set of six is unique to that hero and complements the cards of that hero's faction.

To see it in action, keep reading to learn about TRU's newest playable faction!

#3: Introducing the Green Faction: Radixplor!

Radixplor centers on two main concepts: Corruption (Rust) and Death.

As a result, its two hero power trees revolve around these concepts—the first path focuses on creating rust, causing it to spread, and boosting its effects, while the other involves discarding cards, resurrecting bots, and granting them UNDEAD to stay alive longer.

Whether you want to commit to one style or try a mix of both is up to you!

Scary Scavenger Introducing the Green Faction's Hero- Scavenger! (she's a work in progress)

#4: Improved User Experience!

UX Improvements This is the kind of art quality my team has to deal with "Visual Clarity" is one of the most important tenets of our user experience philosophy, and we're hard at work to make the game look better while also making more sense!