The Devolver Digital booth at PAX East was one of the loudest across the entire convention hall. Not because the games were too loud, but because everyone playing the Botsu: Ridiculous Robots demo was yelling at each other and laughing their butts off.
Botsu is a game for people who love watching the little bean guys go flying when they get smacked by a giant grape inFall Guys, or who always run headfirst into cannons and catapults inHuman: Fall Flat. And if you go by the success of just those two games, that appears to be pretty much everyone. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a physics-based party game hit big, but Botsu has all the ingredients to be the next meme game infecting my TikTok algorithm - in a good way.
Ragdoll Arena
Solo developer Oscar Salandin was facilitating the massive crowd waiting for their turn to kick someone in the head in Botsu, and you’ve never seen a developer more excited to watch people play their game. Salandin says Botsu (a portmanteau of Robot and Jujitsu) was mostly inspired by his love for Gang Beasts. He and his friends loved slapping each other silly while hanging from the edge of a cheeseburger Ferris Wheel, and he wanted to make his own multiplayer game that captured the same vibe.
Botsu nails that tone with its floppy robo-characters who go flying across the arena with so much as a strong breeze, but then ups the ante with its fresh take on familiar game modes. When you queue up in either four play split screen or online for a 4v4 match, you’ll have your choice between one of three game modes: Box-Ball, Sumo Survival, and Stockpile.
Box-Ball is basically basketball if holding was encouraged, dribbling was impossible, and keeping the ball for too long would cause it to explode. Some courts have a goal zone that hangs in the air like a basketball hoop, while others set the goal in the ground, turning the match into the weirdest game of putt putt you’ve ever played. As a Rocket League fan it’s my favorite of the three modes, and the most competitive - though still very silly.
Sumo Survival is your typical last-man-standing, Wipeout-style mode. If Box-Ball is a showcase for the game’s movement, Sumo Survival is a showcase for its physics. Running without falling over is hard enough, but once you add in spinning clubs, collapsing floors, and opponents who want to grab and toss you into the bubbling pool of lava below, it’s pure pandemonium.
I didn’t get to try Stockpile for myself, but it’s similar to Fall Guy’s Egg Scramble level, where the goal is to steal your team’s stock and add it to your own. Considering how far you may throw things with a little help from your robo jet pack, I expect there will be two kinds of players in this mode: those with a well-developed team strategy built around retrieving and defending their stock, and those who just want to throw crap as hard as they can and see what happens.
I Can See The Toy Line On Target Shelves Already
These days, there’s one thing more important than solid gameplay and creative game modes, and that’s vibes. It’s something you’re able to’t add to a game later; it either has it, or it doesn’t. Luckily, Botsu has the vibes, and with a little luck and the right timing, I think it has a chance to hit big.
The character designs hit that perfect balance between simple and iconic. It’s somewhere between Minecraft, Lego, and Playmobil, but it’s distinctly Botsu. As you play, you unlock customization pieces to personalize your bot, dressing them up as dinosaurs, giraffes, skeletons, or just a big ‘ol trash can. I can already see the toyline, where you can snap different body parts together to mix and match your bot so it matches your character in-game. When I suggested as much to Salandin, I could tell it was something that had already crossed his mind, too.
It always blows my mind when I remember that Human: Fall Flat sold over 55 million copies, and continues to sell another million copies every month. It’s a clear indicator that there’s a strong appetite for light multiplayer games that let you sucker punch your pals into next Tuesday, and hey, I get it. Botsu: Ridiculous Robots is a game made by someone who loves and appreciates this wacky genre, and has a good sense of what other people like about it, too. I’m expecting big things from Botsu, and by big things, I mean a big hammer that smacks my buddy Greg on the head and sends his arms and legs flying in every direction. Ha, get up, Greg, idiot.
