Robattle 3D
Robattle 3D was a web game playable on the official western Medabots website. It was commisioned by Nelvana to promote the anime series and developed by Faustlogic. Development started on August 2001 and the game launched on the website in February 2002[1]
The game was taken down alongside the official Medabots website and was not archived due to its heavy reliance on integration with its host website and use of the deprecated WebDriver plugin. However, lead developer Jeff Faust owns an environment capable of running the final build and has occasionally streamed it.
Overview
Robattle 3D was the centerpiece of an interactive experience on Nelvana's Medabots.com website. By playing flash games and completing tasks on the website, players could use a virtual currency called "Rodo"[1] and use it to purchase parts. Players could then participate in Medabots battles using their assembled Medabot.
Purchasing was done at a section of the website called the "Hop Mart". The Hop Mart had a limited section of parts that changed every 24 hours and used a RNG seed unique to each account to ensure a different selection of parts for every users. Players would then save their Medabots configurations in the Configure Room, and then head to the Battle Room to select a Medabot to battle against a selected opponent. Opponents had different challenge levels and Medabots assigned to them; for instance, Henry exclusively used Medabots with mixed part sets[1].
Medabots featured
Add-on Medabots
The following Medabots were completed and planned to be added in an update but were ultimately not implemented in the version playable to the public.
Development
Project lead Jeff Faust was acquainted with executives at Nelvana and pitched a 3D game using a seven-pages design document[1]. Developer Steven Stwalley made meshes of the Medabots in 3DS Max, which were then converted in a format readable in Maya for the sake of rigging and texturing by other members of the development team.
The developers had originally considered implementing online multiplayer gameplay, but dropped the feature after Natsume and Imagineer pressured Nelvana to remove this feature as to not compete with their own Medabots game. Jeff Faust considered this to ultimately be a blessing in disguise as implementing multiplayer would've likely been too challenging[1].
Nelvana provided a pre-selected list of Medabots to include in the game, focusing on regular characters of the anime series[1]. The company had further considerations, influenced by which Medabots would receive toys in Hasbro's Medabots toyline[1].
While Faustlogic had completed an update adding more Medabots, Nelvana declined as the company was not satisfied with the TV ratings of the anime and did not wish to further invest in the Medabots website[1].
References
External links
| Video Games View - Edit | |
|---|---|
| Main series / Parts Collections |
Medarot 1 (PC / PC2) - Medarot 2 (PC) - Medarot R (PC) - Medarot 3 (PC) - Medarot 4 Medarot 5 - Medarot DS - Medarot 7 - Medarot 8 - Medarot 9 |
| Side games | Medarot Navi - Shingata Medarot - Medarot S: Unlimited Nova |
| Remakes | Medarot Perfect Edition - Medarot 2 Core |
| Action games | Metabee Shot - Medarot G - Medabots AX - Medarot Brave - Medarot Dual - Medarot Girls Mission |
| Collections | Medarot Classics - Medarot Classics Plus |
| Other games | Medarot Cardrobottle - Pocket Robottle - Robattle 3D - Medarotch |
