Few games brought as much joy to the crowd at their Summer Game Fest demos as Astro Bot, the latest from Astro’s Playroom and Astro Bot: Rescue Mission developer Team Asobi. During my 45 minutes or so with Astro Bot, I completed just about the entire demo. I say ‘just about’ because while the main missions accessed via the galaxy-style menu were a family-friendly breeze, a few other hidden bonus missions were far from it, presenting a challenge to rival some old PlayStation platformers (looking at you, Crash Bandicoot).
“Especially at this level,” explains Nicolas Doucet, founder of the Asobi studio and creative director of Astro Bot, as he wanders around an early flamingo-themed world, “we want it to be fun for everyone – but possible even for a very, very young child, we almost wanted it to be a playground, and that would be the only thing they play on.”
At the same time, he continues: “we have to think about the difficulty and challenge of the whole game. That’s why outside of the main path that leads to the boss, you have these extra challenges – and that’s where you’ll also find a lot of PlayStation characters.” One of those characters is, of course, Lady Maria from Bloodborne, something Doucet told me was “not a secret meaning” had, despite many fans’ hopes that it could be some sort of hint at a coveted Bloodborne sequel, remaster, or PC port.
But back to that playground idea, which, as Doucet further explains, becomes clear to me, is an example of the kind of deliberate, design-forward thinking for which Team Asobi is starting to build a reputation. At each level there are small items, objects, or elements of environmental design that serve no purpose other than to be fun to interact with. On that first level, for example, petals swish in small pools of water, a mischievous rodent emerges and hides as you approach it, and a diving board jumps you up high above a large pool, which holds more secrets for the more determined players who attempt it. want to complete the level completely.
“When you work on these games that are very much gameplay-driven, it’s almost like every interaction is an opportunity to have a little ‘toy loop,’” says Doucet. “To the point where it would be a good thing if the player stopped looking for the level’s goal and instead got sidetracked by just, you know, chasing butterflies and hitting trees and flowers to hit, just because there’s a fun gameplay loop. “
Doucet describes this as a kind of ‘toy culture’, an approach he links back to Astro’s Playroom, the PS5 pack-in game that over the years emphasized the physical aspects of PlayStation hardware – but which also ties into Doucet’s earlier career in QA on Lego games and then on the EyeToy with PlayStation’s now closed London Studio. “When I went to PlayStation, I expected to find a completely different kind of company,” he said, before realizing that the lessons from working on Lego “translated” well. “It was pretty much the same kind of audience, you’re trying to put games into the hands of people who may have never played a game in their lives.”
The obvious – and understandable – comparison to Astro Bot is to Nintendo games, particularly the company’s 3D platformers like Super Mario Odyssey and co. But beyond the basic comparisons – the third-person mascot platforming, jumping on enemies, coin collecting and in this case the bespoke skills picked up for each level – a real connection can be made. One of these is the emphasis on ‘toy-like’ moments, which Nintendo often refers to in glowing terms as a ‘toy maker’, as well as as a developer or manufacturer, but there is also something distinctively Nintendo about Team Asobi itself, in its development practices and philosophy behind the scenes.
Nintendo provided a rare insight into its approach earlier this year with two GDC talks, one on the wondrous physics of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the other on generating ideas for Super Mario Bros. Miracle. There is a clear lesson to be learned from both, not just from the general approach Nintendo takes, but also from the specifics of how Nintendo actually develops games, for example dividing teams into miniature prototype groups with only one person from each discipline. Or asking for ideas on post-it notes from the entire team.
Doucet had seen the Wonder speech in particular and noted the similarities when I asked if it aligned with his approach. “We try not to have a lot of the same kind of minds in a room at the same time,” he said, “so it could be a mix of engineers and artists, maybe we bring together some audio people, animators and you come up with the ideas.” The team then builds a ‘catalogue’ of ideas, much in the same way Nintendo did with Super Mario Wonder, ‘and literally hundreds of ideas come out of it – the hardest part is actually thinking next: Okay, which one are we going to prototype? We can’t prototype them all.
Additionally, Doucet has spoken in the past about creating an environment that provides safety for his team, but also, crucially, a sense of purpose and meaning. One of the ways Asobi does that is by deliberately creating games that don’t take as long to develop as the typical triple-A project, something Doucet says “has so many benefits – first of all, it means you get something can do differently with your life, which, you know, is important.”
The team also works on two-week ‘marathons’, stopping each time to play the match all together after those two weeks. “If you’re stuck in a tunnel for nine months or a year and you still don’t know where it’s going, it can get pretty, you know… so you can always see what’s next, and the light in the background …the end of that mini tunnel, which is why we work on these two-week marathons – because they give you the chance to reassess what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. What’s really important, right? to work this game? Why is it important to be able to express that to the team, because it gives meaning to why we work.”
Asobi also has a somewhat unique approach to creativity. While the main development team works on building a particular game, another ‘team B’ works alongside it, purely to prototype gameplay ideas – whether for new, full-fledged future games, or simply clever mechanics that can be used elsewhere . The studio is still busy making prototypes. “Always on the side,” says Doucet. “We will always continue with it, because we know the future depends on it.”
An example of how this approach pays off can already be seen in the Astro Bot trailer, where at one point Astro gets a power-up that turns him into a large sponge. “That specific idea was born alongside Astro Bot – we had this team do new DualSense testing, outside of the platformer.” This is because, Doucet explained, if you put everyone in the main game, “of course you can come up with new ideas – but in a sense now your mind is occupied with jumping, running and all that, and a lot of ideas will arise .” automatically discarded.
“We said, it doesn’t matter, don’t even think about what game you could come up with, just discover some cool things with a DualSense. And one of them was like a demo, where it was just a big sponge, where you can put water to make [in it]and then you can use the adaptive trigger to squeeze some kind of water out of it.” The demo reflected the way the sponge was initially harder to squeeze before quickly becoming lighter as the water left it. I never had the idea of turning Astro into a sponge; it was the demo that was made out there that was influential [the team] and gave us the confidence.”
As for my own experience with Astro Bot, that confidence is palpable. In three core levels, I felt more use of the DualSense than in almost any other PlayStation game, partly due to the sheer simplicity of the controls. Even if we put family accessibility aside – run around and you’ll notice that the camera does a lot of the following work automatically – the reduced number of inputs means the inputs you do use become sharper: press both triggers to get a A pair of extendable arms that can be used to grab something, walk back and use Astro as a catapult, for example.
It’s tempting to reduce Astro Bot to just another piece of PlayStation marketing, after Playroom focused so much on showing off its hardware alongside the launch of the PS5. In fact, the developers at Team Asobi were originally thinking about dropping the PlayStation “coating,” as Doucet puts it, before changing their minds. “The question came up: ‘Should we do a PlayStation tribute again?’ And a lot of the prototypes we created, and the core gameplay of this game, is actually very separate from that. It’s about new power-ups and levels inspired by pop culture, and classic humor… That could just have been.
“But then you think, ‘But why not add that PlayStation coating, because it was so good? I mean, if we can do something that takes it a step further, why not do it? So we have that doubled’, and instead of the hardware we turned our attention a little bit to the characters.”
Regardless of the coating, the result of the demo I’ve played so far is one of the most joyful experiences of Summer Game Fest. Alongside Lego Horizon Adventures, another cheerful drop-in, drop-out family game, it’s also a marked shift for PlayStation: from their solemn, ‘sad dad’ action epic to games that are not only family-friendly, but also a bit less self-serious, self-deprecating and a lighter approach to the platform as a whole. It’s a welcome shift – towards the pure design of the platformer genre and thus the pure joy that genre can inspire.
“Of course Astro is also a game for gamers, we want to make sure we serve both target groups,” says Doucet later in our conversation. “But it will also be the first game for perhaps many children, and so that responsibility is really great. But it’s also very exciting, because as a gamer you have your first memories, you have [your first] games – and the people who made those games really shaped your life, right?” As far as potential first experiences with modern gaming go, I couldn’t think of many better ones.