GameFest: Naked Sky Talks RoboBlitz For XBLA

During Gamefest, Microsoft's game technology conference taking place this week in Seattle, Gamasutra had a chance to talk with developer Naked Sky Entertainment about RoboBlitz, its upcoming high-budget Xbox 360 Live Arcade title utilizing Epic's Unreal Engine 3. First announced in December of 2005, RoboBlitz has undergone a very long and expensive development process that will finally come to a conclusion in an estimated three to four weeks' time, according to Naked Sky CTO Joshua Glazer. After that period, a date of publication for both the full game and the related demo will be at Microsoft's discretion. In addition to employing Unreal Engine 3 at its core, RoboBlitz also takes advantage of Ageia's PhysX for its physics implementation, as well as procedural texturing technology from middleware firm Allegorithmic, a sophisticated combination of technologies for an Xbox Live title. The game stars a maintenance robot who, though not built for fighting, is forced into a situation where he must save the world from invaders. Though there are mild combat elements, RoboBlitz has a primarily puzzle-driven gameplay mechanic, almost entirely driven by physics. Surprisingly, the entire nineteen level game, complete with implementation of all three middleware elements, impressive graphics, draw distance, and lighting effects, manages to fit within Microsoft's imposed 50 megabyte limit for Live Arcade titles. There is no pre-canned animation in this game, as all movement is handled by PhysX, and according to Glazer, almost 80 percent of the textures in the game are generated on-the-fly. This ambitious title from Naked Sky Entertainment will debut at a price of $15 on Xbox Live Arcade, and as previously mentioned, the game is very close to being completed. A price point and date for an enhanced PC version of RoboBlitz, to be self-published by the firm, have not been revealed as of press time.