Space Bob vs. The Replicons

About this game

Space Bob vs. The Replicons is a procedurally generated gravity simulator that tasks the clueless Bob with figuring out how to recover loot and resources from the heart of hostile planets and haul them back into space where they can be salvaged into essential materials used for crafting and survival. As if that weren't enough, an army of replicating robot bug things have chosen this day, of all days, to start a full scale invasion, and poor old Bob is the only one who can save the day. Well he can't, because he's clueless, but we haven't got much choice.

Gameplay

The core gameplay mechanic, other than shooting bugs and running around in panic, revolves around the use of a multi-functional grappling gun that can stick anything to anything. It can stick loot to Bob, loot to loot, loot to Bob's lander, loot to the ceiling, loot to enemies, enemies to walls, enemies to enemies, enemies to bombs....well you get the idea. It can stick random stuff to other random stuff in so many endless ways that you'll never stop figuring out new ways to solve the torrent of emergent gameplay situations.


Oh, and if you think Bob is a stupid name for a game hero, well that's just rude, and it's no worse than the name of his AI companion or better yet the mysterious all powerful being behind all the multiverse and time travelling shenanigans. Oh yeah, time travelling is a thing too; we forgot to mention that. Hmmm, never mind, you've already got enough to worry about.

Rogue-like or Survival?

There are two distinct game modes to choose from. Both are completely open-world and both have a combination of Rogue-like and survival elements. With that said, the game is neither a Rogue-like nor a survival game. It's a little bit of both and a whole lot of something completely new.


Invasion Mode:
First there's 'Invasion Mode' which is the original story driven game mode with permadeath and a few other Rogue-lite elements. Games generally last from one to three hours on average but the entire story line will take multiple games to complete.

This game mode can be a serious challenge and is infinitely replayable by design. Everything seems to be out to kill Bob in one way or another and that's because, well, it is. Death comes frequently but, with a little experience, you'll soon be cranking up the difficulty slider (which increases the score multiplier) in order to get the top spots on the leaderboards.

Survival Mode:
Then we have 'Survival Mode'. In most games, survival mode is the hardcore mode but in this one it's the easier of the two options. Here the name of the game is surviving for as long as possible and everything in the game is tweaked to make things more survivable than in Invasion mode.

For example, the Replicons invade much more slowly and in smaller numbers, loot respawns over time, it's far more sandboxey in nature with a single overall goal - that can be achieved however you like - and, although it's still permadeath, there's a teleporter that can automatically save Bob from death as long as he has enough resources to power it.

Survival mode can potentially last for tens of hours and is geared more towards players who like to explore, relax, test things out, and not worry too much about objectives or time constraints. It's still a challenge, especially at the higher difficulty settings, but it's a much more laid back experience overall.

Leaderboards:

Both game modes have two score based leaderboards. One for the highest score achieved in a single game, and one for the highest combined score achieved over multiple consecutive games without dying.


The May 2022 update brought with it two brand new leaderboards for speedrunning. There's a quick and easy one that most players can get involved with, and another for those who manage to complete the entire game.

Technology

The game may initially appear to use traditional 2D sprites, or vectors, but instead uses polygons to model every object, planet, and blade of grass. This allows for incredible performance, even on low end hardware, but also the ability to seamlessly zoom from viewing an entire planet down to those individual blades of grass without any visible pixelation.


At the start of each game a new system of planets is generated, each remixed and respawned with different resources and loot to create an open-world experience where no two games are ever alike.


Good luck, Bob. You've got this!

____________________________

Trailer Music by Antti Luode.
Full game soundtrack by Antii Luode.

Latest news

• Patch Notes·12 Aug 2022Official

  Minor Audio Hotfix - 12 Aug 2022

  A bug introduced in Major Update 14 disabled sound effects from some environmental objects and also disabled Replicon 'chatter' sound effects. This little hotfix resolves that issue. This also brings the main branch version in line with the newly released demo.
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Space Bob (Paul))

• Patch Notes·22 Jun 2022Official

  Main Update 15 - Now Live

  {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31791001/27d7a153c3870b832ff3104cacc4acf59129e194.png Introduction: If you haven't played in years, it's time to take another look. If you're thinking about picking up the game, you couldn't have picked a better time. Take a look at the brand new 'Funky Gameplay' trailer and then read on to see how it shaped the very fabric of this update. Main Update 15 - Weapons & War Overview: Double the Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew and more Replicons to Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew!! More bullets, more explosions, more enemies, more variety, more carnage. Everything has been tweaked to make combat faster, more fun, and more exciting and, by making the player more powerful, it's allowed for far more diversity and unpredictability in Replicon combat behavior without increasing the overall difficulty. There's also a brand new predictive camera system blended into the existing framework and a host of other quality of life improvements suggested by the players. Thanks everyone who offered such great feedback after the most recent updates. You were an inspiration. Weapon Overhaul The fire rate of all the weapons have been doubled! Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew. The fire rate of the lander's gun has been doubled. The damage of all weapons have been reduced by approximately 40-60% to compensate. The time that Replicons are shocked has been reduced to compensate. The energy cost of firing each weapon has been halved to compensate. The recoil push back for each weapon, on the player, has been tweaked on a per weapon basis. Self damage from the rocket pistol has been reduced to trivial levels. The rocket pistol's knock back has been doubled. This thing is a beast now. All the weapon visual effects have been juiced up. Combat Overhaul Replicon spiders now scuttle around much faster like real spiders. The maximum number of Replicons on any given planet, at any given time, has been increased by 40%. The spawn rate in order to reach that maximum number has also been increased by approximate...
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• Patch Notes·24 May 2022Official

  Patch 1.443 Update Notes - Now Live.

  Introduction Hot on the heels of Main Update 14 last week (announcement here) came a flurry of little patches to quickly address some smaller issues and now we have a much bigger one. Combined they offer new features, new crafting, and even more QOL improvements in preparation for the upcoming demo release. Other than a few minor bug fixes all the changes since Main Update 14 can be seen below. Don't forget you can come join us on Discord now for all things Space Bob and to keep up to date on the development of the new game. I'll even be offering the community the chance to create some of the new game's content sooner than you may expect. Patch 1.443 - New Features & QOL improvements. • Default max grapple length reduced from 40 to 30. • New Craftable Upgrades Added. Grapple Length Extender (doubles max grapple length to 60) Grapple Length Maximizer (triples max grapple length to 90) This allows grapples to reach the planet from orbit and opens up new gameplay options and strategies. • The grapple physics system has been reworked and tightened up to resolve some edge case issues and ensure consistency throughout all actions. Fixed unintended grapple pull speed reductions witnessed with very long grapples. Grapple pull speed is now consistent at all lengths. This makes upgrading grapple pull speed far more noticeable. Fixed a bug that could cause long grapples to extend when viewed at large distances under heavy load. • QOL - The grapple gun and the grapple rope selection systems have been redesigned, rewritten, unified and improved. This is a big qualitiy of life improvement that makes selecting grapples easier, faster and more intuitive. The grapple attached to the players grapple gun now highlights whenever it is the active grapple line for consistency. Cycling through grapple connections now includes the grapple line attached to the player's grapple gun. The active grapple now highlights green when idle or expanding, and yellow when shrinking. Using either grappl...
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• Patch Notes·16 May 2022Official

  Main Update 14 - Now Live.

  A PERSONAL UPDATE I'm back! I've been gone for such a long time that it makes sense to start out with a little personal update to let you all know where I've been, what's been happening, and why Space Bob is suddenly getting an update after more than three years. If you don't care about the personal stuff, I'll fully understand if you prefer to skip to the What's New section below, but for those that care, here goes. Even the most hardcore Space Bob fans will probably be unaware that a week after Space Bob's 1.0 release I unfortunately suffered a heart attack. I only previously shared that info publicly with Dr_Doof on his twitch stream. Solo game development can be notoriously stressful, especially around release, and after eight years of flat out dev work my health, both physically and mentally was in the dumpster. I was emotionally exhausted and by the time Space Bob was ready for release I didn't have the strength left to give the game the marketing energy it deserved. I’d put everything I had into development and made the classic mistake of hoping the quality of the game would sell itself. The result was that things didn't go to plan, and it quickly became apparent that the game wasn't going to magically find it's audience. If gamers didn't know the game existed then it wasn't going to sell in enough volume no matter how good it was. Ultimately, that series of events meant that I had no choice but to step away from game development to focus on my health and find a way to pay the bills. I'll be honest and say that after completing the promised six months of post-release content, I simply couldn't face even thinking about game development any more. I was financially broke and burned out. I took a regular job and started taking proper care of myself. The end result is that I learned some valuable life lessons and I'm now in a much better place both mentally and physically and genuinely enthusiastic about game development again. SO WHY A NEW UPDATE NOW? For quite s...
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• Patch Notes·10 May 2022Official

  Beta Build 1.43 Now Available:

  Builds 1.41, and 1.42 were minor hotfixes, released last week, that only contained minor tweaks and bug fixes. Build 1.43 deserves it's own announcement as it brings much bigger changes that may go unnoticed otherwise. Speedrun Changes: Main update 14 introduced two new speedruns that in hindsight had too many restrictions. These restrictions have now been removed. The 'Full Game' speedrun can now be completed on any difficulty. You can save your game, go through the jump gate and die as many times as you like and it will still register to the leaderboards once you finally beat the game. The timer starts at the beginning of Act 1 and keeps ticking until you defeat the mothership. Due to this change, the Jump Gate speedrun should now be done from the start of Act 1 because if you try to do it in a later act it will include the time spent playing through the previous acts. See below for how to reset the timer. IMPORTANT: If you were in the middle of a game, prior to build 1.43, it will not register to the Full Game speedrun leaderboards in build 1.43 UNLESS you had never died or used the Jump Gate while playing on the previous build. If in doubt use the new Reset button to start a new game, or ask for more info. The new Reset button: This can be found in the Invasion Mode section on the game select screen. Holding the button for four seconds will reset Invasion Mode back to Act 1, reset your speedrun timer and wipe Dave's memory. If you have played a lot of Space Bob, and Dave isn't saying much anymore, this button will make him forget he ever met Bob and he'll be full of small talk and advice once again. Please be aware that wiping Dave's memory affects Survival Mode too, so you may find Dave repeating tips and advice he's already told you in that game mode too. It doesn't reset anything else in survival mode though. This button replaces the old semi-secret "hold 'F7' at the main menu" developer tool that also reset the game. Rask damage has been more than halved: Ra...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Intravenous Software)