Astro Bot fans have likely heard the tale behind the sponge power-up, but did you know that Team Asobi also experimented with even quirkier ideas like a coffee grinder and a roulette wheel? This fascinating tidbit came to light during IGN's attendance at GDC 2025, where Team Asobi's studio director, Nicolas Doucet, delivered a captivating presentation titled, "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'". In his talk, Doucet delved deep into the creation process of the PlayStation mascot platformer, unveiling a series of early prototypes and cut content that provided an insider's look into the game's development.
Doucet kicked off his presentation by revisiting the initial pitch for Astro Bot, which was crafted in May 2021, shortly after Team Asobi began prototyping. He revealed that the pitch underwent a whopping 23 revisions before being presented to senior management. The pitch was creatively presented as an adorable comic strip, highlighting the game's core pillars and activities, and it evidently struck a chord.
A slide from Nicholas Doucet's GDC talk, The Making of 'ASTRO BOT', showcasing a comic book-style pitch of the game.Doucet then shared insights into how the team generated ideas, emphasizing extensive brainstorming sessions. Team Asobi organized small, cross-disciplinary groups of 5-6 people to brainstorm, with each member contributing ideas via sticky notes. This led to an impressive brainstorming board:
Another slide from the talk, displaying Team Asobi's sticky note brainstorming session.Not all ideas progressed to the prototyping stage, Doucet noted. In fact, only about 10% of the brainstormed concepts were prototyped. Yet, this still resulted in a substantial amount of prototyping. Doucet stressed the importance of prototyping across all departments, not just game design. He illustrated this with an example from the audio team, who created a theater within Astro Bot to experiment with haptic controller vibrations synchronized with various sound effects, such as different door opening and closing sounds.
Another slide from the talk, featuring a sponge prototype alongside concept art of Astro Bot transforming into a sponge.The significance of prototyping was further highlighted by Doucet, who mentioned that certain team programmers were dedicated to prototyping non-platforming elements. This approach led to the creation of Astro Bot's sponge mechanic, which utilized the adaptive trigger for a fun squeezing effect and ultimately made it into the game.
Another slide showing various prototype activities developed for Astro Bot.Doucet presented an image showcasing several prototypes that didn't make the final cut, such as a tennis game, a walking wind-up toy, a roulette wheel, and a coffee grinder, alongside successful mechanics like the balloon and sponge.
In the latter part of his talk, Doucet discussed how levels were chosen and designed to complement specific mechanics. The aim was to ensure that each level offered unique gameplay experiences, avoiding repetition. While the same power-up could appear in multiple levels, its implementation needed to vary significantly to maintain freshness. Doucet shared examples of a cut level themed around bird flights, which was discarded for being too similar to existing levels utilizing Astro Bot's monkey power-up.
"In the end, it was decided that the overlap was not healthy enough to create variety, and we just cut this level entirely," he explained. "We'll never know if that level would have been popular. But in hindsight, I think it's a good thing that we got to spend that time elsewhere."
Another slide, displaying a cut level from Astro Bot alongside two other implemented levels.Doucet concluded his presentation by discussing the game's final scene, which includes spoilers for those who haven't completed Astro Bot. In the original ending, players were tasked with reassembling a completely dismembered Astro Bot, a concept that some found too unsettling. The final version we see in the game presents a slightly more intact Astro Bot, addressing player feedback.
A clip from Doucet's presentation showing the original ending of Astro Bot.Doucet's talk offered a wealth of intriguing insights into the development of Astro Bot, a game that IGN awarded a 9/10, praising it as "A fantastically inventive platformer in its own right, Astro Bot is particularly special for anyone with a place in their heart for PlayStation."
