A while back, in that murky gray area I like to call “the past,” my wife was working on an exhibit for the Boston Museum of Science. As part of that project, we got to take a trip to CMU to talk with the folks in the robotics institute. I got to tag along as a sort of freelance geek.

During the tour we talked to some of the kids doing their coursework, which included for that semester building robots that could function in disaster areas where it would be unsafe or dangerous for humans to venture [See this paper by my friend Illah Nourbakhsh]. This is the inspiration behind today’s installment: Search and Rescue Robots.

Lemmings + Armored Core

The player runs a team that builds custom search and rescue robots to help victims of disasters, natural and otherwise. Using a small but growing budget, the player upgrades components, and builds custom robots for each disaster scenario. Success is measured by number of lives saved and number of robots that make it back to base. The robots are roughly equivalent to modern bomb-diffusing robots, with somewhat more autonomy.

Though I’m tempted to label this an RTS. It’s really probably closer to a puzzle game like Lemmings or Incredible Machine , or the crash intersections in Burnout Revenge.

Each disaster has its own set of puzzle challenges:

• Toxic chemical spills
• Collapsed building with buried survivors
• Survivors in high places
• Floods
• Tower Fires
• Natural gas leaks
• Fires
• Floods
• High Winds
• Weakened Structures
• Buildings
• Bridges
• Unexploded Ordinance

Levels are designed with these and terrain elements that block direct access. The player gets the briefing on the situation, and then builds robots from a catalog of robot parts (like the Garage in Armored Core) to affect the rescue.

What robots can be built is gated by the current level of funding, which starts small and increases with successive rescue missions.

The gameplay is somewhat open-ended. There is not necessarily a single correct configuration to win a scenario.

The first decision: one multi-purpose robot, or many single purpose robots?

The bots are constructed from “kit” pieces:

Mobility

• Tracks
• Legs (in various configurations)
• Wheels (in various configurations)
• Wings
• Chopper

Manipulators

• Arms
• Diggers
• Rams
• Demolition
• Cutters
• Draggers

Sensor/Triggers

• Temperature
• Toxins
• Radiation
• Motion
• Sound
• Camera

Brain

• Leader
• Follower
• Tele-operable

Add-On Modules

• Path Finding Upgrade
• Seeking Upgrade
• Avoidance Upgrade
• Pattern Recognition

Chassis

• Based on cost, the chassis limits the number and type of kit pieces that can be added to it.

How it Plays

• Player Gets Briefing, Overview of Map
• Overview of terrain and obstacles
• Shows valid start points for bot insertion

• Player Goes to Workshop for Bot Construction
• Untimed playground mode
• One or many bots can be constructed
• Multiple copies of a type can be specified
• Has a budget constraint

• Player Starts a Rescue
• Bots are largely autonomous rule followers
• Player controls where and when they are inserted
• Can only be inserted at designated spots
• New spots can be uncovered during play
• Player can control some actions for bots with tele-operate upgrade
• Set Dig Locations
• Demolition Targets
• Players want to rescue as many people as possible

• Play is Iterative
• Like Incredible Machine or Lemmings, success is unlikely on the first pass
• Players can opt at any time to return to the garage and tweak the bot designs
• Level can be reset and retested at will

Players are introduced slowly to the range of kit pieces with simple training exercises, gradually introducing them to more complex concepts.

-game over-

Thanks for reading another action-packed installment of Design a Day. For background on the Design A Day challenge, take a peek here and here.