Astro Bot fans are well-acquainted with the iconic sponge power-up, but did you know that developer Team Asobi also experimented with even more outlandish abilities, such as a coffee grinder and a roulette wheel? This fascinating revelation came to light during IGN's coverage of GDC 2025, where Team Asobi's studio director, Nicolas Doucet, delivered an insightful talk titled, "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'". In his presentation, Doucet delved deep into the creation process of the beloved PlayStation mascot platformer, showcasing a variety of early prototypes and content that didn't make the final cut.
Doucet kicked off his talk by discussing the initial pitch for Astro Bot, drafted in May 2021, just months after Team Asobi started prototyping. He revealed that there were 23 different revisions of the pitch before it was presented to top management. The pitch was creatively conveyed through an adorable comic strip that outlined the game's main pillars and activities, a move that evidently struck a chord with the decision-makers.
A slide from Nicholas Doucet's GDC talk, "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'", showing a comic book explanation of the game's pitch.
Moving on, Doucet explained how Team Asobi generated ideas. Unsurprisingly, it involved extensive brainstorming, but with a twist: they formed small, multidisciplinary groups of 5-6 individuals. Each participant contributed ideas via sticky notes, culminating in an impressive brainstorming board, as seen in one of the slides from the talk.
Another slide from the talk, showcasing sticky note brainstorms from Team Asobi.
Not all ideas made it to prototyping, Doucet noted, with only about 10% of the brainstormed concepts actually being developed. However, this still resulted in a significant amount of prototyping. Doucet emphasized the importance of prototyping across various departments, not just game design. For example, audio designers created a theater inside Astro Bot to experiment with haptic controller vibrations linked to different sound effects, such as the varying sounds of doors opening and closing.
Another slide from the talk, showing a sponge prototype alongside concept art of Astro Bot becoming a sponge.
Prototyping was so crucial to the Astro Bot team that certain programmers were dedicated solely to experimenting with non-platforming elements. This approach led to the development of the sponge mechanic, which utilized the adaptive trigger for a fun and engaging gameplay feature that ultimately made it into the game.
Another slide from the talk showing various prototype activities that were developed for Astro Bot.
Doucet shared an image of several prototypes, some of which, like the balloon and sponge, were incorporated into the game, while others, such as a tennis game, a walking wind-up toy, a roulette wheel, and a coffee grinder, did not make the final cut.
Later in the talk, Doucet discussed how levels were chosen and designed around specific mechanics. The goal was to ensure that each level offered unique gameplay, avoiding too much repetition. While the same power-up could be used across multiple levels, its implementation had to be sufficiently different each time to maintain the level's distinctiveness. Doucet showed images of a cut level themed around bird flights, which was discarded due to its similarities to existing levels using the 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, showing a cut level from Astro Bot alongside two other implemented levels.
Doucet concluded his talk by discussing the game's final scene, which contains **Spoilers for those who haven't finished Astro Bot. Proceed at your own risk.**
In the final scene, players reassemble a broken Astro Bot with the help of other bots. Initially, the player was presented with a completely dismembered Astro, which caused distress among testers. As a result, the team opted for the slightly more intact version seen in the final game.
A clip from Doucet's presentation showing the original ending of Astro Bot.
Doucet's talk provided numerous insights into the development of Astro Bot, a game that IGN praised highly, awarding it a 9/10 and describing 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."
