Astro Bot: Unreleased Content Featured Bird Flight, Headless Astro

Astro Bot fans are familiar with the beloved sponge power-up, but did you know that developer Team Asobi explored even more whimsical concepts during the game's development? At GDC 2025, Team Asobi's studio director, Nicolas Doucet, unveiled these secrets in his talk titled "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'". Doucet shared insights into the creation process, including early prototypes and content that didn't make the final cut.

Doucet kicked off his presentation by discussing the initial pitch for Astro Bot, crafted in May 2021, shortly after Team Asobi started prototyping. The pitch underwent 23 revisions before being presented to top management. It was initially pitched through an adorable comic strip that highlighted the game's core elements and activities, which clearly resonated well.

A slide from Nicholas Doucet's GDC talk, The Making of 'ASTRO BOT', showing a comic book explanation of the game's pitch.

He then delved into the idea generation phase, emphasizing the importance of brainstorming. Team Asobi formed small, multidisciplinary groups of 5-6 people who contributed ideas via sticky notes, resulting in a vibrant brainstorming board.

Another slide from the talk, showing sticky note brainstorms from Team Asobi.

Doucet noted that only about 10% of these ideas progressed to the prototyping stage, but this still led to extensive experimentation. Prototyping was encouraged across all departments, not just game design. For instance, audio designers created a theater within Astro Bot to test haptic controller vibrations for various sound effects, like doors opening and closing.

Another slide from the talk, showing a sponge prototype alongside concept art of Astro Bot becoming a sponge.

The significance of prototyping was highlighted by Doucet, who mentioned that some programmers were dedicated to experimenting with non-platforming mechanics. This approach led to the creation of Astro Bot's sponge mechanic, which utilized the adaptive trigger for squeezing water out of the sponge, ultimately becoming a fun and integral part of the game.

Another slide from the talk showing various prototype activities that were made for Astro Bot.

Doucet showcased an image of several prototypes, including the implemented balloon and sponge mechanics, alongside others like a tennis game, a wind-up toy, a roulette wheel, and a coffee grinder, which did not make it into the final game.

He also discussed level design and selection, emphasizing the goal of ensuring each level offered unique gameplay to avoid repetition. For example, a level themed around bird flights was cut due to its similarities with other levels using the monkey power-up.

Another slide, showing a cut level from Astro Bot alongside two other implemented levels.

In closing, Doucet touched on the game's final scene, warning of spoilers. Originally, players were to reassemble a completely dismembered Astro Bot, but this was altered to a less distressing version after feedback indicated it was too upsetting.

A clip from Doucet's presentation showing the original ending of Astro Bot.

Doucet's talk offered fascinating insights into Astro Bot's development, a game that IGN praised with a 9/10 score, 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."