Astro Bot enthusiasts might be familiar with the story behind the creation of the sponge power-up, but did you know that Team Asobi also experimented with even more unconventional abilities, such as a coffee grinder and a roulette wheel? This intriguing tidbit was revealed at GDC 2025, where Team Asobi's studio director, Nicolas Doucet, delivered an enlightening talk titled "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'". During his presentation, Doucet delved deep into the development process of the PlayStation mascot platformer, showcasing a variety of early prototype images 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, shortly after Team Asobi started prototyping. He revealed that the pitch underwent 23 revisions before being presented to top management. The pitch was creatively presented as an adorable comic strip, highlighting the game's main pillars and activities, which 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.
Doucet then elaborated on how the team generated ideas, emphasizing the extensive brainstorming sessions. Team Asobi formed small, interdisciplinary groups of 5-6 people who used sticky notes to jot down or sketch their ideas, resulting in an impressive brainstorming board:
Another slide from the talk, showcasing sticky note brainstorms from Team Asobi.
Not all ideas progressed to the prototyping phase, Doucet noted, with only about 10% making it through. However, the team's commitment to prototyping was unwavering, encouraging everyone, including departments beyond game design, to bring their concepts to life. For instance, audio designers created a theater within Astro Bot to experiment with haptic controller vibrations corresponding to different sound effects, such as various door opening and closing sounds.
Another slide from the talk, displaying a sponge prototype alongside concept art of Astro Bot turning into a sponge.
Doucet underscored the significance of prototyping, mentioning that some programmers were specifically tasked with exploring non-platforming ideas. This led to the creation of Astro Bot's sponge mechanic, which utilized the adaptive trigger for squeezing the sponge and was fun enough to be included in the final game.
Another slide from the talk, showcasing various prototype activities developed for Astro Bot.
Doucet shared an image featuring several prototypes that didn't make it into the game, 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.
He also discussed the process of selecting and designing levels around specific mechanics. The goal was to ensure each level offered unique gameplay and avoided feeling repetitive. While it was acceptable to reuse power-ups across levels, their implementation had to be distinct enough to maintain variety. Doucet illustrated this with images of a cut level themed around bird flights, which was scrapped due to similarities with the level Go-Go Archipelago and another level in Astro's Playroom.
"In the end, it was decided that the overlap was not healthy enough to create variety, and we just cut this level entirely," he stated. "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.
In closing his talk, Doucet touched on the game's final scene, which includes **spoilers for those who haven't finished Astro Bot yet. Proceed with caution.**
In the final scene, players reassemble a broken Astro Bot with the help of other bots. Initially, the player was supposed to receive a completely dismembered Astro, but this approach upset some people, leading to the more intact version seen in the final game.
A clip from Doucet's presentation showing the original ending of Astro Bot.
Doucet's talk was packed with fascinating insights into the development of Astro Bot, a game we praised with a 9/10 in our review, 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."
