BOTOLO Presskit

Factsheet

Developer:
Auren Snyder
Based in Seattle, WA

Press / Business contact:
tencrowsinanovercoat@gmail.com

Platforms:
Windows
Mac

Release Date:
2016

Description

BOTOLO is a dense, frenetic mindgame for two players. Predict your opponent's actions in realtime as you glide through a vibrant field of pattern and color. Dance inside the negative space between their thoughts, just as they attempt to navigate yours.

To play BOTOLO, players chase after and steal a ball from one another. Possessing the ball changes a player's abilities, as does losing it, and this ever-shifting, asymmetrical relationship drives the game forward. Fill ZONES with POINTS in order to capture them either by holding the ball within a ZONE long enough or by correctly blocking an opponent's attempted steal. The first player to capture a majority of the ZONES wins the match.

History

BOTOLO grew simultaneously from an admiration of competitive play in videogames and a despair that I myself would likely never reach that level of play.

Imagine skill in a game, especially in multiplayer games, as a kind of language -- anytime we play a game together, we're holding a conversation. Let's say that we're playing one of your favorite games, and you're really, really good at it. You've spent months learning the language of this game, immersing yourself in its grammar of input, and when you play it's like beautiful, fluid poetry. However, this is my first time playing. I'm still learning how to pronounce words, what those words mean, when to use them... I can only hope that you're patient with me as I babble incoherently. When I lose, as I inevitably will, I will not be able to understand why beyond a sort of vague notion that you're better at the game than I am even able to comprehend.

But it's beautiful when two people finally do reach the same level in a game like this. They volley back and forth, responding to one another with alacrity and wit. My aim with BOTOLO was to create a game whose competitive language was still just as expressive, but, perhaps, whose words and grammar were simpler and easier to learn. I wanted new players to very quickly be able to speak.

Features

Gorgeous, rich textures of pattern and color
Eleven playable classes, each with a unique twist on the core game
Orbs
Robust AI that adapts to and learns from you as you play
Procedural music that swells and recedes with the flow of the match
Score thing
Singleplayer mode for when your friends just can't be bothered
A gradual merge of the self and the other until one cannot be certain whether a thought originates from within oneself or without
Endless void
Player two