DuolBots is fundamentally about giving the player complete control and customization of their bot. The best way to do so is to provide information and interesting choices. The DuolBots development team has achieved this by providing an assortment of cool parts which can be place on any slot without any limits. Want to have a whale with camel legs covered in penguins that launch bombs? You can do that. Want to go Michael Voorhees on the competition with the Axe-inator and some grit? Go for it.
The Chassis selection initially has one camera but still displays the controls for each player. Through playtesting we found that this was much more intuitive for conveying that both players were making selections for the same bot.
Once the second player (the right side with the keyboard prompts) presses any input, the camera splits into two different views.
When both players are selecting parts on their bot, there are yellow and red highlights to show which slot each player is viewing, respectively. On the right view, the 2nd player is selecting a new part (the Axe-inator) which is being previewed in place of the current part (the Bubble Blower). This allows players to see both what they are going to place and what is already placed inside of a part slot.
Once part selection is finished, the team can host, join, or queue up to play via Steam. When they load into a game, the controls will be evenly split on each part so that one person uses the main firing mechanism for the part and the other player controls secondary functions like raising and rotating to aim. And then... it's battle time!
- DuolBots Development Team