[doodlebugging]

Great writeup. A lesson in troubleshooting.

One thing I don't get though is the programmer's choice of a tripod bot. It seems like the least stable bot form. Once a leg is lifted the bot should begin to rotate towards the unsupported side. Having two legs in the air at the same time should be a no-go. At that point it begins to make sense to have thrusters on the underside to keep it stable or to have it gyroscopically stabilized.

I know it's just a game but the whole exercise was about tweaking things until they made physical sense to the players. This tripod bot choice made no sense to me.

[et1337]

I wasn’t too worried about the spiderbot legs since they had no impact on gameplay. The bots originally had four legs. Over time, triangles became a major part of the visual motif of the game, so I slowly changed all the squares to triangles and everything had to come in threes.