"Astro Bot: Cut Bird Flight & Headless Features"

Astro Bot enthusiasts are familiar with the origin story of the sponge power-up, but did you know Team Asobi experimented with even wilder abilities, like a coffee grinder and roulette wheel?

This revelation emerged during GDC 2025, where Team Asobi's studio director Nicolas Doucet presented "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'." His presentation offered a behind-the-scenes look at developing the PlayStation mascot platformer, showcasing prototype images and discarded concepts.

Doucet began by discussing Astro Bot's initial May 2021 pitch document, created mere months after prototyping began. Remarkably, the team iterated through 23 revisions before presenting to leadership. Their pitch took the form of an endearing comic strip highlighting the game's core mechanics - an approach that clearly resonated.

The creative process relied heavily on multidisciplinary brainstorming, Doucet explained. Small teams of 5-6 members from different specialties generated ideas via sticky notes, resulting in the spectacular brainstorming board seen here:

Doucet revealed that only 10% of brainstormed ideas progressed to prototyping - though this still yielded extensive experimentation. Every team member, including audio designers, contributed prototypes. One example featured an in-game theater testing haptic feedback for various door sounds.

Dedicated prototyping programmers helped develop concepts unrelated to platforming mechanics - including the sponge ability born from testing PlayStation's adaptive triggers.

Doucet shared numerous unused prototypes alongside implemented features. The image shows successful mechanics like the balloon and sponge alongside discarded ideas including a tennis game, wind-up toy, and roulette wheel.

Level design focused on unique gameplay experiences, Doucet explained. While reusing power-ups was acceptable, their implementation needed distinct expressions. He presented a cut bird-themed level removed for overly resembling existing monkey power-up usage in Go-Go Archipelago.

"Ultimately, the similarity compromised variety, so we scrapped it," Doucet admitted. "We'll never know if players would've loved it, but redirecting that development time was the right call."

The presentation concluded with insights about the game's finale - spoiler warning for those who haven't completed Astro Bot.

The emotional ending originally featured players rebuilding a completely severed Astro Bot (just the torso). Playtesters found this too distressing, prompting the more intact version seen in the final game.

Doucet's talk provided fascinating glimpses into Astro Bot's development process - a game we awarded 9/10, praising it as "a spectacularly creative platformer that holds special significance for PlayStation fans."