Awesomenauts

Awesomenauts
Developer(s)	Ronimo Games Abstraction Games (PS4)
Publisher(s)	dtp Entertainment
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows OS X Linux PlayStation 4 Xbox One
Release	PS3, X360 2 May 2012 Windows 1 August 2012 (PC) OSX 7 December 2012 Linux 29 May 2013 PS4 4 March 2014 Xbox One Summer 2015
Genre(s)	Multiplayer online battle arena
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Awesomenauts is a 2D battle arena developed by Dutch video game development company Ronimo Games. The original game was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in May 2012, and for Microsoft Windows systems in August 2012. It was later ported to Mac OS and Linux.

Another version of the game, Awesomenauts Assemble, incorporating all the changes and additions available on Windows, Mac OS and Linux, was released for the PlayStation 4 in March 2014.

Gameplay

Split-screen mode for three local players, including the common megamap (bottom right) for all three.

Awesomenauts is a multiplayer online battle arena incorporating elements from 2D platformer and Fighting games. At the start of a match, a player selects from one of the available characters known as awesomenauts. In normal gameplay mode, each member on a team must be a unique character, while other modes can allow for the same awesomenaut to be used by multiple team members. If not enough human players are available, a computer controlled bot will be used instead. In the game's primary match mode, two teams of 3 characters are pitting against each other, with the goal to destroy the other's team's Solar Collector within the enemy's team base before the others do the same. Both teams have to fight their way through enemy players, automatic drones, and turrets that block the path until destroyed. Some maps contain other obstacles, such as a giant pit monster that consumes anything immediately above it that can be summoned by standing on a button. Upon death, the player may respawn back at their base after a short delay that gets longer as the game progresses.

Maps include health pickups and Solar units, the game's currency, When a player kills an enemy or a turret, every member of the team earns Solar. When a team destroys a turret, a super-drone is generated that can take and deal more damage as it heads towards the enemy base.

Each character has a unique set of skills, consisting of a free-use weapon and two special actions. As the player earns Solar, they can return to their base to heal and spend the Solar on various upgrades to these skill sets or core statistics such as movement speed and health. For each of four areas: the two special skills, their free weapon, and general statistics, the player can selected to buy up to three of six available improvements, with some improvements which can be bought multiple times with benefits stacked.

When a player first begins playing Awesomenauts, not all of these improvements will be available. Completing a match will earn them experience which at various levels will unlock these improvements. When a player has completely maxed out their experience level, they can opt to take prestige, resetting their experience to zero and forcing them to re-earn all the improvements again, while gaining a special badge that is shown by their character name.

The default game mode is ranked play, which puts players into 9 different ranks and attempts to match players within these ranks. The game's servers will adjust the player's ranking depending on their performance.

Development

Expansion

In August 2013, Ronimo games started Kickstarter campaign for additional content entitled Awesomenauts: Starstorm. The goal of the project was $125,000. By the end of the Kickstarter campaign, over $345,000 had been donated on via Kickstarter, with PayPal bringing the total to over $400,000. Several stretch goals were reached, including the extra map, replays and spectator mode. Donations are still ongoing through PayPal on awesomenauts.com. In addition to the three new characters planned for the expansion: Ted McPain, Skree and Sentry X-58, two extra characters will be included as stretch goals for them were met. Ronimo Games' studio head Jasper Koning said the company opted to go to Kickstarter for further development due to their bad experiences with their console publisher DTP Entertainment, who had gone bankrupt after Awesomenauts release on console, but whom they still must pay from every sale of the game.

Gallery

• 
• 
• 

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
Edge	8.0/10
Eurogamer	7.0/10
Game Informer	8.5/10
GameSpot	8.0/10
IGN	7.0/10
PC Gamer (UK)	8.0/10

The game received fairly positive reviews upon its release, and got a metacritic score of 78/100.

External links

• Official website