A report from the "Team ASOBI Fan Meeting!", a fan meet-and-greet event, with talk and quizzes about "Astro Bot"
Sony Interactive Entertainment held a fan meeting called "Team ASOBI Fan Meeting!" on Thursday, February 27th, where members of Team ASOBI, the developers of the PlayStation 5 software "Astro Bot," enjoyed themselves together with players. Here is a report on the highly exciting event, which featured exclusive concept art exhibits, talk sessions with developers, and a quiz competition.
Ten people were selected by lottery from among those who applied to the "Astro Bot Photo Contest," a photo contest campaign commemorating the winter update released on Friday, December 13, 2024, to participate in the "Team ASOBI Fan Meeting!". Team ASOBI members were excited about this event, as it was a rare opportunity to interact directly with Astro Bot fans.
A lot of concept art and Astro Merchandise were waiting for the participants when they entered the venue. They spent the entire time before the event started, engrossed in looking at it and taking photos, enjoying the world of "Astro Bot".
There will be plenty of concept art and merchandise at the venue!
Astro's ancestors were born from research and development! Talk session "The secret story behind the birth of Astro"
Answering fans' questions! Q&A Corner for Team ASOBI
Despite the succession of difficult questions, fans are one step ahead!? Astro Quiz Corner
This concludes the event program. On behalf of Team ASOBI, Nico, Morita, Yoshida, and Nakai gave speeches of thanks to all the participants.
Nico: Thank you for coming today. It's a great gift that you all play our games every day. Thank you so much.
I feel that Astro has grown thanks to Morita's technology and the support of our fans. I'm really happy to have had the opportunity to meet you all today. I look forward to your continued support. Thank you very much.
Yoshida: It hasn't been much discussed today, but everyone on the Astro Photo Club team looks at the photos. There are a lot of great screenshots, and I think they're great. Thank you.
Nakai: As a team, we are very happy that everyone loves Astro. We will continue to work hard so that Astro can achieve great things both in Japan and around the world. Thank you very much for today.
At the end of the event, everyone took a commemorative photo, and everyone showed off their best smiles as they shouted "Astro!" In addition, the hand-drawn illustration cards that the art members Nakai, Sebastian, Kinebuchi, and Kawaguchi had been working on were completed and presented to all participants.
Mod Edit: OP Fixed**
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Sony Interactive Entertainment held a fan meeting called "Team ASOBI Fan Meeting!" on Thursday, February 27th, where members of Team ASOBI, the developers of the PlayStation 5 software "Astro Bot," enjoyed themselves together with players. Here is a report on the highly exciting event, which featured exclusive concept art exhibits, talk sessions with developers, and a quiz competition.
Ten people were selected by lottery from among those who applied to the "Astro Bot Photo Contest," a photo contest campaign commemorating the winter update released on Friday, December 13, 2024, to participate in the "Team ASOBI Fan Meeting!". Team ASOBI members were excited about this event, as it was a rare opportunity to interact directly with Astro Bot fans.
A lot of concept art and Astro Merchandise were waiting for the participants when they entered the venue. They spent the entire time before the event started, engrossed in looking at it and taking photos, enjoying the world of "Astro Bot".
There will be plenty of concept art and merchandise at the venue!
In one corner of the venue, there is an exhibit that is a collaboration between "Astro Bot" and "toio," a robot toy that allows you to learn while having fun programming. A paper craft version of Astro and his friends ride on "toio," which moves in a large number of units at the same time, and perform perfectly coordinated movements like in a mass game. A video of the collaboration has also been released, so be sure to check it out.
[Group action] Astro and friends dancing on the toio
View: https://youtu.be/P-6E83OAsTY
There was also a gameplay corner where fans could freely try out "Astro Bot," and it was impressive to see Team ASOBI members watching the parent-child fans playing with big smiles on their faces.
Astro's ancestors were born from research and development! Talk session "The secret story behind the birth of Astro"
The event finally began. Seven members of Team ASOBI, including studio director Nicolas Doucet (known as "Nico"), took to the stage. Almost all of the participants had rescued all of the bots in "Astro Bot," which elicited applause in appreciation.
Nicolas Doucet (Studio Director)
Gento Morita (Senior Game Designer)
Takumi Yoshida (Senior Gameplay Programmer)
Toshihiko Nakai (Senior Concept Artist)
Sebastian Bruckner (Art Director)
Miho Kinebuchi (3D artist)
Mayu Kawaguchi (Lead Environment Artist)
The first corner was a talk session by creators titled "The Birth Story of Astro." Team ASOBI, which currently develops games as part of PlayStation Studios, was originally a small research and development (R&D) team. The demo they created as part of their research into AR technology involved sucking in and expelling small characters into the controller, which led to the development of "The Playroom," which came pre-installed on the PlayStation 4.
"The Playroom" includes a mini-game called "NINJA BOTS for THE PLAYROOM," which was the first game in which Team ASOBI controlled a character themselves. In other words, this is "Astro's ancestor."
Team ASOBI was also researching PlayStation VR. The results were compiled as "THE PLAYROOM VR," and one of the pieces of content, "Robots Rescue," became an important part of Astro's history. "Robots Rescue" was born from research into jumping action games in VR. The cute gesture of the controlled character turning his face towards the player and the simple operation of the square and cross buttons were thought up around this time, and continue to this day in the latest title, "Astro Bot."
"The Playroom VR's Robots Rescue" was a mini-game with only one map, but it received such high praise that the decision was made to make "ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION." The cycle of a successful game leading to a sequel continued with "ASTRO's Playroom" and then "Astro Bot."
By the way, the character in "Robots Rescue" is called "Hero-kun" within the team, and was named "Astro" in "ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION". Regarding the origin of the name, Nico said that he thought, "There are many VR games, and when they are arranged alphabetically in the store, the 'A' of ASTRO comes first (laughs)."
Looking back on his life, senior game designer Morita expressed his gratitude, saying, "I researched technology, released something that I thought was interesting, and it was well received, which prompted me to make more. I've followed that cycle and grown up alongside Astro. And today, I'm so happy that we were able to hold this fan meeting!"
Answering fans' questions! Q&A Corner for Team ASOBI
Following the talk session, there was a Q&A session for Team ASOBI. Some unique questions and answers came up, so let's take a look at them.
--How do you guys replenish your energy, Astro-kun?
Nico: I didn't think about it that much... (laughs). During development, I asked an artist to make a mouth for the character, but it changed Astro's cuteness. We had to make a proper animation for the mouth, and there were a lot of problems, so we decided not to put a mouth on it. But in the game, he sometimes eats popcorn. We haven't decided on the detailed rules, but I think it's interesting that he eats even though he doesn't have a mouth. (To Nakai) What do you think about that?
If it's taken as an official statement from Nakai , it's a bit... (laughs). I think they're just pretending to be, but opinions are divided even within the team.
-- I was really impressed that the game didn't slow down even in the scene where a huge amount of jewels fell. Could you tell us if there are any other scenes where you had to do some amazing processing behind the scenes?
Yoshida: In addition to the gems, the water effect is also one of the things that pushes the PS5's processing power to its limits. The frame rate was unstable when the player was a sponge splashing around, so we worked hard to optimize it until the very end. Also, in the first stage, you can cut logs by hovering, but this is a heavy process behind the scenes. A lot of people skip that part, and even when watching the gameplay video, I'm thinking, "Cut it, cut it!" (laughs).
Why did you include so many bots?
Morita: Ever since the first AR demo, which I mentioned in the previous talk, I've felt the fun of moving a lot of characters around. This time, we can produce more with the performance of the PS5, and since it's the 30th anniversary of PlayStation, we can use a lot of different characters, so we've started to include a lot of them.
-- I thought the bosses in "ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION" were based on giant creatures. How did you come up with the motifs for the bosses in "Astro Bot"?
Nakai: Basically, I want players to focus on playing the game, so I try not to choose unusual motifs that no one has ever seen before. I want the game to be easy to understand for anyone in the world, so I choose easy-to-understand motifs like octopuses, snakes, and chameleons.
-- In Astro Bot, there are voices that sound like Japanese. What led you to do this?
Nico noticed that very well. In "Astro Bot," I wanted to level up everything from "ASTRO's PLAYROOM." From character animation to gameplay, physics, and even sound. When I created the characters, I wanted their movements and sounds to be iconic, so I tried to make them sounds that people all over the world could imitate. There is no answer as to which language is the right one to use, but I think Japanese is a really beautiful language with onomatopoeia, cute, and easy to imitate. The character's actions, when they are happy, scared, or in pain, contain a little English, but it's mostly Japanese.
Nakai: It has been surprisingly well-received by people overseas?
Nico: That's true. Before it was a robotic beeping sound, but this one is more like a language, so it makes you want to imitate it.
Despite the succession of difficult questions, fans are one step ahead!? Astro Quiz Corner
Next, as a form of recreation, a quiz competition related to "Astro Bot" was held. A total of seven questions were asked with three or four multiple choice answers, and the top winners were presented with Astro goods. The quiz was quite difficult, with questions that only players who had played the game extensively could answer, as well as trick questions that were likely to lead to mistakes. If you are reading this article, try the challenge to see how many you can get right.
Q1 Which game did Astro first appear in?
THE PLAYROOM VR / ASTRO's PLAYROOM / ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION
Q2 How many monkeys can you get in total on the "Pipopipo Pipogetchu" stage?
9 / 10 / 11 / 12
Q3 What is the name of this special bot?
Kat / Tora / Kuro
Q4 How many options are available on the roulette when fighting the final boss, Nebulax?
4 / 5 / 6 / 7
Q5 What is the name of this challenge?
Challenge / Avoid / Burn / Wet
Q6: How many of Astro's power-ups are not based on living creatures?
1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Q7: How many bots can you rescue in Astro Bot right now? Excluding the four available in ASTRO's PLAYROOM. (As of 7:00 PM, Thursday, February 27, 2025)
312 / 316 / 320 / 324
[Quiz answers]
Q1 THE PLAYROOM VR (or ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION)
Q2 10 bodies
Q3 Kuro (If you look closely at the image, it says "Carefree old man cat")
Q4 6
Q5 Wet
Q6 3
Q7 320
So, how many questions did you get right? The correct answer to the first question was planned to be "THE PLAYROOM VR," in which the character that inspired Astro appears, but during the talk session, it was said that "ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION" was the first game in which Astro's name was given, so both were correct. For the second question, the stage boss Specter is also a monkey, so the correct answer is 10 bots, including all of them. For the seventh question, there are 301 bots from the beginning, 10 bots in the additional stage released in October 2024, 7 bots in the additional stage released in December 2024, and 2 bots in the additional stage released on Friday, February 14, for a total of 320 bots.
As for the results of the event participants, the winner got every question right! When asked what she likes about "Astro Bot," the winner made a wonderful comment: "It's fun for the whole family." Many participants also got six or five questions right, and even in a quiz that seemed full of difficult questions, the players' dedication to the game proved to be a step ahead.
This concludes the event program. On behalf of Team ASOBI, Nico, Morita, Yoshida, and Nakai gave speeches of thanks to all the participants.
Nico: Thank you for coming today. It's a great gift that you all play our games every day. Thank you so much.
I feel that Astro has grown thanks to Morita's technology and the support of our fans. I'm really happy to have had the opportunity to meet you all today. I look forward to your continued support. Thank you very much.
Yoshida: It hasn't been much discussed today, but everyone on the Astro Photo Club team looks at the photos. There are a lot of great screenshots, and I think they're great. Thank you.
Nakai: As a team, we are very happy that everyone loves Astro. We will continue to work hard so that Astro can achieve great things both in Japan and around the world. Thank you very much for today.
At the end of the event, everyone took a commemorative photo, and everyone showed off their best smiles as they shouted "Astro!" In addition, the hand-drawn illustration cards that the art members Nakai, Sebastian, Kinebuchi, and Kawaguchi had been working on were completed and presented to all participants.
Mod Edit: OP Fixed**
『アストロボット』のトークやクイズで大盛り上がり！ ファンとの交流会「Team ASOBI ファンミ！」レポート
ソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメントは、PlayStation®5用ソフトウェア『アストロボット』を開発したTeam ASOBIのメンバーとプレイヤーが一緒に楽しむファンミーティング「Team ASOBI ファンミ […]
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