Update 2021/08 : We removed the 'botinabox' password requirements because of technical issues. You're free to read this page without password required now.

0 - Introduction

Welcome, Tetrobot Master!

So, you've already finished Tetrobot and Co. with 100%?

You should drop us a line or two at contact@swingswingsubmarine.com with the subject "I'm a Tetrobot master!" to let us know your accomplishment and tell us what you think about the game.

Also, feel free to suscribe to our newsletter if you want to receive info about our next games directly in your mailbox: http://www.swingswingsubmarine.com/fan-club/

Congratulations, again :)

1 - Bot in a box?

The password you entered to access this page is directly taken from the Narrative trailer of Tetrobot and Co. in which Maya, creator of the Psychobot, presents the Tetrobot Company services. At some point, Maya starts singing while she explains how to return a broken Tetrobot to its workshop.

The way Maya sings is a reference to “D*ck in a box”, a song performed by The Lonely Island and Justin Timberlake in the Saturday Night Live show.

When we wrote the script of this trailer, we just wanted the text to be read, not sung. But our voice actor thought that it could be fun to go a little bit further into the reference.
We had a lot of fun during the recording of this voice, but was it an appropriate reference for a cute game like Tetrobot and Co.? ;p

By the way, can you guess from where the last sentence of the Narrative trailer is taken?

2 - The evolution of Psychobot

When we started creating Tetrobot and Co., we wanted to create a new robot, and because we really wanted the game to be easy to control we thought it could be cool to make it a flying robot. When you click somewhere, the robot flies to this place and voilà!

So, our first attempt to design Psychobot was simply to make it a flying Tetrobot.

This one was drawn by William, our Game Designer, 6 months before production. That's why it looks so "naive".

When Géraud, the artist of the studio, joined the team, he tried to make another version of this flying Tetrobot.

Ok, it didn’t go well. And at this point, we thought we probably needed to make it more different than Tetrobot. So instead of using a block shape, why don't we use a ball shape?

And what about arms and legs? Maybe we'll have to make the robot walk or something... William tried to make some sketches.

Wow, what was that? Seriously, the last one looks like a character from a bad copy of Dr. Slump, drawn by someone who never saw a pencil.

It was time for Géraud to save us.

Ah, that’s much better!

We took one idea we liked from this robot, another one here, and we finally found the final design of Psychobot. Do you like it?

In Blocks That Matter, the eye of Tetrobot is mechanical: it opens and a drill appears. The eye of Psychobot is much more “futuristic” and it generates a tractor beam.

Psychobot has no arms, but he has an antenna (so Maya can pilot it from the outside) and he also got feet. Why feet? Well, even if Psychobot has no need to have feet, it is clearly less cute without them, and it’s a good way for us to create movement in Psychobot’s animations.

3 - The Great Mighty Pun

Levels, Achievements, Faceblox pages, owners of the Tetrobots... Many names and texts in Tetrobot and Co. are informative but most of them are also (not so) hidden references to existing works or people. Even the title of this chapter is a reference.

It will be difficult to explain them all now, but here are few examples:

Level 2-5 : This is a Pipe
(Reference to the painting The Treachery of Images)

Level 4-1 : A Song of Wood and fire
(Reference to the original name of Game of Thrones books: A Song of Ice and Fire)

Level 5-5 : Twisted Transistor
(Reference to a song performed by Korn)

Level 7-1 : Contrevent
(Reference to the french novel La Horde du Contrevent)

Level 8-1 : Test Chamber
(Reference to the Portal universe)

Achievement 'Mr Resetti's nightmare'
(Reference to an Animal Crossing character)

Achievement 'No Touching'
(Reference to an Arrested Development catchphrase)

Owner of Watabot is Jules V. from France, asks to repair his robot within 80 days.
(Jules Verne, writer of 'Around the World in Eighty Days')

Owner of Puddinbot is Arthur D. from England, uses words like "investigating", "evidence" and "mystery".
(Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes)

4 - Storyboard

When we are crazy enough to add cutscenes in our games, like the introduction cutscene of Tetrobot and Co., the first step that we take is to make a storyboard.

Then, we roughly animate this storyboard to set the rhythm of the sequence.

You're the first one to see this work-in-progress version.
From that point, we are ready to refine the rhythm, create HD graphics, visual effects, and add sound effects.

You can watch the final version of this introduction at the left of the levels' selection.

5 - Maya's gallery

Maya is a very important character for us. In Blocks that Matter, we made her a selfish little girl, and when we released the game in 2011 we already knew we wanted to keep this character and make her grow.

In Tetrobot and Co., 15 years has passed and now Maya is a talented mechanic and the inventor of Psychobot. When you collect Memory blocks, you unlock pictures of Maya in the notebook. That's how we tell the player the story of Maya.

In terms of design, our goal was simple: we wanted Maya to be independent.

6 - Thank you!

Thank you, again, for having played Tetrobot and Co.!
It was a pleasure to create this game. And we hope you had fun playing it!

- Guillaume, Benoit, Géraud, William and Yann.